Final Report Summary - C4BI (Cities for Business Innovation – Network of Urban Procurers)
Executive Summary:
European Union (EU) is stimulating a better use of public money through the deliverance of policy recommendations and directives focusing the adoption of new mind-set in the public sector towards innovative practices and approaches to public procurement. EU Procurement Directives include various requirements for specifications, selection of tenderers and award of contracts stimulating and promoting the possibility for innovation and economic growth.
In this framework, it is clear that public authorities have a role to play in the European economic context, contributing to economic development and to innovation. At the same time, the positive change in public practices will support an increase in productivity and effectiveness of public services and thus better use public funds to address key societal challenges faced today.
The C4BI project (http://www.procurers-network.com/) intended to exploit with this opportunity in order to develop a consistent and sustainable policy of innovative public procurement within EU focused on areas that have been identified by the EU as major societal challenges: “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population”. As a network of procurers, the project aimed to provide an integrated answer to the challenge of urban innovation by combining in the same network city/regional authorities and innovation organizations, thus allowing impacting both the demand and the supply. The overall aim of the project was to address these key societal challenges through innovative public procurement processes and launch pre-procurement processes within the 4 participating public authorities in order to gather these conditions and facilitate the access of an urban ageing population to social and civic mobile services.
During 24 months, C4BI network members involved directly in their activities and through engagement local events public servants dealing with public procurement, other public procurers, SME services providers, representatives of the local communities and other interested stakeholders, across 4 partner countries (Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Poland), providing information, experiences and lessons learned about innovative approaches to preparatory activities for public procurement. Also a final event was promoted in Brussels, linking with and learning from other EU experiences related to the adoption of innovative procurement procedures, more specifically with projects relating with PCP and PPI.
Project Context and Objectives:
The fundamental principles governing public procurement across Europe (EU) are transparency, non-discrimination and competition. The aim of public procurement is to achieve value for money for the taxpayer through the promotion of competition in the marketplace. However, it is recognizable public spent is not done adequately due to traditional practices adopted in public procurement mainly related to:
• design of public procurement technical specifications: specifications are often design based on the existing market offers and thus not stimulating innovation neither market curiosity;
• tenderers selection: limited information and criteria are usually taken into account in assessing the qualities of the companies concerned or of the project implementation plan;
• contracts awarding: basically two options are used: lowest price and the most economically advantageous tender.
These practices are embedded in public sector from many years and preventing the adaptation of innovative approaches towards public procurement practices and making difficult to use public spend as a tool to stimulate innovation and market curiosity.
It is easy to conclude that European public procurers are currently under exploiting the potential of public procurement to meet EU-28 innovation and growth objectives or to address the key societal challenges that over the time are pressing too much local and central authorities.
Also, current times of financial crisis, recession and constant doubts demand from the public sector actions to better spend public resources while stimulation innovation and sustainable economic development. Can public procurement provide an answer to those issues? Looking at outside EU experiences and even to recent pilot experiences inside EU, it is possible to conclude that public procurement can move forward to new perspective towards progress, making better use of public funds and stimulating innovation and sustainable development.
Recognizing this opportunities, EU is stimulating a better use of public money through the deliverance of policy recommendations and directives focusing the adoption of new mind-set in the public sector. European Union Procurement Directives include various requirements for specifications, selection of tenderers and award of contracts stimulating and promoting the possibility for innovation and economic growth. In particular, these directives open procurement area/activities to:
• introduction of technical and competitive dialogues between purchasers and suppliers at different phases of the process;
• specification of the requirements in terms of functional performance or standards, allowing suppliers to produce any configuration of technology they feel can meet the need and thus investigating for “new” solutions;
• introduction of variants, such as flexible bids thus opening up bids to alternative ideas;
• implementation of new conditions allowing the transfer of intellectual property to the suppliers, and hence allow them to exploit their innovations in wider markets.
In this framework, it is clear that public authorities have a role to play in the European economic context, contributing to economic development and to innovation. At the same time, the positive change in public practices will support an increase in productivity and effectiveness of public services and thus better use public funds to address key societal challenges faced today.
C4BI project intended to exploit with this opportunity in order to develop a consistent and sustainable policy of innovative public procurement within EU focused on areas that have been identified by the European Commission (EC) as major societal challenges: “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population”. As a network of procurers, the project aimed to provide an integrated answer to the challenge of urban innovation by combining in the same network city/regional authorities and innovation organizations, thus allowing impacting both the demand and the supply.
The overall aim of the project was to address these key societal challenges through innovative public procurement processes and launch pre-procurement processes within the 4 participating public authorities in order to gather these conditions and facilitate the access of an urban ageing population to social and civic mobile services. To achieve the overall aim, the following specific objectives were established:
• Assess current local public procurement practices in the network members in order to:
Share knowledge on existing public procurement policies and practices in the involved municipalities and regions;
Understand the actual EU policies to boost innovation by the demand side and to foster an efficient use of public money;
Identify the gaps where improvements could be made respecting the national regulations, constrains and clear intention of moving towards more innovative public procurement.
• Implement 4 local workshops with services providers (in particular SME), representatives of local social networks, representatives of organizations dealing directly with seniors/aged citizens;
• Design and implement local improvement programs (in each municipality/region) fostering new attitudes, mind-sets and practices towards public procurement and economic development via innovative solutions;
• Implement 4 local pilot pre-procurement processes within each municipality/region to stimulate dialogues with end-users, economic operators and other public procurers to:
Better know and shape the real needs of local communities in what is concerned with “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population” such as the dependency ratio, social isolation, access to services and the need for increases in self-managed and community-based care by individuals and communities;
Know existing ready-to-market solutions that can be used to cope with the needs identified;
Establish earlier dialogues with economic operators to better define the technical specifications of a future tender process;
Pilot at a small scale and assess selected services/products addressing the identified societal local challenges;
• Assess the results and the lessons learned at local level and build-up common and transferable knowledge about innovative procurement practices impacting on the preparatory stages of public procurement, thus enabling both local sensitivity and responsiveness and European relevance and replicability:
Analysis of the possibility of bidding together at EU level taking advantage of joint procurement options;
Sharing ready-to-use technical specifications for different services and products that can contribute to overcome the constraints and needs associated to the identified challenges;
• Develop a guide on “innovative public procurement” with practical tips and information, enabling public procurers to adopt better practices when preparing new public procurement calls stimulating at the same time market innovation;
Complementarily to the above technical specific objectives, some transversal expectations were also defined in order to support a smooth project implementation and assure quality of the activities and results and regular internal and external communication:
I. Elaborate a dissemination plan, supported by the adequate instruments (website and communication materials) to raise stakeholders’ awareness on innovative procurement practices and to share/capitalize knowledge;
II. Assure the internal communication among partners and effective efficient collaboration towards the implementation of the project activities and deliverance of the expected results;
III. Guarantee project and deliverables quality by implementing a more detailed peer-review and monitoring of the project achievements;
IV. Maintain the website regularly updated with the project achievements and activities and with local news, contributing to raising awareness of stakeholders on innovative procurement practices and to share/capitalize knowledge;
V. Intensify the communication and direct contact with stakeholders at local and European levels, fostering their engagement and sharing knowledge and practices.
Within the project, each partner (public procurer) entered into a pre-procurement process with the main local operators of mobile networks and engaged into pilot demonstration of application services, in order to better specify and define the requirements for the procurement of a full solution (product/service) for the deployment of social and civic urban services, particularly aimed towards an ageing population. The specific objectives of the pilot actions were:
a. Test, in real scenarios, new approaches to pre-procurement procedures that can promote innovative practices and contribute to stimulate market innovation, addressing EU policies on public procurement;
b. Stimulate the adequate identification and description of the public needs/expectations, based on communities’ needs through the promotion of earlier engagement actions with local communities and local communities representatives in order to better access their needs and constrains;
c. Involve economic operators in earlier preparatory activities allowing the joint design/shape of technical specifications (based on outcomes and performance indicators), fostering knowledge sharing and understanding on public expectations, market offers and potential developments, community’s needs;
d. Develop internal innovative procedures that can be used largely at other services areas when preparing new procurement tenders.
Project Results:
The core of the project implementation focused on the enhancing of innovative public pre-procurement processes and practices within the participating public authorities – having in view the societal and urban development challenges faced by “Ageing Cities” namely in terms of how to deal with an ageing population. The project methodological approach included three major phases supported by the organization of workshop events at local level to promote awareness and engage with economic operators and local communities.
Phase 1 – Coordinated learning cycle
Each city/regional authority carried out an assessment of their public procurement needs in terms of innovation potential, societal gains and long-term sustainability, considering the latest EU policy recommendations for innovative procurement. A peer-review process was then implemented, allowing the identification of common needs and strengths but also the learning from each other’s best practices. Under this phase knowledge and experiences on innovative approaches to pre-procurement procedures was shared allowing the consortium members of preparing the soil for the following phase 2.
This phase ended with the design of local improvement programmes, where each partner identified and implemented a set of internal organisational actions in order to improve and develop organisational strategic approaches and staff capacity and development to adopt innovative attitudes to public procurement, which included training, informative and dissemination actions, events with other stakeholders, development of guidance materials, etc.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 1
Result
Deliverable 2.1 - Report on the “Assessment of Public Needs in the 4 Cities”
This report presents an overview of the current practices and procedures related to public procurement in the 4 municipalities/regions and to what extend modifications/improvements could be implemented in order to promote an innovative approach to public procurement and to the recent EU policies on public procurement. The report presents also a summary on the importance and role of public procurement for the economic development and for the deployment of innovative market solutions, being products or services.
Based on this common understanding each partner conducted a self-assessment of their internal practices related to preparatory procedures of a public procurement tender, identified the gaps/constrains hindering public authorities of being more innovative and thus contributing to a better use of public funds and to economic and social growth.
While building up this report, a peer learning process was implemented allowing partners to learn from each other experiences and constrains and to extract from there possible actions that could be implemented at local level as an organizational improvement programme with the objective of making the actual processes more flexible allowing earlier engagement with SME services providers and local communities (end-users) and more focused in the efficient use of resources.
Additionally, within this phase an overview on the most important societal challenges in each partner region was done. This overview and identification of needs was not very accurate because it would not be possible to identify them in detail; however partners selected at this stage specific needs related to “ageing cities” towards an ageing population, that could be explored during the pilot stages.
Result
Deliverable 2.2 - Coordinated Improvement Programme across 4 Cities”
From the identification of the gaps and of the possible improvements towards a more innovative public procurement, local improvement programmes were drawn accordingly to the local needs, constrains, practices and expectations. The actions included in each of the programmes were designed to address modifications at internal procedures and practices in order to make public procurement procedures more flexible and with higher focus on efficient use of public resources, clear identification of public needs and innovation.
This result describes in detail the actions that each partner implemented internally in order to overcome constrains and gaps identified at the earlier stage, including, training, informing and dissemination actions as well as development of guidance materials and resources to support capacity building across internal staff and local SME service providers.
Phase 2 - Coordinated pre-procurement pilot processes
Public procurers engaged themselves with economic operators and local communities to jointly work on models of innovation-orientated public procurement capable of stimulating solution providers to be involved in providing answers that meet the challenges addressed in the project.
Four pilot actions were implemented in Portugal, United Kingdom, Poland and Spain, under the coordination of the public procurers, engaging local economic operators and local communities into demonstration actions of application services related to ageing cities as well as to test innovative procedures in the phase of preparing a public procurement tender in the view of promoting proper dialogue actions towards a better specification and definition of the requirements for the procurement of a full solution (service/product) for the deployment of social and civic urban services, particularly aimed towards an ageing population.
With the implementation of the pilot actions, partners could experiment and assess the impact and efficiency of new practices and models of pre-procurement based in concrete dialogues with market and communities, allowing them to instruct the following 3rd phase.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 2
Result
Deliverable 2.3 “Demonstration Pilots in a Coordinated Pre-procurement Process across 4 cities”
This report covering the 2nd phase describes the details of the pilot actions implemented by the procurers, including its objectives, methodological approach and lessons learned in terms of defining new procedures for preparing public procurement involving at different levels local communities, their representatives and economic operators, in the identification of real communities’ needs and in the design of tender specifications based on technical requirements and performance indicators with the objective of stimulate innovation in the suppliers side, rather than on existing solutions.
Foreground
Methodology for implementing demonstration pilot actions on innovative public procurement procedures.
Other public procurers might benefit from the methodologies developed by C4BI network members to prepare and implement other pilot actions to teste and develop new approaches to public procurement, especially in terms of more flexible preparatory procedures focusing on the engagement of economic operators and local communities’ in dialogue actions/activities for better shaping and defining concrete public needs, understanding market offers and innovative capacity and design tender specifications in terms of technical requirements and performance indicators.
The consortium believes that local pilot actions can ensure local sustainability due to its implementation into mainstream public procurement practices in the future not requiring additional resources. This demonstrates organizational change, learning and internal improvements which contributes to sustainable success. These knowledge and learning can be replicated for local, regional and pan-European relevance enabling more “sustainable communities” and more efficient public procurement practices.
Phase 3 - Assessment of results and lessons
The results and lessons learned of the processor phases, both in terms of internal processes and external impact, were jointly assessed and combined in an exploitable guide for procurers focusing on innovative public procurement preparatory practices to foster innovative market solutions. Additionally, the consortium also accessed the possibility of different procurers to procure similar services or products at European level and published a set of recommendations and ready-to-use technical specifications for the 4 types of services/products tested, build-up on earlier dialogues with SME service providers and local communities representatives.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 3
Result
Deliverable 2.4 “Tender Specifications in a Coordinated Pre-Procurement Process across the 4 cities”
As a consequence of the pilot actions in phase 2 where different service/product solutions were demonstrated while innovative procedures to public procurement were tested, each of the network members gathered tender technical specifications for a given solution responding to societal challenges related to the problem of ageing cities.
These specifications were designed in terms of technical requirements and indicators of performance resulting from dialogue actions between procurers and services providers and communities, focusing the clear identification of communities needs and on the design of expected outcomes.
With these results, public procurers can prepare a joint procurement process at European Level for a common service/product, or prepare individual/local responsive and specific services for local public procurement processes. Considering that there is an option for joint procurement, an example for formal agreement was also designed as a model of a contract governing the relations between a group of procurers entering in a joint procurement process, as well as a set of administrative provisions prevailing the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level.
Also an innovative proposal for awarding contract criteria was developed incorporating non-automatic quantifiable criteria based in different quality aspects of tenderers capacity and plans, reducing the focus on “best” or “lowest” price options.
Result
Deliverable 2.5 “Guidelines on Developing Innovative Public Procurement”
This final report presents the lessons learned from the learning process undertaken by the network members over the 2 years of project implementation and a set of recommendations for innovative procurement covering different aspects such as organizational strategic approach to procurement, innovation in the internal preparatory procurement processes and efficient design of tender specifications. The report also includes an overview of the relevance of adopting innovative procurement practices in order to move forward to other processes and models such as PCP and PPI.
Foreground
Formal agreement governing the relations between a group of public procurers willing to procure through joint procurement
Included in the deliverable D2.4 the consortium developed a model of formal contract governing the relations of a group of public procurers willing to launch a joint procurement process at international level and identifying the leading authority. This template includes aspects and suggestion of contract clause related to responsibility of the buyers group leader, responsibilities’ of the other parties involved in the buyers group, available budget and parties contributions, agreement on IPR, etc. This template might require adaptation to specific contexts in order to be adequately used.
Foreground
Set of administrative provisions governing the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level
In order to promote joint procurement at international level as an option to public procurers, set of administrative provisions were defined to govern the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level. This set of specifications (included in deliverable D2.4) simulates the administrative provisions as if a group of public procurers were launching a call under the lead of a selected public procurer (the lead authority), covering aspects such as: identification of the contracting authority and of the buyers group; object of the contract; budget, average cost and termination of the contract; review of the cost terms; awarding process; advertising of bidders; expenses charged to the contractor; consultation process and provision of copies; eligibility for contracts, capacity and solvency; place and deadline for submission of proposals; documents to be submitted by the bidders; admission of variations or alternatives; provisional guarantee; contracting committee; evaluation panel; tender-opening session; awarding criteria; definitive guarantee; formalisation of the agreement; delivery and payment for the provision of the service/product; modification of the contract; compensation for damages; compliance with labour and social security laws and protection of personal data; guarantee period; delay by the contractor and penalties; termination of the contract; prerogative of the administration; legal rules.
It might be however necessary some adjustments for further used in different contexts, mainly in the case of different type of services/products, size of the buyers group and national regulations of the leader of the buyers group that must be taken into consideration.
Foreground
Set of technical specifications designed in terms indicators of performance for four different services/products related to ageing cities
As a result of the pilot actions implemented in the different cities/regions and reflecting the lessons learned by the network of procurers on how to prepare tender specifications based in outcomes or performance indicators, a set of four technical specifications for different services/products related to constrains associated to challenges arising from ageing cities is available.
The technical specifications were designed during the pilot actions as a consequence of dialogue actions implemented with economic operators and local communities; this is, via continuous engagement with economic providers and service users for detailed communities needs identification and design of suitable outcomes. Thus, they are a result of co-design approaches where specifications are described in terms of technical requirements and indicators of performance. This set of technical requirements allow public procurers of launching a procurement notice for contracting a public service or product based on “the service functionalities” (including equipment and technical functionalities) accordingly to the real needs of the communities, and not based in existing services.
A final important note is related to the communities’ development itself as the engagement of the communities towards the identification and detailed definition of their real needs and expectations contributes largely to more sustainable communities by enabling active participation and inclusion.
Besides, the specifications are also important for the market side as they can be seen as an inducement for innovation since, in practical terms, if the public procurer decides to proceed with the procurement based on these specifications, innovative solutions/responses from the market are expected. There is also an impact that need to be highlighted: the involvement of SME in better understanding public procurement approach, local needs and giving them the opportunity of being involved in earlier dialogues will enable a more dynamic and sustainable local market and more sustainable development of the local SMEs.
Foreground
Proposal of awarding criteria innovative concept for Public Procurement, based on qualitative criteria, reducing the weight of criteria "price"
An innovative approach to contract award criteria in a public procurement tender was discussed and agreed by the network members. This proposal of contract awarding criteria is aligned with EU policies targeting the utilization of cost-effectiveness approaches and quality aspects, reducing the strong weight traditionally associated to the criteria “price”.
The contract awarding criteria proposed by C4BI members includes non-automatically quantifiable criteria and automatically quantifiable criteria. This last one represents the price. The novelty is related to the usage of both criteria together with a smaller weight of the “price” and the inclusion of different quality aspects, such as:
i) Compliance with the technical specifications (involves assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent the bidders respect and present solutions to respond to the technical requirements of the service/product);
ii) Design solutions to better respond to the technical requirements (implies assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent the bidders present design innovative solutions to respond to the technical requirements of the service/product);
iii) Quality assurance on service/product deliverance and maintenance (includes assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent bidders are able of delivering the service or product in time and of assuring technical assistance and maintenance during the contracting period);
iv) Management and Staffing Structure (includes assessing the proposals received to understand how bidders will develop a staffing structure to deliver the service as detailed within the Service Specification);
v) Implementation Plan (includes assessing the proposals received to understand how the bidder will deliver the service as detailed within the Service Specification).
Again, this proposal of contract awarding criteria might need adaptation to the real contexts of application, especially due to possible constrains of the national regulations and also due to the specific skills of internal staff responsible for assessing tenders received based in quality indicators.
Foreground
Guidelines for innovative Public Procurement regarding strategic approach to public procurement, innovative processes and building up innovative specifications
Based on the lessons learned towards the project implementation a set of recommendations was prepared allowing other public procurers of preparing themselves to engage in innovative approaches to public procurement. These guidelines cover 3 main areas (strategic approach to public procurement; innovative processes; and building up innovative specifications) and includes 8 recommendations completed with practical guidance enabling public procurers at large of adopting innovative models and practices of public procurement, preparing themselves to higher challenges related to the usage and benefit of other instruments such as PCP and PPI.
Those recommendations are to be seen as guidance and thus adaptation to procurers’ reality can be necessary in order to turn them more effective. C4BI consortium members believe that the recommendations and guidance provided can be used as the turning point to provoke reflection inside public procurers’ organizations and open up mind-sets to the creation of internal working groups that can then design comprehensive strategies adapted to each entity reality and strategic policy priorities.
Results associated to dissemination and exploitation
I -Name: Dissemination plan
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: The Dissemination Plan is a supporting document to the implementation of internal and external communication activities of the project addressing the project stakeholder groups. The plan provides detailed guidelines and tools allowing: understanding the scope and objectives of dissemination and exploitation within the project; having access to an organized and harmonised set of tools used for dissemination and exploitation purposes; having a clear idea of the different types of activities to be implemented, the timings, the target groups and the expected impact;; conducting and recording different activities according to the action plan; and monitoring and reporting the activities undertaken and its results/impact.
Type/format and other relevant features: Available in electronic format for partners in the website private area.
II -Name: Project webiste
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: A specific website was designed to support the project implementation and partner’s activities, as well as the dissemination of the project results. Available at http://www.procurers-network.com/ the website is mainly in English and just one of the sections (C4BI objectives and approach) is available in partners’ national languages. The C4BI project website structure includes the following sections: Home with a latest news preview area; C4BI objectives and approaches; Resources; Initiatives of interest; News; Consortium and Stakeholders engagement.
Type/format and other relevant features: The website’s features play an essential role for the exploitation of the website as a result, as the website includes the main products developed and also highlights the project’s methodology. The website will be maintained for at least 5 years, allowing exchange of information and facilitating use and re-use of the transferable guidelines and lessons learned.
III - Name: Communication Materials
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: Different communication materials were produced over the project implementation in order to support the communication efforts, both internally and externally. For the internal communication different templates were produced for reporting, internal communication and financial reporting. Considering the need of the external communication different materials including: project brochure, posters in different formats, personalized email templates, newsletters template, info-sheets for brief project presentation or project interim statements, etc.
Type/format and other relevant features: These materials were design to be printed and distributed in face-to-face events and also in electronic formats. Most of them were in fact reused in different moments of the project by simply adapting and updating the texts accordingly to the needs or to the specificity of the events.
IV - Name: Workshops – engagement with Stakeholders
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: A set of dissemination workshops were implemented at national level with the overall objective of dissemination the project aims, activities and results and of promoting engagement activities with project stakeholders, mainly with economic operators (SME). However and at the same time, partners did also intend to create discussion moments by linking the project with other national or international initiatives and promoting knowledge sharing. Apart from the set of 4 workshops previewed, an extra event, at the final mouth of the project implementation in order to present publically the lessons learned and recommendations for the adoption of innovative approached to public procurement, but also to assess future exploitation of the results of the project, mainly by understanding till what extent the consortium members and other procurers in general might entering into innovative public procurement approaches such as Pre-Commercial Procurement or Public Procurement of Innovation.
Type/format and other relevant features: Face-to-face events promoted at key moments of the project implementation, allowing the constant communication with project stakeholders and public in general, presenting the project status and interim results, engage with communities and market operators.
Table 1 – List of engagement events
Event: “New perspectives for Social Care – Technologies responding to community’s needs”, organized by Espinho Municipality (15th February 2013, Espinho, Portugal)
Event: “Development of cities through modernization of management procedures”, organized by Municipality of Lublin (17th June 2013, Lublin, Poland)
Event: “Workshop on Innovative Public Procurement”, organized by Castellón County Council (18th December 2013, Castellón de La Plana, Spain)
Event: “Generate 2014”, organized by Staffordshire County Council (15th and 16th July 2014, Tamworth, Staffs, UK)
Event: “Local and regional governance approaches for innovation, economic development and cooperation”, organized by INOVA+ and Espinho Municipality (17th December 2014, Brussels, Belgium)
Potential Impact:
Direct contact with target groups
During 24 months, the C4Bi consortium members have tried to involve both internal and external target groups. By one hand the procurers have involved in direct actions internal staff dealing with public procurement or with challenges arising from ageing cities, through the promotion of informative and training events and through de deliverance of guidance materials; By other hand specific actions were promoted to involve and engage external target groups, including economic operators (SME – providers), representatives of the local communities (being associations of the local networks, being the seniors by itself) and other procures that could act as future multipliers.
The direct contact and engagement of the stakeholders was an effective way of “convincing” the target groups to be more open to the innovative approaches to public procurement practices and models and also to the EU policies on public procurement as well as to current opportunities of engaging in cooperation projects. Examples were the workshops promoted, awareness raising (informative) events, both internally in the public procurers organizations and externally targeting other similar organizations; training campaigns organized through the improvement programmes launched, etc. At this stage, the impact of the project needs to be enlarged through a continuous exploitation effort, disseminating the lessons learned and the developed guidelines for innovative public procurement, enabling other procurers of engaging themselves in innovative approaches to public procurement.
The following tables provide an overview of the main actions carried out in each country that required a direct involvement of the stakeholders .
Table 2 – Main activities promoted by Espinho Municipality with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop “New perspectives for Social Care – Technologies responding to community’s needs
Quantifiable indicator: 41 | Targets: SME service providers; representatives of local network organizations (e.g. NGO’s providing care to seniors – third sector)
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot action
Quantifiable indicator: 50| Targets: elderly seniors citizens
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot action
Quantifiable indicator: 2| Targets: elderly seniors citizens
Type of activity: Round table presentation to the Local Social Action Council meeting
Quantifiable indicator: 43| Targets: Municipality Social Action Council – (e.g. NGO’s providing care to seniors – third sector)
Type of activity: Workshop - “Innovative Public Procurement”
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Workshop - “Innovation in Public Services”
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Distribution an internal guide for the adoption of more efficient public procurement practices
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Sharing lessons learned and conclusions with sister organizations
Quantifiable indicator:40| Targets: Representatives of other municipalities of the region
Type of activity: Final Conference
Quantifiable indicator:20| Targets: Project managers of sister projects; policy makers
Table 3 – Main activities promoted by Staffordshire County Council with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement conference “Generate 2014”
Quantifiable indicator: 95 | Targets: Representatives of local authorities across the UK; Major UK private sector service providers; National Health Service (NHS Commissioning bodies); Universities; Key public service networks; Third Sector Networks; Police/Fire Services.
Type of activity: Staffordshire Public Health Team Meeting on C4BI
Quantifiable indicator: 42 | Targets: Internal staff members
Type of activity: Different briefing sessions held over the project implementation
Quantifiable indicator:100 | Targets: Health managers; Representatives of HEI, Representatives of local authorities
Type of activity: Procurement Training session for Public Health Team
Quantifiable indicator: Quantifiable indicator: 9 | Targets: Internal staff
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: Quantifiable indicator: 20 | Targets: SME service providers
Table 4 – Main activities promoted by Lublin Municipality with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop “Development of cities through modernization of management procedures”
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of other polish municipalities; Representatives of Voivoships (Polish administrative regions); Representatives of HEI; Representatives of local NGO’s that are working with seniors/elderly population and are in direct contact with the communities and aware of their specific needs.
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 10 | Targets: SME services providers
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 23 | Targets: Elderly senior citizens
Type of activity: Internal information and training campaign
Quantifiable indicator: 43 | Targets: Internal staff
Type of activity: Internal training session
Quantifiable indicator: 20 | Targets: Internal staff
Table 5 – Main activities promoted by Castellón County Council with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop on “Innovative Public Procurement”
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of local municipalities of the council; Representatives of SME providing technological solutions; Representatives of social partners’ network
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 2 | Targets: SME services providers
Type of activity: Session with the mayors of rural municipalities in the province of Castellon
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of local municipalities of the council
Type of activity: Session with the members of the Partenalia Association
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of European local authorities
Type of activity: Training program addressing the local SME on accessing to public procurement opportunities
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: SME services providers
Dissemination materials and actions
Besides the numerous activities where the target groups of the project were directly involved, several other initiatives allowed the network members to reach thousands representatives of the stakeholders at national and European levels. Several dissemination materials have been produced during the lifetime of the project and several initiatives have been carried out to promote the project, its activities and results. The following table provides a short summary of the quantitative results of dissemination activities carried out during the implementation of C4BI (more details can be consulted in Table 8. List of dissemination activities).
Table 6 – Overview of the dissemination indicators of the most relevant actions
Number of visits: 8540
Number of unique visits: 1276
Linkedin group members: 34
Linkedin discussions: 15
Newsletters and press releases sent out (editions): 5
Newsletters recipient’s lists (overall total partners): 730
Publications in paper magazines and newspapers: 4
Publications of news and articles in webpages: 20
Events organized (internal events – informative and training sessions | external events – workshops, conference, meetings with SME providers or Local networks): 43
Events attended where the project was presented: 2
Large email campaigns announcing events organized by the consortium and invite participants (workshops and final conference): 5280
Exploitation of results
The impact of C4BI project is not restricted to the activities carried out during the lifetime of the project. The consortium awards a great importance to this aspect and has carried out various efforts to ensure continuation of the project in the years to come. In fact, several similar organizations dealing with public procurement (other municipalities and other regional authorities) have expressed their interest to continue to learn from the experiences of the C4BI and to use/adopt the guidance material made available and of participating in joint activities to develop further the obtained knowledge.
The Exploitation and Sustainability Strategy of the C4BI project has the following main purposes:
Implement a set a comprehensive range of activities able to reach the project target groups, both internally to the consortium members and external (other organizations and interested stakeholders);
Present the project results with strongest exploitation potential at different events and audiences, communicating and building-up on the lessons learned during the project timeline and afterwards;
Continuously improve the guidance material produced based on new experiences and lessons learned after the project implementation;
Monitoring opportunities for the promotion of joint procurement initiatives with other public procurers at national and European levels.
The main target groups that were considered for the exploitation of the results are:
Internal staff of the consortium members organizations – as there is a feeling for the continuous need of further informative and training campaigns and for the need of developing even better procedures.
Other municipalities and regional authorities organizations
Key-policy makers
SMEs service providers and business associations/chambers of commerce.
As described in the previous section, the project’s results that have a have a strongest exploitation potential are the following:
Table 7 – Project results with higher exploitable potential
Deliverable 2.3 – Demonstration Pilots in a Coordinated Pre-Procurement Process across 4 cities
Deliverable 2.4 – Tender Specifications in a Coordinates Pre-Procurement Process across 4 cities
Deliverable 2.5 – Guidelines on Developing Innovative Public Procurement
Partners have already identified and discussed a range of possible targets/actions that can be carried out to ensure sustainability and enlarge the impact of the project. Most of these actions are to be implemented locally or individually, however some joint initiatives were also discussed among the consortium members, mainly pointing out for monitoring new opportunities for collaboration: The possible actions include internal exploitation actions and external exploitation actions:
Internal exploitation actions
Develop further the guidance materials based on experiences and lessons learned after the project ends – with the participation in this network partners assumed the compromise of disseminating the lessons learned and guidance materials internally changing mind-sets and practices. As a result, current preparatory actions for public procurement are being changed and improved and as continuation of the process will be effectively used. As a consequence its application into real contexts it is expected to learn more and thus, modifications in the existing guidance materials can be implemented;
At each organizational level, parts of the improvement programs will be reapplied, especially informative and training sessions to internal staff of other departments; informative sessions with services providers and local communities;
C4BI network members are committed themselves with the guidelines produced and thus are willing to develop internal Strategic Plans for Public Procurement and Internal Preparatory Procedures for Public Procurement (including new approaches to IPR);
As a continuous process, C4BI network members procedures for monitoring opportunities for joint procurement and joint cooperation actions are being implemented, be it at national level or international level.
External exploitation actions
Present the pilot actions implemented, the lessons learned and guidelines produced to other public procurers in joint meetings or sessions, with the objective of sharing knowledge and positive experiences and of providing guidance to other organizations willing to adopt innovative public procurement procedures;
Attend when possible discussion events related to innovative public procurement, procurement of innovation (PCP and PPI);
Engage with local services providers and local communities as often and regularly as possible to share problems and constrains, fine tune public needs and understand market offers and potential to innovate.
Supporting the above ambitions, the following tools can be considered:
C4BI Website: The website is open to access by the consortium members and the public, and it serves as a presentation window of the project, its aims and objectives, materials, events implemented and consortium members. Partners will continue to update and contribute to the promotion of the project through its website and INOVA+ will maintain it for at least 5 years and will try to keep them animated with the support of the partners.
Participation in Events, Workshops and Conferences: All partners shall participate conveniently in events aimed at disseminating the project’s results and lessons learned. The events can be informal to encourage better the discussion on possible constrains associated to the adopting of innovative procedures and to facilitate the knowledge and experiences sharing.
Synergies with relevant projects/initiatives: The main goal of this activity consists in stimulating the exchange between projects and initiatives in order to establish sustainable future collaborations and future joint efforts to promote innovative approaches to public procurement. This is being implemented in several ways including: organisation of workshops and conferences, dissemination in project newsletters, constant dialogue with similar projects and projects focusing on PCP and PPI. The collaboration activities started by sending dissemination material to the coordinators and dissemination leaders of each project identified; the second step was/is to invite them to attend to the final conference organized in Brussels to share and learn also from their experiences and discuss on possible collaboration activities.
With regard to the concrete and tangible result of the pilot actions, which are the technical specifications for the provision of services/products addressing public needs resulting from ageing cities, the consortium members have plans to foster its utilization in concrete calls or projects in near future. In some cases, specific actions, including publishing of a tender was already achieved. Table below presents a summary of the concrete actions of the procurers involved in the C4BI network to use the pilot actions results:
Table 8 – Partners concrete exploitation actions
Partner: Espinho Municipality
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• An internal procedures manual fostering innovative actions for preparing future public procurement tenders was designed and distributed to the internal staff of the municipality as a first step to change internal cultures and mind-sets and foster innovative approaches towards public procurement.
• In what is concern with the exploitation of the results of the pilot actions, the municipality is facing financial constraints and other priorities are in the top of the agenda, so a formal tender was not yet published, although the communities need remains the same and is in fact critical. Different solutions are being however investigated as explained below.
With national funds
• Despite the above explained about the possible launching of a tender based in the results of the pilot actions, the municipality is actually studying the national funds regulations recently published related to the actual financial EU support in order to access the possibility of promoting remote care services to seniors citizens in the municipality. This late publication of the regulations for the national funds in Portugal is also contributing to the retarding of the decision of the municipality in moving forward. Also, responsible at the municipality believe that it would be of benefit in terms of public spend efficiency to joint procure this type of service with other entities as Espinho is a quite small municipality (around 33.000 inhabitants) and the costs (per user) related to management and support of a remote care service can be reduced if other municipalities are also involved in a joint procurement tender. Thus, there are several possibilities on the table for the exploitation of the pilot actions results (the tender technical specifications) currently being assessed.
With EU funds
• Within EU funds the calls for 2015 on H2020 programme were analysed and currently no opportunity was identified to move forward to a PPI project for instance. However continuous monitoring of the opportunities will be done even if the municipality will find difficult to implement a PPI project due to the lack of financial capacity to invest the necessary amount to complete the EU fund and due to the fact that the small-size of the organization might prevent of being involved in large consortiums.
Partner: Municipality of Lublin
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization and With national funds
• Employees of the health office are currently analysing the regulations of the polish national funds in order to assess the possible capitalization of the knowledge produced with the pilot action implemented and more specifically in what is related with the exploitation of the prototype resulting from the pilot action. At this stage the municipality does not have internal sufficient funds to allocate to this project move forward from the prototype developed towards the market. The internal staff will analyse possible investment opportunities within the current national funds regulations
With EU funds
• Employees of the Public Procurement Office will use knowledge and lessons learned from the C4BI project and pilot actions to take part in other projects. Currently Municipality of Lublin is developing a project for the Central Europe Programme: "Capacity building is a boost usage of PPI (Public Procurement of Innovative solutions and products) in Central Europe" (PPI2Innovate). In this project, Municipality of Lublin will be the partner responsible for conducting a PPI tender pilot action. PPI connects directly to the PCP and thus knowledge, experience and lessons learned from C4BI project will be used since the application moment
• Additionally municipality staff is also exploring the use of European funds for societal challenge of ageing.
Partner: Castellón County Council
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• Taking advantage of the lessons learned from the participation in the C4BI project, a support handbook for SME and Micro-SME was produced in order to support them on how to access to public procurement opportunities. It consists of guidance material for on how to participate in procurement opportunities.
With national funds and EU funds
• Castellón County Council is planning the submission of further proposals in future calls on Horizon 2020 programme that could go further in the development of innovative procurement procedures and/or on the procurement/identification of innovative and suitable homecare devices to assist elderly populations, especially in remote areas of the province. However, until now, no specific call fits/matches with the priorities, but further monitor will be done in the future.
• The competent services within the County Council are working to draft and approve an integrated urban strategy for the urban and peri-urban area of Castellón province. This plan is needed (and in fact compulsory) for the submission of any project to the ERDF Urban cohesion funds and to guide/support the sustainability urban projects/proposals. That strategy must contain a social analysis and the innovative and governance analysis and it will be included in the plan the need of provide the local communities with a service/product enabling homecare/telecare assistance, allowing Castellón County Council of being prepared to submit proposals to the ERDF Urban cohesion funds.
Partner: Staffordshire County Council
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• Even considering that in the framework of this project and pilot actions the formal publication of tenders for future services/products was not expected, Staffordshire County Council have taken the specification to the market and a formal tender was already launched. The Older Carers (Learning Disabilities) Service Specification was published to the value of £65,000 (sterling).
• A training event was already promoted on 29th January 2015, addressing Senior Managers, on Commissioning and Procurement Best practice with the objective of mainstream good practice in County Council procurement in other services.
• As a result of the Carers needs review a Staffordshire partnership Technology Strategy has been produced within the Staffordshire Digital Health Board. This includes:
a) Assistive Technology. In broad terms, this covers any product designed to support or enable independence for disabled and older people. It acknowledges the cross over between inclusively designed, mainstream products and the technology specifically made available to assist disabled and older people and reflects the wide range of equipment and services that assists older and disabled people to maximise their independence.
b) Telecare. This category includes devices in or away from the home that support independence, that can be used as stand-alone or linked to a support service such as a call centre. Many of these devices relate to social needs in relation to activities of daily living and increasingly can be purchased on the high street and through the internet
c) Telehealth. This category includes devices used in or away from the home that enable health parameter measurements such as blood pressure, glucose, weight, and wound management, and support decision making around personalised care planning and appropriate interventions. Tele-health can be used as stand-alone or linked to a response service. Many devices are now available and can purchased on-line and in the high street
d) Apps and self-management. This category, which covers a growing area of support where people use a mobile device, smartphone or desktop PC to manage their own health and well-being, is sometimes seen as a separate category or ‘modality’. It is mainly aimed at self-management and so is most appropriate for the lower levels of need, although increasing use of mobile apps is having an impact in supporting staff and carers in monitoring and care co-ordination. However, it should be noted that other categories, such as ‘Telecare’ and ‘Telehealth’ may actually be delivered via ‘Apps’, and that self-management is also specifically enabled by the other categories above.
e) Video consultations and tele-diagnostics. This category enables non-face to face consultation between service users or patients and staff, groups of people and staff and between staff & staff. It enables decisions to be made without the need for anyone to leave their desk or home. Tele-diagnostics could involve people/carers testing themselves or could be community staff doing testing in the person’s home. This category includes tools such as WebEx, FaceTime and Skype
With national funds
• Staffordshire County Council has Secured £100,000 (sterling) national funding from the Department of Health to pilot the use of assistive technology for Carers in the Workplace.
With EU funds
• Additionally the county council services are exploring the use of ESIF funds for societal challenge of ageing.
List of Websites:
: http://www.procurers-network.com/
European Union (EU) is stimulating a better use of public money through the deliverance of policy recommendations and directives focusing the adoption of new mind-set in the public sector towards innovative practices and approaches to public procurement. EU Procurement Directives include various requirements for specifications, selection of tenderers and award of contracts stimulating and promoting the possibility for innovation and economic growth.
In this framework, it is clear that public authorities have a role to play in the European economic context, contributing to economic development and to innovation. At the same time, the positive change in public practices will support an increase in productivity and effectiveness of public services and thus better use public funds to address key societal challenges faced today.
The C4BI project (http://www.procurers-network.com/) intended to exploit with this opportunity in order to develop a consistent and sustainable policy of innovative public procurement within EU focused on areas that have been identified by the EU as major societal challenges: “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population”. As a network of procurers, the project aimed to provide an integrated answer to the challenge of urban innovation by combining in the same network city/regional authorities and innovation organizations, thus allowing impacting both the demand and the supply. The overall aim of the project was to address these key societal challenges through innovative public procurement processes and launch pre-procurement processes within the 4 participating public authorities in order to gather these conditions and facilitate the access of an urban ageing population to social and civic mobile services.
During 24 months, C4BI network members involved directly in their activities and through engagement local events public servants dealing with public procurement, other public procurers, SME services providers, representatives of the local communities and other interested stakeholders, across 4 partner countries (Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Poland), providing information, experiences and lessons learned about innovative approaches to preparatory activities for public procurement. Also a final event was promoted in Brussels, linking with and learning from other EU experiences related to the adoption of innovative procurement procedures, more specifically with projects relating with PCP and PPI.
Project Context and Objectives:
The fundamental principles governing public procurement across Europe (EU) are transparency, non-discrimination and competition. The aim of public procurement is to achieve value for money for the taxpayer through the promotion of competition in the marketplace. However, it is recognizable public spent is not done adequately due to traditional practices adopted in public procurement mainly related to:
• design of public procurement technical specifications: specifications are often design based on the existing market offers and thus not stimulating innovation neither market curiosity;
• tenderers selection: limited information and criteria are usually taken into account in assessing the qualities of the companies concerned or of the project implementation plan;
• contracts awarding: basically two options are used: lowest price and the most economically advantageous tender.
These practices are embedded in public sector from many years and preventing the adaptation of innovative approaches towards public procurement practices and making difficult to use public spend as a tool to stimulate innovation and market curiosity.
It is easy to conclude that European public procurers are currently under exploiting the potential of public procurement to meet EU-28 innovation and growth objectives or to address the key societal challenges that over the time are pressing too much local and central authorities.
Also, current times of financial crisis, recession and constant doubts demand from the public sector actions to better spend public resources while stimulation innovation and sustainable economic development. Can public procurement provide an answer to those issues? Looking at outside EU experiences and even to recent pilot experiences inside EU, it is possible to conclude that public procurement can move forward to new perspective towards progress, making better use of public funds and stimulating innovation and sustainable development.
Recognizing this opportunities, EU is stimulating a better use of public money through the deliverance of policy recommendations and directives focusing the adoption of new mind-set in the public sector. European Union Procurement Directives include various requirements for specifications, selection of tenderers and award of contracts stimulating and promoting the possibility for innovation and economic growth. In particular, these directives open procurement area/activities to:
• introduction of technical and competitive dialogues between purchasers and suppliers at different phases of the process;
• specification of the requirements in terms of functional performance or standards, allowing suppliers to produce any configuration of technology they feel can meet the need and thus investigating for “new” solutions;
• introduction of variants, such as flexible bids thus opening up bids to alternative ideas;
• implementation of new conditions allowing the transfer of intellectual property to the suppliers, and hence allow them to exploit their innovations in wider markets.
In this framework, it is clear that public authorities have a role to play in the European economic context, contributing to economic development and to innovation. At the same time, the positive change in public practices will support an increase in productivity and effectiveness of public services and thus better use public funds to address key societal challenges faced today.
C4BI project intended to exploit with this opportunity in order to develop a consistent and sustainable policy of innovative public procurement within EU focused on areas that have been identified by the European Commission (EC) as major societal challenges: “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population”. As a network of procurers, the project aimed to provide an integrated answer to the challenge of urban innovation by combining in the same network city/regional authorities and innovation organizations, thus allowing impacting both the demand and the supply.
The overall aim of the project was to address these key societal challenges through innovative public procurement processes and launch pre-procurement processes within the 4 participating public authorities in order to gather these conditions and facilitate the access of an urban ageing population to social and civic mobile services. To achieve the overall aim, the following specific objectives were established:
• Assess current local public procurement practices in the network members in order to:
Share knowledge on existing public procurement policies and practices in the involved municipalities and regions;
Understand the actual EU policies to boost innovation by the demand side and to foster an efficient use of public money;
Identify the gaps where improvements could be made respecting the national regulations, constrains and clear intention of moving towards more innovative public procurement.
• Implement 4 local workshops with services providers (in particular SME), representatives of local social networks, representatives of organizations dealing directly with seniors/aged citizens;
• Design and implement local improvement programs (in each municipality/region) fostering new attitudes, mind-sets and practices towards public procurement and economic development via innovative solutions;
• Implement 4 local pilot pre-procurement processes within each municipality/region to stimulate dialogues with end-users, economic operators and other public procurers to:
Better know and shape the real needs of local communities in what is concerned with “active and healthy ageing” and “demographic ageing of urban population” such as the dependency ratio, social isolation, access to services and the need for increases in self-managed and community-based care by individuals and communities;
Know existing ready-to-market solutions that can be used to cope with the needs identified;
Establish earlier dialogues with economic operators to better define the technical specifications of a future tender process;
Pilot at a small scale and assess selected services/products addressing the identified societal local challenges;
• Assess the results and the lessons learned at local level and build-up common and transferable knowledge about innovative procurement practices impacting on the preparatory stages of public procurement, thus enabling both local sensitivity and responsiveness and European relevance and replicability:
Analysis of the possibility of bidding together at EU level taking advantage of joint procurement options;
Sharing ready-to-use technical specifications for different services and products that can contribute to overcome the constraints and needs associated to the identified challenges;
• Develop a guide on “innovative public procurement” with practical tips and information, enabling public procurers to adopt better practices when preparing new public procurement calls stimulating at the same time market innovation;
Complementarily to the above technical specific objectives, some transversal expectations were also defined in order to support a smooth project implementation and assure quality of the activities and results and regular internal and external communication:
I. Elaborate a dissemination plan, supported by the adequate instruments (website and communication materials) to raise stakeholders’ awareness on innovative procurement practices and to share/capitalize knowledge;
II. Assure the internal communication among partners and effective efficient collaboration towards the implementation of the project activities and deliverance of the expected results;
III. Guarantee project and deliverables quality by implementing a more detailed peer-review and monitoring of the project achievements;
IV. Maintain the website regularly updated with the project achievements and activities and with local news, contributing to raising awareness of stakeholders on innovative procurement practices and to share/capitalize knowledge;
V. Intensify the communication and direct contact with stakeholders at local and European levels, fostering their engagement and sharing knowledge and practices.
Within the project, each partner (public procurer) entered into a pre-procurement process with the main local operators of mobile networks and engaged into pilot demonstration of application services, in order to better specify and define the requirements for the procurement of a full solution (product/service) for the deployment of social and civic urban services, particularly aimed towards an ageing population. The specific objectives of the pilot actions were:
a. Test, in real scenarios, new approaches to pre-procurement procedures that can promote innovative practices and contribute to stimulate market innovation, addressing EU policies on public procurement;
b. Stimulate the adequate identification and description of the public needs/expectations, based on communities’ needs through the promotion of earlier engagement actions with local communities and local communities representatives in order to better access their needs and constrains;
c. Involve economic operators in earlier preparatory activities allowing the joint design/shape of technical specifications (based on outcomes and performance indicators), fostering knowledge sharing and understanding on public expectations, market offers and potential developments, community’s needs;
d. Develop internal innovative procedures that can be used largely at other services areas when preparing new procurement tenders.
Project Results:
The core of the project implementation focused on the enhancing of innovative public pre-procurement processes and practices within the participating public authorities – having in view the societal and urban development challenges faced by “Ageing Cities” namely in terms of how to deal with an ageing population. The project methodological approach included three major phases supported by the organization of workshop events at local level to promote awareness and engage with economic operators and local communities.
Phase 1 – Coordinated learning cycle
Each city/regional authority carried out an assessment of their public procurement needs in terms of innovation potential, societal gains and long-term sustainability, considering the latest EU policy recommendations for innovative procurement. A peer-review process was then implemented, allowing the identification of common needs and strengths but also the learning from each other’s best practices. Under this phase knowledge and experiences on innovative approaches to pre-procurement procedures was shared allowing the consortium members of preparing the soil for the following phase 2.
This phase ended with the design of local improvement programmes, where each partner identified and implemented a set of internal organisational actions in order to improve and develop organisational strategic approaches and staff capacity and development to adopt innovative attitudes to public procurement, which included training, informative and dissemination actions, events with other stakeholders, development of guidance materials, etc.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 1
Result
Deliverable 2.1 - Report on the “Assessment of Public Needs in the 4 Cities”
This report presents an overview of the current practices and procedures related to public procurement in the 4 municipalities/regions and to what extend modifications/improvements could be implemented in order to promote an innovative approach to public procurement and to the recent EU policies on public procurement. The report presents also a summary on the importance and role of public procurement for the economic development and for the deployment of innovative market solutions, being products or services.
Based on this common understanding each partner conducted a self-assessment of their internal practices related to preparatory procedures of a public procurement tender, identified the gaps/constrains hindering public authorities of being more innovative and thus contributing to a better use of public funds and to economic and social growth.
While building up this report, a peer learning process was implemented allowing partners to learn from each other experiences and constrains and to extract from there possible actions that could be implemented at local level as an organizational improvement programme with the objective of making the actual processes more flexible allowing earlier engagement with SME services providers and local communities (end-users) and more focused in the efficient use of resources.
Additionally, within this phase an overview on the most important societal challenges in each partner region was done. This overview and identification of needs was not very accurate because it would not be possible to identify them in detail; however partners selected at this stage specific needs related to “ageing cities” towards an ageing population, that could be explored during the pilot stages.
Result
Deliverable 2.2 - Coordinated Improvement Programme across 4 Cities”
From the identification of the gaps and of the possible improvements towards a more innovative public procurement, local improvement programmes were drawn accordingly to the local needs, constrains, practices and expectations. The actions included in each of the programmes were designed to address modifications at internal procedures and practices in order to make public procurement procedures more flexible and with higher focus on efficient use of public resources, clear identification of public needs and innovation.
This result describes in detail the actions that each partner implemented internally in order to overcome constrains and gaps identified at the earlier stage, including, training, informing and dissemination actions as well as development of guidance materials and resources to support capacity building across internal staff and local SME service providers.
Phase 2 - Coordinated pre-procurement pilot processes
Public procurers engaged themselves with economic operators and local communities to jointly work on models of innovation-orientated public procurement capable of stimulating solution providers to be involved in providing answers that meet the challenges addressed in the project.
Four pilot actions were implemented in Portugal, United Kingdom, Poland and Spain, under the coordination of the public procurers, engaging local economic operators and local communities into demonstration actions of application services related to ageing cities as well as to test innovative procedures in the phase of preparing a public procurement tender in the view of promoting proper dialogue actions towards a better specification and definition of the requirements for the procurement of a full solution (service/product) for the deployment of social and civic urban services, particularly aimed towards an ageing population.
With the implementation of the pilot actions, partners could experiment and assess the impact and efficiency of new practices and models of pre-procurement based in concrete dialogues with market and communities, allowing them to instruct the following 3rd phase.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 2
Result
Deliverable 2.3 “Demonstration Pilots in a Coordinated Pre-procurement Process across 4 cities”
This report covering the 2nd phase describes the details of the pilot actions implemented by the procurers, including its objectives, methodological approach and lessons learned in terms of defining new procedures for preparing public procurement involving at different levels local communities, their representatives and economic operators, in the identification of real communities’ needs and in the design of tender specifications based on technical requirements and performance indicators with the objective of stimulate innovation in the suppliers side, rather than on existing solutions.
Foreground
Methodology for implementing demonstration pilot actions on innovative public procurement procedures.
Other public procurers might benefit from the methodologies developed by C4BI network members to prepare and implement other pilot actions to teste and develop new approaches to public procurement, especially in terms of more flexible preparatory procedures focusing on the engagement of economic operators and local communities’ in dialogue actions/activities for better shaping and defining concrete public needs, understanding market offers and innovative capacity and design tender specifications in terms of technical requirements and performance indicators.
The consortium believes that local pilot actions can ensure local sustainability due to its implementation into mainstream public procurement practices in the future not requiring additional resources. This demonstrates organizational change, learning and internal improvements which contributes to sustainable success. These knowledge and learning can be replicated for local, regional and pan-European relevance enabling more “sustainable communities” and more efficient public procurement practices.
Phase 3 - Assessment of results and lessons
The results and lessons learned of the processor phases, both in terms of internal processes and external impact, were jointly assessed and combined in an exploitable guide for procurers focusing on innovative public procurement preparatory practices to foster innovative market solutions. Additionally, the consortium also accessed the possibility of different procurers to procure similar services or products at European level and published a set of recommendations and ready-to-use technical specifications for the 4 types of services/products tested, build-up on earlier dialogues with SME service providers and local communities representatives.
Overview of the main results/foregrounds associated to the phase 3
Result
Deliverable 2.4 “Tender Specifications in a Coordinated Pre-Procurement Process across the 4 cities”
As a consequence of the pilot actions in phase 2 where different service/product solutions were demonstrated while innovative procedures to public procurement were tested, each of the network members gathered tender technical specifications for a given solution responding to societal challenges related to the problem of ageing cities.
These specifications were designed in terms of technical requirements and indicators of performance resulting from dialogue actions between procurers and services providers and communities, focusing the clear identification of communities needs and on the design of expected outcomes.
With these results, public procurers can prepare a joint procurement process at European Level for a common service/product, or prepare individual/local responsive and specific services for local public procurement processes. Considering that there is an option for joint procurement, an example for formal agreement was also designed as a model of a contract governing the relations between a group of procurers entering in a joint procurement process, as well as a set of administrative provisions prevailing the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level.
Also an innovative proposal for awarding contract criteria was developed incorporating non-automatic quantifiable criteria based in different quality aspects of tenderers capacity and plans, reducing the focus on “best” or “lowest” price options.
Result
Deliverable 2.5 “Guidelines on Developing Innovative Public Procurement”
This final report presents the lessons learned from the learning process undertaken by the network members over the 2 years of project implementation and a set of recommendations for innovative procurement covering different aspects such as organizational strategic approach to procurement, innovation in the internal preparatory procurement processes and efficient design of tender specifications. The report also includes an overview of the relevance of adopting innovative procurement practices in order to move forward to other processes and models such as PCP and PPI.
Foreground
Formal agreement governing the relations between a group of public procurers willing to procure through joint procurement
Included in the deliverable D2.4 the consortium developed a model of formal contract governing the relations of a group of public procurers willing to launch a joint procurement process at international level and identifying the leading authority. This template includes aspects and suggestion of contract clause related to responsibility of the buyers group leader, responsibilities’ of the other parties involved in the buyers group, available budget and parties contributions, agreement on IPR, etc. This template might require adaptation to specific contexts in order to be adequately used.
Foreground
Set of administrative provisions governing the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level
In order to promote joint procurement at international level as an option to public procurers, set of administrative provisions were defined to govern the necessary administrative aspects of a joint procurement process to be launched at European level. This set of specifications (included in deliverable D2.4) simulates the administrative provisions as if a group of public procurers were launching a call under the lead of a selected public procurer (the lead authority), covering aspects such as: identification of the contracting authority and of the buyers group; object of the contract; budget, average cost and termination of the contract; review of the cost terms; awarding process; advertising of bidders; expenses charged to the contractor; consultation process and provision of copies; eligibility for contracts, capacity and solvency; place and deadline for submission of proposals; documents to be submitted by the bidders; admission of variations or alternatives; provisional guarantee; contracting committee; evaluation panel; tender-opening session; awarding criteria; definitive guarantee; formalisation of the agreement; delivery and payment for the provision of the service/product; modification of the contract; compensation for damages; compliance with labour and social security laws and protection of personal data; guarantee period; delay by the contractor and penalties; termination of the contract; prerogative of the administration; legal rules.
It might be however necessary some adjustments for further used in different contexts, mainly in the case of different type of services/products, size of the buyers group and national regulations of the leader of the buyers group that must be taken into consideration.
Foreground
Set of technical specifications designed in terms indicators of performance for four different services/products related to ageing cities
As a result of the pilot actions implemented in the different cities/regions and reflecting the lessons learned by the network of procurers on how to prepare tender specifications based in outcomes or performance indicators, a set of four technical specifications for different services/products related to constrains associated to challenges arising from ageing cities is available.
The technical specifications were designed during the pilot actions as a consequence of dialogue actions implemented with economic operators and local communities; this is, via continuous engagement with economic providers and service users for detailed communities needs identification and design of suitable outcomes. Thus, they are a result of co-design approaches where specifications are described in terms of technical requirements and indicators of performance. This set of technical requirements allow public procurers of launching a procurement notice for contracting a public service or product based on “the service functionalities” (including equipment and technical functionalities) accordingly to the real needs of the communities, and not based in existing services.
A final important note is related to the communities’ development itself as the engagement of the communities towards the identification and detailed definition of their real needs and expectations contributes largely to more sustainable communities by enabling active participation and inclusion.
Besides, the specifications are also important for the market side as they can be seen as an inducement for innovation since, in practical terms, if the public procurer decides to proceed with the procurement based on these specifications, innovative solutions/responses from the market are expected. There is also an impact that need to be highlighted: the involvement of SME in better understanding public procurement approach, local needs and giving them the opportunity of being involved in earlier dialogues will enable a more dynamic and sustainable local market and more sustainable development of the local SMEs.
Foreground
Proposal of awarding criteria innovative concept for Public Procurement, based on qualitative criteria, reducing the weight of criteria "price"
An innovative approach to contract award criteria in a public procurement tender was discussed and agreed by the network members. This proposal of contract awarding criteria is aligned with EU policies targeting the utilization of cost-effectiveness approaches and quality aspects, reducing the strong weight traditionally associated to the criteria “price”.
The contract awarding criteria proposed by C4BI members includes non-automatically quantifiable criteria and automatically quantifiable criteria. This last one represents the price. The novelty is related to the usage of both criteria together with a smaller weight of the “price” and the inclusion of different quality aspects, such as:
i) Compliance with the technical specifications (involves assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent the bidders respect and present solutions to respond to the technical requirements of the service/product);
ii) Design solutions to better respond to the technical requirements (implies assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent the bidders present design innovative solutions to respond to the technical requirements of the service/product);
iii) Quality assurance on service/product deliverance and maintenance (includes assessing the proposals received to understand till what extent bidders are able of delivering the service or product in time and of assuring technical assistance and maintenance during the contracting period);
iv) Management and Staffing Structure (includes assessing the proposals received to understand how bidders will develop a staffing structure to deliver the service as detailed within the Service Specification);
v) Implementation Plan (includes assessing the proposals received to understand how the bidder will deliver the service as detailed within the Service Specification).
Again, this proposal of contract awarding criteria might need adaptation to the real contexts of application, especially due to possible constrains of the national regulations and also due to the specific skills of internal staff responsible for assessing tenders received based in quality indicators.
Foreground
Guidelines for innovative Public Procurement regarding strategic approach to public procurement, innovative processes and building up innovative specifications
Based on the lessons learned towards the project implementation a set of recommendations was prepared allowing other public procurers of preparing themselves to engage in innovative approaches to public procurement. These guidelines cover 3 main areas (strategic approach to public procurement; innovative processes; and building up innovative specifications) and includes 8 recommendations completed with practical guidance enabling public procurers at large of adopting innovative models and practices of public procurement, preparing themselves to higher challenges related to the usage and benefit of other instruments such as PCP and PPI.
Those recommendations are to be seen as guidance and thus adaptation to procurers’ reality can be necessary in order to turn them more effective. C4BI consortium members believe that the recommendations and guidance provided can be used as the turning point to provoke reflection inside public procurers’ organizations and open up mind-sets to the creation of internal working groups that can then design comprehensive strategies adapted to each entity reality and strategic policy priorities.
Results associated to dissemination and exploitation
I -Name: Dissemination plan
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: The Dissemination Plan is a supporting document to the implementation of internal and external communication activities of the project addressing the project stakeholder groups. The plan provides detailed guidelines and tools allowing: understanding the scope and objectives of dissemination and exploitation within the project; having access to an organized and harmonised set of tools used for dissemination and exploitation purposes; having a clear idea of the different types of activities to be implemented, the timings, the target groups and the expected impact;; conducting and recording different activities according to the action plan; and monitoring and reporting the activities undertaken and its results/impact.
Type/format and other relevant features: Available in electronic format for partners in the website private area.
II -Name: Project webiste
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: A specific website was designed to support the project implementation and partner’s activities, as well as the dissemination of the project results. Available at http://www.procurers-network.com/ the website is mainly in English and just one of the sections (C4BI objectives and approach) is available in partners’ national languages. The C4BI project website structure includes the following sections: Home with a latest news preview area; C4BI objectives and approaches; Resources; Initiatives of interest; News; Consortium and Stakeholders engagement.
Type/format and other relevant features: The website’s features play an essential role for the exploitation of the website as a result, as the website includes the main products developed and also highlights the project’s methodology. The website will be maintained for at least 5 years, allowing exchange of information and facilitating use and re-use of the transferable guidelines and lessons learned.
III - Name: Communication Materials
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: Different communication materials were produced over the project implementation in order to support the communication efforts, both internally and externally. For the internal communication different templates were produced for reporting, internal communication and financial reporting. Considering the need of the external communication different materials including: project brochure, posters in different formats, personalized email templates, newsletters template, info-sheets for brief project presentation or project interim statements, etc.
Type/format and other relevant features: These materials were design to be printed and distributed in face-to-face events and also in electronic formats. Most of them were in fact reused in different moments of the project by simply adapting and updating the texts accordingly to the needs or to the specificity of the events.
IV - Name: Workshops – engagement with Stakeholders
Main target group: All (target groups of the project, general public).
Short description: A set of dissemination workshops were implemented at national level with the overall objective of dissemination the project aims, activities and results and of promoting engagement activities with project stakeholders, mainly with economic operators (SME). However and at the same time, partners did also intend to create discussion moments by linking the project with other national or international initiatives and promoting knowledge sharing. Apart from the set of 4 workshops previewed, an extra event, at the final mouth of the project implementation in order to present publically the lessons learned and recommendations for the adoption of innovative approached to public procurement, but also to assess future exploitation of the results of the project, mainly by understanding till what extent the consortium members and other procurers in general might entering into innovative public procurement approaches such as Pre-Commercial Procurement or Public Procurement of Innovation.
Type/format and other relevant features: Face-to-face events promoted at key moments of the project implementation, allowing the constant communication with project stakeholders and public in general, presenting the project status and interim results, engage with communities and market operators.
Table 1 – List of engagement events
Event: “New perspectives for Social Care – Technologies responding to community’s needs”, organized by Espinho Municipality (15th February 2013, Espinho, Portugal)
Event: “Development of cities through modernization of management procedures”, organized by Municipality of Lublin (17th June 2013, Lublin, Poland)
Event: “Workshop on Innovative Public Procurement”, organized by Castellón County Council (18th December 2013, Castellón de La Plana, Spain)
Event: “Generate 2014”, organized by Staffordshire County Council (15th and 16th July 2014, Tamworth, Staffs, UK)
Event: “Local and regional governance approaches for innovation, economic development and cooperation”, organized by INOVA+ and Espinho Municipality (17th December 2014, Brussels, Belgium)
Potential Impact:
Direct contact with target groups
During 24 months, the C4Bi consortium members have tried to involve both internal and external target groups. By one hand the procurers have involved in direct actions internal staff dealing with public procurement or with challenges arising from ageing cities, through the promotion of informative and training events and through de deliverance of guidance materials; By other hand specific actions were promoted to involve and engage external target groups, including economic operators (SME – providers), representatives of the local communities (being associations of the local networks, being the seniors by itself) and other procures that could act as future multipliers.
The direct contact and engagement of the stakeholders was an effective way of “convincing” the target groups to be more open to the innovative approaches to public procurement practices and models and also to the EU policies on public procurement as well as to current opportunities of engaging in cooperation projects. Examples were the workshops promoted, awareness raising (informative) events, both internally in the public procurers organizations and externally targeting other similar organizations; training campaigns organized through the improvement programmes launched, etc. At this stage, the impact of the project needs to be enlarged through a continuous exploitation effort, disseminating the lessons learned and the developed guidelines for innovative public procurement, enabling other procurers of engaging themselves in innovative approaches to public procurement.
The following tables provide an overview of the main actions carried out in each country that required a direct involvement of the stakeholders .
Table 2 – Main activities promoted by Espinho Municipality with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop “New perspectives for Social Care – Technologies responding to community’s needs
Quantifiable indicator: 41 | Targets: SME service providers; representatives of local network organizations (e.g. NGO’s providing care to seniors – third sector)
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot action
Quantifiable indicator: 50| Targets: elderly seniors citizens
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot action
Quantifiable indicator: 2| Targets: elderly seniors citizens
Type of activity: Round table presentation to the Local Social Action Council meeting
Quantifiable indicator: 43| Targets: Municipality Social Action Council – (e.g. NGO’s providing care to seniors – third sector)
Type of activity: Workshop - “Innovative Public Procurement”
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Workshop - “Innovation in Public Services”
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Distribution an internal guide for the adoption of more efficient public procurement practices
Quantifiable indicator: 25| Targets: Internal municipality staff
Type of activity: Sharing lessons learned and conclusions with sister organizations
Quantifiable indicator:40| Targets: Representatives of other municipalities of the region
Type of activity: Final Conference
Quantifiable indicator:20| Targets: Project managers of sister projects; policy makers
Table 3 – Main activities promoted by Staffordshire County Council with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement conference “Generate 2014”
Quantifiable indicator: 95 | Targets: Representatives of local authorities across the UK; Major UK private sector service providers; National Health Service (NHS Commissioning bodies); Universities; Key public service networks; Third Sector Networks; Police/Fire Services.
Type of activity: Staffordshire Public Health Team Meeting on C4BI
Quantifiable indicator: 42 | Targets: Internal staff members
Type of activity: Different briefing sessions held over the project implementation
Quantifiable indicator:100 | Targets: Health managers; Representatives of HEI, Representatives of local authorities
Type of activity: Procurement Training session for Public Health Team
Quantifiable indicator: Quantifiable indicator: 9 | Targets: Internal staff
Type of activity: Demonstration Pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: Quantifiable indicator: 20 | Targets: SME service providers
Table 4 – Main activities promoted by Lublin Municipality with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop “Development of cities through modernization of management procedures”
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of other polish municipalities; Representatives of Voivoships (Polish administrative regions); Representatives of HEI; Representatives of local NGO’s that are working with seniors/elderly population and are in direct contact with the communities and aware of their specific needs.
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 10 | Targets: SME services providers
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 23 | Targets: Elderly senior citizens
Type of activity: Internal information and training campaign
Quantifiable indicator: 43 | Targets: Internal staff
Type of activity: Internal training session
Quantifiable indicator: 20 | Targets: Internal staff
Table 5 – Main activities promoted by Castellón County Council with active participation of target groups
Type of activity: Engagement workshop on “Innovative Public Procurement”
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of local municipalities of the council; Representatives of SME providing technological solutions; Representatives of social partners’ network
Type of activity: Demonstration pilot actions
Quantifiable indicator: 2 | Targets: SME services providers
Type of activity: Session with the mayors of rural municipalities in the province of Castellon
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of local municipalities of the council
Type of activity: Session with the members of the Partenalia Association
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: Representatives of European local authorities
Type of activity: Training program addressing the local SME on accessing to public procurement opportunities
Quantifiable indicator: 50 | Targets: SME services providers
Dissemination materials and actions
Besides the numerous activities where the target groups of the project were directly involved, several other initiatives allowed the network members to reach thousands representatives of the stakeholders at national and European levels. Several dissemination materials have been produced during the lifetime of the project and several initiatives have been carried out to promote the project, its activities and results. The following table provides a short summary of the quantitative results of dissemination activities carried out during the implementation of C4BI (more details can be consulted in Table 8. List of dissemination activities).
Table 6 – Overview of the dissemination indicators of the most relevant actions
Number of visits: 8540
Number of unique visits: 1276
Linkedin group members: 34
Linkedin discussions: 15
Newsletters and press releases sent out (editions): 5
Newsletters recipient’s lists (overall total partners): 730
Publications in paper magazines and newspapers: 4
Publications of news and articles in webpages: 20
Events organized (internal events – informative and training sessions | external events – workshops, conference, meetings with SME providers or Local networks): 43
Events attended where the project was presented: 2
Large email campaigns announcing events organized by the consortium and invite participants (workshops and final conference): 5280
Exploitation of results
The impact of C4BI project is not restricted to the activities carried out during the lifetime of the project. The consortium awards a great importance to this aspect and has carried out various efforts to ensure continuation of the project in the years to come. In fact, several similar organizations dealing with public procurement (other municipalities and other regional authorities) have expressed their interest to continue to learn from the experiences of the C4BI and to use/adopt the guidance material made available and of participating in joint activities to develop further the obtained knowledge.
The Exploitation and Sustainability Strategy of the C4BI project has the following main purposes:
Implement a set a comprehensive range of activities able to reach the project target groups, both internally to the consortium members and external (other organizations and interested stakeholders);
Present the project results with strongest exploitation potential at different events and audiences, communicating and building-up on the lessons learned during the project timeline and afterwards;
Continuously improve the guidance material produced based on new experiences and lessons learned after the project implementation;
Monitoring opportunities for the promotion of joint procurement initiatives with other public procurers at national and European levels.
The main target groups that were considered for the exploitation of the results are:
Internal staff of the consortium members organizations – as there is a feeling for the continuous need of further informative and training campaigns and for the need of developing even better procedures.
Other municipalities and regional authorities organizations
Key-policy makers
SMEs service providers and business associations/chambers of commerce.
As described in the previous section, the project’s results that have a have a strongest exploitation potential are the following:
Table 7 – Project results with higher exploitable potential
Deliverable 2.3 – Demonstration Pilots in a Coordinated Pre-Procurement Process across 4 cities
Deliverable 2.4 – Tender Specifications in a Coordinates Pre-Procurement Process across 4 cities
Deliverable 2.5 – Guidelines on Developing Innovative Public Procurement
Partners have already identified and discussed a range of possible targets/actions that can be carried out to ensure sustainability and enlarge the impact of the project. Most of these actions are to be implemented locally or individually, however some joint initiatives were also discussed among the consortium members, mainly pointing out for monitoring new opportunities for collaboration: The possible actions include internal exploitation actions and external exploitation actions:
Internal exploitation actions
Develop further the guidance materials based on experiences and lessons learned after the project ends – with the participation in this network partners assumed the compromise of disseminating the lessons learned and guidance materials internally changing mind-sets and practices. As a result, current preparatory actions for public procurement are being changed and improved and as continuation of the process will be effectively used. As a consequence its application into real contexts it is expected to learn more and thus, modifications in the existing guidance materials can be implemented;
At each organizational level, parts of the improvement programs will be reapplied, especially informative and training sessions to internal staff of other departments; informative sessions with services providers and local communities;
C4BI network members are committed themselves with the guidelines produced and thus are willing to develop internal Strategic Plans for Public Procurement and Internal Preparatory Procedures for Public Procurement (including new approaches to IPR);
As a continuous process, C4BI network members procedures for monitoring opportunities for joint procurement and joint cooperation actions are being implemented, be it at national level or international level.
External exploitation actions
Present the pilot actions implemented, the lessons learned and guidelines produced to other public procurers in joint meetings or sessions, with the objective of sharing knowledge and positive experiences and of providing guidance to other organizations willing to adopt innovative public procurement procedures;
Attend when possible discussion events related to innovative public procurement, procurement of innovation (PCP and PPI);
Engage with local services providers and local communities as often and regularly as possible to share problems and constrains, fine tune public needs and understand market offers and potential to innovate.
Supporting the above ambitions, the following tools can be considered:
C4BI Website: The website is open to access by the consortium members and the public, and it serves as a presentation window of the project, its aims and objectives, materials, events implemented and consortium members. Partners will continue to update and contribute to the promotion of the project through its website and INOVA+ will maintain it for at least 5 years and will try to keep them animated with the support of the partners.
Participation in Events, Workshops and Conferences: All partners shall participate conveniently in events aimed at disseminating the project’s results and lessons learned. The events can be informal to encourage better the discussion on possible constrains associated to the adopting of innovative procedures and to facilitate the knowledge and experiences sharing.
Synergies with relevant projects/initiatives: The main goal of this activity consists in stimulating the exchange between projects and initiatives in order to establish sustainable future collaborations and future joint efforts to promote innovative approaches to public procurement. This is being implemented in several ways including: organisation of workshops and conferences, dissemination in project newsletters, constant dialogue with similar projects and projects focusing on PCP and PPI. The collaboration activities started by sending dissemination material to the coordinators and dissemination leaders of each project identified; the second step was/is to invite them to attend to the final conference organized in Brussels to share and learn also from their experiences and discuss on possible collaboration activities.
With regard to the concrete and tangible result of the pilot actions, which are the technical specifications for the provision of services/products addressing public needs resulting from ageing cities, the consortium members have plans to foster its utilization in concrete calls or projects in near future. In some cases, specific actions, including publishing of a tender was already achieved. Table below presents a summary of the concrete actions of the procurers involved in the C4BI network to use the pilot actions results:
Table 8 – Partners concrete exploitation actions
Partner: Espinho Municipality
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• An internal procedures manual fostering innovative actions for preparing future public procurement tenders was designed and distributed to the internal staff of the municipality as a first step to change internal cultures and mind-sets and foster innovative approaches towards public procurement.
• In what is concern with the exploitation of the results of the pilot actions, the municipality is facing financial constraints and other priorities are in the top of the agenda, so a formal tender was not yet published, although the communities need remains the same and is in fact critical. Different solutions are being however investigated as explained below.
With national funds
• Despite the above explained about the possible launching of a tender based in the results of the pilot actions, the municipality is actually studying the national funds regulations recently published related to the actual financial EU support in order to access the possibility of promoting remote care services to seniors citizens in the municipality. This late publication of the regulations for the national funds in Portugal is also contributing to the retarding of the decision of the municipality in moving forward. Also, responsible at the municipality believe that it would be of benefit in terms of public spend efficiency to joint procure this type of service with other entities as Espinho is a quite small municipality (around 33.000 inhabitants) and the costs (per user) related to management and support of a remote care service can be reduced if other municipalities are also involved in a joint procurement tender. Thus, there are several possibilities on the table for the exploitation of the pilot actions results (the tender technical specifications) currently being assessed.
With EU funds
• Within EU funds the calls for 2015 on H2020 programme were analysed and currently no opportunity was identified to move forward to a PPI project for instance. However continuous monitoring of the opportunities will be done even if the municipality will find difficult to implement a PPI project due to the lack of financial capacity to invest the necessary amount to complete the EU fund and due to the fact that the small-size of the organization might prevent of being involved in large consortiums.
Partner: Municipality of Lublin
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization and With national funds
• Employees of the health office are currently analysing the regulations of the polish national funds in order to assess the possible capitalization of the knowledge produced with the pilot action implemented and more specifically in what is related with the exploitation of the prototype resulting from the pilot action. At this stage the municipality does not have internal sufficient funds to allocate to this project move forward from the prototype developed towards the market. The internal staff will analyse possible investment opportunities within the current national funds regulations
With EU funds
• Employees of the Public Procurement Office will use knowledge and lessons learned from the C4BI project and pilot actions to take part in other projects. Currently Municipality of Lublin is developing a project for the Central Europe Programme: "Capacity building is a boost usage of PPI (Public Procurement of Innovative solutions and products) in Central Europe" (PPI2Innovate). In this project, Municipality of Lublin will be the partner responsible for conducting a PPI tender pilot action. PPI connects directly to the PCP and thus knowledge, experience and lessons learned from C4BI project will be used since the application moment
• Additionally municipality staff is also exploring the use of European funds for societal challenge of ageing.
Partner: Castellón County Council
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• Taking advantage of the lessons learned from the participation in the C4BI project, a support handbook for SME and Micro-SME was produced in order to support them on how to access to public procurement opportunities. It consists of guidance material for on how to participate in procurement opportunities.
With national funds and EU funds
• Castellón County Council is planning the submission of further proposals in future calls on Horizon 2020 programme that could go further in the development of innovative procurement procedures and/or on the procurement/identification of innovative and suitable homecare devices to assist elderly populations, especially in remote areas of the province. However, until now, no specific call fits/matches with the priorities, but further monitor will be done in the future.
• The competent services within the County Council are working to draft and approve an integrated urban strategy for the urban and peri-urban area of Castellón province. This plan is needed (and in fact compulsory) for the submission of any project to the ERDF Urban cohesion funds and to guide/support the sustainability urban projects/proposals. That strategy must contain a social analysis and the innovative and governance analysis and it will be included in the plan the need of provide the local communities with a service/product enabling homecare/telecare assistance, allowing Castellón County Council of being prepared to submit proposals to the ERDF Urban cohesion funds.
Partner: Staffordshire County Council
Concrete exploitation actions
Within the organization
• Even considering that in the framework of this project and pilot actions the formal publication of tenders for future services/products was not expected, Staffordshire County Council have taken the specification to the market and a formal tender was already launched. The Older Carers (Learning Disabilities) Service Specification was published to the value of £65,000 (sterling).
• A training event was already promoted on 29th January 2015, addressing Senior Managers, on Commissioning and Procurement Best practice with the objective of mainstream good practice in County Council procurement in other services.
• As a result of the Carers needs review a Staffordshire partnership Technology Strategy has been produced within the Staffordshire Digital Health Board. This includes:
a) Assistive Technology. In broad terms, this covers any product designed to support or enable independence for disabled and older people. It acknowledges the cross over between inclusively designed, mainstream products and the technology specifically made available to assist disabled and older people and reflects the wide range of equipment and services that assists older and disabled people to maximise their independence.
b) Telecare. This category includes devices in or away from the home that support independence, that can be used as stand-alone or linked to a support service such as a call centre. Many of these devices relate to social needs in relation to activities of daily living and increasingly can be purchased on the high street and through the internet
c) Telehealth. This category includes devices used in or away from the home that enable health parameter measurements such as blood pressure, glucose, weight, and wound management, and support decision making around personalised care planning and appropriate interventions. Tele-health can be used as stand-alone or linked to a response service. Many devices are now available and can purchased on-line and in the high street
d) Apps and self-management. This category, which covers a growing area of support where people use a mobile device, smartphone or desktop PC to manage their own health and well-being, is sometimes seen as a separate category or ‘modality’. It is mainly aimed at self-management and so is most appropriate for the lower levels of need, although increasing use of mobile apps is having an impact in supporting staff and carers in monitoring and care co-ordination. However, it should be noted that other categories, such as ‘Telecare’ and ‘Telehealth’ may actually be delivered via ‘Apps’, and that self-management is also specifically enabled by the other categories above.
e) Video consultations and tele-diagnostics. This category enables non-face to face consultation between service users or patients and staff, groups of people and staff and between staff & staff. It enables decisions to be made without the need for anyone to leave their desk or home. Tele-diagnostics could involve people/carers testing themselves or could be community staff doing testing in the person’s home. This category includes tools such as WebEx, FaceTime and Skype
With national funds
• Staffordshire County Council has Secured £100,000 (sterling) national funding from the Department of Health to pilot the use of assistive technology for Carers in the Workplace.
With EU funds
• Additionally the county council services are exploring the use of ESIF funds for societal challenge of ageing.
List of Websites:
: http://www.procurers-network.com/