OPTIMIZE YOUR. Optimize your building project

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1 Optimize your building project This folder shows how to realise the full social potential of your building project. You will find materials on how to estaish a partnership, including step-by-step instructions on what to include in a tender and a template for an agreement paper. You can also read about successful experiences of other housing organizations. By estaishing partnerships you can help to create internships and other forms of jobs and training for local residents. The effects of youth unemployment and youth without contact with the labour market can be felt greatly both locally and in society. Unemployment and difficulty with finding internships as carpenters, masons or painters greatly affects the residents of social housing areas. A social initiative can help to ensure a higher degree of resident involvement and ownership to the building project. This can help prevent and limit vandalism and theft at the building site, promote dialogue between residents and those working on the building project, and create positive results and stories to the benefit of residents, workers and yourself. BL has signed a partnership agreement with The Danish Construction Association on the estaishment of internships and other training and employment initiatives. ril@.dk or by telephone

2 Voluntary partnerships give a local boost BL recommends that you estaish a voluntary partnership agreement with the contractor instead of using social clauses (in connection with a tender). A partnership can focus on the specific housing area where the project is located and can target its efforts towards the area s residents without violating e.g. legal discrimination provisions. The legal basis for housing organizations use of social clauses remains unclear; however, partnerships are not subject to the same legal framework as social clauses and can provide an excellent alternative. This means that partnerships agreement can also be used by housing organizations in other countries that do not fall under EU puic procurement rules. BL has formulated a text that you can incorporate into your tender. The text suggests that you and the contractor estaish a voluntary agreement. The text also includes a condition for the contractor to discuss the social efforts after the contract is signed. This ensures that the contractor is prepared for the partnership. ril@.dk or by telephone

3 Voluntary partnership step-by-step 1. SEE THE POTENTIAL You have to see the possibilities and pass this on. Willingness too motivate and collaborate with the building project s contractor on creating internships and other forms of jobs and training for local residents, is a must. 2. MAKE THE DECISION The initiative must be accepted and anchored with the employee(s) in the housing organization involved in the project. Appoint a person in charge of the initiative to ensure its realisation. 3. ESTABLISH A GROUP Estaish a project group comprising the stakeholders who will play a role in the initiative. This includes for example the business school and job centre, as well as other relevant local stakeholders. 4. PREPARE THE CONSULTANT The consultant must be aware of your wish to estaish internships and other forms of jobs and training opportunities in connection with the project. 5. TEXT IN TENDER Write a text about the initiative in your tender documents to ensure the contractor knows that you plan to work on this initiative when the contract is signed. 6. MEET WITH CONTRACTOR Once the contract is signed, set up a meeting with the contractor and encourage the contractor to collaborate on the initiative. 7. MEEt WITH SUBCONTRACTORS Invite subcontractors are invited to a meeting. The goal is to ensure that all subcontractors are informed and agree to participate. The business school and job centre and other relevant stakeholders should also participate. 8. MAKE COMMITMENTS Make sure to estaish a partnership where you and the contractors mutually commit. You can choose to sign a partnership agreement describing your common goals and how you intend to achieve them. 9. FOLLOW UP Be sure to follow-up and maintain focus on the initiative throughout the phase. Once you have chosen to prioritise the initiative, you must also ensure that it leads to tangie results and successes. 10. TALK ABOUT THE SUCCESS Tell others about your good results. This will benefit your own organization, the contractors and the local residents. ril@.dk or by telephone

4 Motivate the contractors Meet all subcontracts to discuss the partnership agreement when all relevant contracts are signed. All contractors working on the project are invited to this meeting, as well as a representative of the business school, a representative of the job centre, the housing area s social housing consultant and other relevant local stakeholders. The host of the meeting is the housing organization s coordinator (project manager / building manager / technical manager) for the social initiative. THE OBJECTIVE IS: 1. To motivate the contractor to actively participate in realising the social initiative. 2. To ensure that the meeting results in an agreement that sets aims and success criteria for the social initiative. SUGGESTIONS FOR THE MEETING AGENDA Background and the developer s wishes / coordinator The developer gives a motivational presentation that makes it clear why and how job and training opportunities should be part of the project. Presentation of the business school / internship consultant from the business school What role does the business school play and what are the opportunities for flexie internship agreements tailormade for the building project? Presentation of job centre / by job consultant What role does the job centre play and what are the opportunities for employment initiatives in cooperation with the job centre? Potential in the building project / all participants What are the opportunities for creating jobs and training initiatives in connection with the coonstruction project? Brainstorming and input from all meeting participants. Objective / all participants Discussion of the specific objectives of the initiative. What are the various interests of the participator? What are the advantages of the initiative? What do you want to achieve together? Success criteria / all participants Discussion on the specific success criteria for the initiative. What tangie results should be achieved by the initiative? For example: x-number of interns, y-number of jobs with wage subsidy, z-number of pocket money jobs, etc. Division of tasks and process / coordinator Who is doing what and how will we follow up and conduct assessments? Summary and next steps / coordinator What did we agree and what is going to happen now? The coordinator writes a summary of the meeting. The summary can provide a base for the partnershp agreement. See the agreement-checklist on the next page.

5 Agreement checklist If your social initiatives is to succeed, you must work to estaish a partnership in which you and the contractor mutually commit. You can write an agreement paper or sign a partnership agreement; both of these describe your common objectives, success criteria, division of tasks and processes for follow up and assessment. p Objective of the initiative What is the specific objective of the initiative? What are your different interests? What are the advantages of the initiative? What do you want to achieve together? p Success criteria What are the specific success criteria for the initiative? What tangie results should be achieved by the initiative? For example: X-number of interns, y-number of jobs with wage subsidy, z-number of pocket money jobs, etc. p Distribution of responsibilities Who is responsie for what? p Follow up When and how will you follow up? p Assessment How will you assess whether the success criteria were reached? How will you make your results visie? Enhance the visibility of your joint efforts by inviting residents and workers to meet for a toast to the signing of the agreement. You could also invite the mayor to attend or arrange a football match between residents and workers. ril@.dk or by telephone

6 The legal framework for using social clauses BL recommends that you estaish a voluntary partnership with the contractor instead of using social clauses in your tender, as tenders have to comply with five basic conditions: objectivity, non-discrimination, openness and transparency, proportionality and own country. Two conditions in particular are difficult to meet when using social clauses in the social housing sector. The first is objectivity. The contract conditions must be objectively justified. There are many good arguments relating to social housing for requiring internships. However, according to the condition on non-discrimination, it is not permitted to require that the interns reside in a social housing area or even in Denmark, according to the condition on non-discrimination. Thus it is far from certain that a housing organization has an objective base for promoting employment in this way. In the case of municipalities, the requirement of internships is considered objective because a municipality is responsie for employment. The second is non-discrimination. A clause must not have a direct or indirecy discriminatory impact on bidders from other member states. This means that you may not make conditions that can only be met by bidders who are based or operate in Denmark, or which would be more difficult for foreign bidders to meet. For example it would violate the equality principle to refer to certain Danish educational programmes or certain Danish housing areas. A requirement for interns must be formulated in terms that are general enough to be met by educational programmes and interns in all member states. In addition, it remains unclear how social clauses relate to legislation governing social housing, including the rules on side activities in the Danish Social Housing Act. The activities that housing organizations in Denmark can engage in are regulated by law. Furthermore it is not clear whether social clauses can be equated with a social housing initiative. This must be seen in light of the fact that the social clauses cannot be targeted to residents of the social housing areas. ril@.dk or by telephone

7 We can help you Estaishing voluntary partnerships with a contractor in connection with a project is a new task for many housing organizations. Therefore, many questions arise: Where do we begin if we want to exploit the social potential in our project? What can we write in our tender documents? What can we reasonay expect of the contractor? What specific training and employment opportunities are availae in the given building project? What is an internship? How do we estaish a partnership with the business school and job centre? Website On BL s website, you can find answers to many of your questions. You will find step-by-step instructions for estaishing voluntary partnerships with contractors. You will also find information about the legal basis for working with voluntary partnerships and see which housing organizations are already working to estaish voluntary partnerships in connection with their projects. Hotline Rikke Lønne at ril@.dk or by telephone ril@.dk or by telephone

8 Voluntary partnership agreements in tenders BL has developed a text that can be incorporated into tenders when you want to estaish a voluntary partnership with the contractor on internships and other social initiatives. The text must be incorporated into the tender notice, the project description and the final contract. The tender text involves a voluntary agreement that requires the contractor to participate in a meeting on creating internships after the contract is signed. Voluntary partnership on internships BL Federation of Social Housing in Denmark and The Danish Construction Association has signed a partnership agreement on the estaishment of internships and other training and employment initiatives for residents of social housing organizations during and renovation projects in social housing areas. See the attached agreement. [Agreement between BL and The Danish Construction Association included as an attachment] [The constructing housing organization XX] would like to estaish a partnership with the winning contractor. Therefore, within YY weeks of concluding the contract, the contractor is to participate in an introductory meeting with the developer to discuss the possibilities for estaishing internships and temporary job functions in connection with the contract. Upon conclusion of an agreement with the developer on estaishing internships and temporary job functions, a common objective will be determined for the initiative, including how to organize the initiative, follow-up processes and assessment. The ability to estaish internships and temporary job functions in connection with the contract is not an element of the selection or award criteria during the tender. Therefore it will not be part of the assessment of the contractor s bid.