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.

 Warren Staples

Lecturer in Social Procurement
Melbourne School of Government
Melbourne Law School at the University of Melbourne

Warren is in currently developing and delivering a series of four Melbourne MicroCertificates on Social Procurement designed to support the implementation and practice of social procurement across government, private sector and for purpose enterprise sectors. 

Warren's research interests focus on public procurement and social procurement, specifically the application of, and assessment of social procurement and value for money criteria by public sector managers on construction and infrastructure projects.  Warren is presently engaged in research on corporate governance, ethical leadership and corporate social responsibility.  Warren is a regular media writer and commentator on corporate governance and business ethics and seeks to inform public debate and policy making on corporate governance reform to make organisations more accountable and responsible.

Warren is currently a member of both the Institute of Public Administration Australia (IPAA) Victoria 'Procurement' and 'Sustainability' Community's of Practice.

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.