If you employ disabled or disadvantaged people in your workplace.....
If you employ disabled or disadvantaged people in your workplace then you could benefit from a recent change to public sector procurement regulations designed to create more opportunities for social businesses. As part of its policy on public sector procurement, the Welsh Government has implemented the EU Public Procurement Directives 2014, contained a stipulation that public sector bodies could reserve certain procurement opportunities for supported businesses running sheltered workshops/employment programmes, where disabled workers made up 50% of the workforce. This qualifying criteria has recently changed to include disadvantaged workers as well as disabled, and lowered the minimum proportion of those workers in the supplier’s workforce required to 30%, which means more social businesses should be eligible to bid for reserved contracts. Examples of disadvantaged workers would include anyone aged 15-24 or over 50; anyone who has not been in regular paid employment for 6 months or more; anyone who lives as a single adult with one or more dependents.
Details of contracts available can be found on Sell2Wales. You can register on Sell2Wales via the link below. Ticking the ‘Third Sector’ box and then ‘Update’ to bring up further options, which include ‘supported businesses’. This will ensure you can access reserved contracts.