A Can Do Declaration
We are co-producing a Can Do Declaration and we need your help. Please let us have your comments and ideas. We will be launching the Can Do Declaration at our free interactive webinar on 20th July 2020. Please read or download and share the draft Can Do Declaration - and make sure to book on to our two interactive webinars plotting the future of Can Do.
The draft Declaration
A Can Do Declaration
The people and communities of Wales face unprecedented challenges – to public health, the economy and ultimately, the future of our planet. We need a Can Do spirit more than ever. There is no time to waste if we want to build back better.
Over the next decade, Welsh public services will spend over £70bn in procuring goods, services and works. We need to immediately identify the pipeline of opportunities and radically overhaul the way we commission, procure and deliver all public investment programmes in Health, Education, Social Care, Local Government, Transport, Infrastructure and Housing.
We will promote the idea of Wales: a Co-operative Country based on collaboration between Government, partners and citizens. We will help build a coalition of partners for this approach including Welsh Local Government Association, the NHS Confederation, Community Housing Cymru, the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, Wales Council for Voluntary Action, Wales Co-operative Centre and other national bodies.
We will challenge the way we have delivered community benefits in the past. In future we have to use all public investment to improve social, economic and environmental wellbeing across Wales.
We will build on over 10 years’ experience of applying the Can Do Toolkits that hardwired community benefits into over £5 Billion of investment in housing.
Lowest price is seldom if ever best value; it creates in-work poverty, compromises quality of products and service; and in extreme case such as with Grenfell Tower, has tragic and exponentially costly outcomes. Wales needs a ‘procurement flip’, taking a long-term view of value and rejecting the lowest price default position.
As a first step Welsh Government and partners should re-define value unambiguously in longer, more sustainable terms within the framework of the Wellbeing of Future Generations Act. This needs to be hardwired into legislation, regulation and funding criteria, backed up by enforceable incentives and sanctions.
We need to shift from competitive procurement to a longer-term relational procurement. At national, regional and local levels we need to co-design objectives, outcomes and measurement with the ‘3 Cs’ - clients, contractors and communities. We need to make processes easy and accessible for small and medium enterprises and social businesses so that we can build the foundational economy in Wales
We will develop a new series of Can-do Toolkits:
Toolkit 1: to support the public sector to develop and adopt Can Do strategies that deliver social / economic / environmental value and secure whole organisation buy-in and to reduce inequalities through targeting.
Toolkit 2: to embed targeted recruitment and training (TR&T) into commissioning, procurement and delivery by developing a new range of model clauses and resources adaptable across the public sector, embracing the principles of Fair Work.
Toolkit 3: to build the foundational economy by ensuring commissioning, procurement and delivery are SME, social business, mutuals and co-ops friendly.
Toolkit 4: to develop a simple measuring and monitoring resource to capture the outcomes of a Can Do approach based on the wellbeing goals of the Future Generations Act.
As an immediate priority we will develop and deliver a Can-do approach for the Green Economy including decarbonisation programmes for new and existing homes and buildings.
Tell us what you think, and don’t forget to book your place for the Can Do Declaration launch on 20 July.
