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The Wales Responsible Procurement Award is sponsored by Glamorgan Business School

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Regional award, Example of Excellence

RCT Homes - Wales Responsible Procurement Award - Winner

We held a special workshop involving dozens of RCT Homes’ tenants and staff to decide on the criteria for awarding contracts. It was agreed that we wouldn’t simply choose the cheapest contract – factors such as the standard of workmanship, how the contractors conduct themselves and their relationship with tenants would play just as big a role in deciding who was appointed.  Most importantly, tenants wanted contractors to spell out the ‘social inclusion benefits’ – the creation of new local jobs and training opportunities – that would be delivered.

Andrew LycettChief Executive, RCT Homes

As well as being a landlord, not-for-profit organisation and social enterprise, RCT Homes also supports the economic regeneration and development of the communities it serves. This involves working with tenants, other key stakeholders and partner organisations to develop local skills, training and to generate jobs through the procurement of local labour.

Headquartered in Pontypridd, RCT Homes is Wales’ largest registered social landlord and first community housing mutual, a new model instigated by the Welsh Government for community owned and controlled housing. This was born out of the large scale voluntary transfer of social housing from Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC to RCT Homes in December 2007.

Headquartered in Pontypridd, RCT Homes is Wales’ largest registered social landlord and first community housing mutual, a new model instigated by the Welsh Government for community owned and controlled housing. This was born out of the large scale voluntary transfer of social housing from Rhondda Cynon Taf CBC to RCT Homes in December 2007.

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RCT Homes staff volunteering on Give & Gain Day

RCT Homes contractors working on-site

Process

RCT Homes expects its staff, contractors and supply chain to engage meaningfully with and provide added benefit to their tenants and communities at every available opportunity. In order to meet the Welsh Housing Quality Standard (WHQS), RCT Homes is investing £170 million in its first five years of operation. However it’s the way that RCT Homes has decided how and where that investment is channelled that has drawn attention.

Under the rules of the community mutual, tenants take an active role in decision-making.  Five tenants sit on the RCT Homes Board and play a key role in the awarding of multi-million pound contracts to carry out refurbishment work in their homes. Similarly, tenants sit on a strategic core group along with staff, contractors and supply chain partners. Together they set, monitor and review targets concerning performance, continuous improvement and the social inclusion agenda. 

A special workshop involving dozens of RCT Homes’ tenants and staff decided the criteria for awarding contracts. It was agreed they would not simply choose the cheapest contract. Factors such as the standard of workmanship, how the contractors conduct themselves and their relationship with tenants would play just as big a role in deciding who was appointed.  Most importantly tenants wanted contractors to spell out the social inclusion benefits that would be delivered i.e. the creation of new local jobs and training opportunities.

Tenant involvement at a strategic level, influenced the ‘quality to price’ evaluation ratio with a target set at 50:50, with a high emphasis on the qualitative element of the contract. Tenants also set a minimum target of 15% of total labour be recruited from local communities.

Impact

  • Contractors and local suppliers delivered more than £25 million worth of improvements, creating a total of 89 new, local jobs and training places, 55 of those recruited were previously unemployed
  • The original 15% target for new local entrants to contracts has been surpassed and currently stands at around 29%
  • Helped support and sustain local businesses and supply chain partners. PTS expanded their facility at Treforest. Jasonic and Swanson-McKay opened two new local outlets in Taffs Well. Llantrisant based supply chain partner Sigma3 recruited four local people to their kitchen production line
  • In September 2010 RCT Homes moved quickly to save the jobs of 20 local employees from the defunct housing maintenance company Connaught Partnerships and absorbed into their own workforce. RCT Homes also safeguarded jobs of associated local sub-contractors and suppliers on the major works programme by entering into specific contractual relationships with them
  • RCT Homes provided local apprenticeships and training opportunities targeting young people not in education, employment or training (NEET)
  • Worked with the local Job Match programme, 23% of the new jobs created were via Job Match

See also

Download the Wales Awards for Excellence case study book

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