Announcement: Social criteria now to be included

All Government procurement contracts for timber products will from 1st April 2010 include social criteria as contract conditions. The announcement was made by The Rt Hn Hilary Benn MP Secretary of State Minister for Environment, food and rural affairs at the Chatham House 15th Illegal Logging Stakeholder Update.

The social requirements clarify that the management of the forest must have full regard for the interests of indigenous peoples, local communities and forest workers. These have now been added to the UK Government Definition for legal and sustainable. The requirements specifically refer to tenure and use rights, means of resolving grievances and disputes, safeguarding the basic labour, and health and safety rights of forest workers as an integral part of the sustainability definition.

The inclusion of social requirements closer aligns the UK Government sustainability definition with the Netherlands, Denmark and Belgium, which already include such criteria.  This also addresses supplier concerns for more consistent timber procurement policies. The UK government sustainability definition, intrinsically links together all three pillars of sustainability; environmental, economic and social.  

In 2006, when the UK Government developed its definition for legality and sustainability, EC public procurement directives were interpreted as not permitting Contracting Authorities to include social criteria as part of the contract specification as they were not sufficiently linked to the subject matter of the contract.

Further investigation has clarified that social criteria can, however, be included in contract conditions.The ‘Timber Procurement Advice Note’, the guidance for public sector procurement professionals, will be revised to take into account these latest amendments.

Following the announcement by Hilary Benn at Chatham House, Sofie Tind Nielsen, CPET’s project manager presented the practicalities of the implementation of the new requirements.  

CPET guidance documents on assessment of evidence of compliance will over the coming months be updated to include social criteria.

The update on Criteria for Evaluating Category A Evidence (May 2006) will also consist of a general update and two new clarifying guidance criteria on ‘conversion; and ‘national level application’. A CPET consultation on the proposed new criteria was launched on the 29th January.

Further details on the upcoming Category A review of the forest certification schemes will be published on the website soon and a CPET Update will inform all contacts. CPET would be grateful for your comments.