Can Do Declaration

1. Our people and communities face unprecedented challenges; to public health, the economy and the biggest threat of all - the survival of communities around the world. We need a Can Do spirit more than ever. There is no time to waste if we want to build back better.
   

2. Over the next decade, Welsh public services will spend over £70bn on goods, services and works. We need to radically overhaul the way we set our public investment objectives, how we commission and procure and how we make sure what we do is accountable to people and communities.
   

3. 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. 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.
   

4. 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 environmental and cultural wellbeing across Wales and make this a core requirement of contracts and agreements. Starting with Welsh Government, we need to challenge at all levels public investment decisions that are solely or mainly cost based.
   

5. We need a radical shift in the way we commission and procure goods, services and works across the public sector by:

   • taking a long-term view of value and rejecting the lowest price default position - the ‘commissioning and procurement flip’.

   • making a long-term commitment to people and communities in Wales a core requirement of contracts.

   • moving from competitive procurement to longer-term relational procurement based on partnerships between clients, contractors and communities (the 3Cs) that delivers more certainty and business continuity.

   • co-producing with the 3Cs:

     • a definition of the ‘value’ people and communities want public investment to deliver.

     • a clear plan for how it will be delivered.

     • a means of assessing what success will look like at the end.

   • working with small and medium enterprises and social businesses to help lead the recovery and build the foundational economy by simplifying the language we use, breaking contracts down into smaller lots and making processes, systems and support easily accessible.
     

6. 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. We will emulate the success of the i2i – inform to involve project and work in the ‘implementation gap’ - the space between high level strategies and community level delivery.
   

7. 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 / cultural /environmental value and secure whole organisation buy-in.

   • Toolkit 2: to embed targeted recruitment and training (TR&T) into investment objectives, 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 small and medium enterprises, social business, mutuals and co-ops friendly.

   • Toolkit 4: to develop a simple measuring and monitoring resource to help people and communities co-design a Can Do approach based on the wellbeing goals of the Future Generations Act.
     

8. We need to immediately identify a pipeline of all investment opportunities in Health, Education, Social Care, Local Government, Transport, Infrastructure, Housing and all major public spending.
   

9. As an immediate priority we will develop and deliver a Can Do approach to help Wales become a leader in Green Recovery. We should start by focussing on the huge potential of decarbonisation programmes for new and existing homes and buildings. As a priority we need to identify the new skills and training programmes to deliver an ambitious programme.
   

10. 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 the Welsh Local Government Association, Community Housing Cymru, the NHS Confederation, Federation of Small Businesses, Wales Co-operative Centre, the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, Wales Council for Voluntary Action and other national bodies.