Date: 7th of December 2021
Time: 10:35am to 12:00pm
Venue: Storey Hall, RMIT
Session Type: Panel
Participants: Sue Boyce (AbilityWorks), Dr Warren Staples (University of Melbourne), Paul Ashby (Aurecon, waiting for his confirmation), Dr Joanne Meehan (University of Liverpool, UK) and Sebastian Conley (Transurban)

The panel will be moderated by Dr Kevin Argus (RMIT) and Dr. Natalya Turkina.

 Sue Boyce

CEO
Ability Works Australia

Ability Works is a not for profit social enterprise employing 195 people and with a social mission to “Provide purpose, pride and belonging through inclusive employment”.

Sue Boyce’s experience spans 10 years in public health roles which included 2 years as a nutritionist with the UNHCR in Quetta, Pakistan; 25 years with commercial organisations such as Nestle & Merck in Business Development and Business Management and co-founder and Managing Director, of TMG, an integrated marketing services firm built from a greenfields operation to a $20 million turnover.  Prior to being CEO at Ability Works, Sue was General Manager, for Fundraising & Community Engagement at a prominent Australian mental health organisation beyondblue. 

Topic: “Beyond ‘Box-Ticking’: Institutional Challenges and Opportunities for Australian Social Procurement”.

Synopsis: The COVID-19 crisis has significantly hit Australia, bringing in the first economic recession since the 1990s along high un- and under-employment rates, especially amongst the vulnerable, disadvantaged, or marginalised groups of people (e.g., women and youth at risk, refugees and migrants, people with disabilities, indigenous people). To recover from this crisis, the Victorian Government has prioritised social procurement as a promising strategy for creating meaningful long-term employment. Social procurement is a framework for organisations to use their buying power to generate social value for local communities above and beyond the economic value of goods or services being purchased. This can be achieved via direct procurement from social enterprises or by including social impact or employment assessment in the tender requirements. However, Australian firms tend to take a short-term ‘box-ticking’ approach to social procurement by merely complying to minimum contractual requirements instead of creating meaningful long-term business and employment opportunities in the local communities. During this Panel discussion, we will discuss what institutional (i.e., political, cultural, financial) challenges inform such a ‘box-ticking’ approach and what institutional opportunities lie ahead of Australian social procurement.