Procurement category: Maintenance and restoration of heritage

Social impacts targeted: Training and employment of people distant from the labour market

Relevant EU legislation/policy/guidance: Articles 20, 46 and 70 of Directive 2014/24/EU

Image of an orange crane with a worker on it doing maintenance work on a building with bricks. — IGO-w (Holsbeek)

Background

Flemish Brabant is the smallest and youngest province of the Flemish Region, one of the three regions of Belgium. Its capital is Leuven, it consists of 65 municipalities and has a population of about 1,173,000 (2022 data). For several years, the Province of Flemish Brabant has used the procurement of its monument conservation services to provide people distant from the labour market with training, sustainable employment and guidance opportunities.

The Province has a Real Estate Heritage Policy, whose focus is on preventive maintenance and repairing possible damage to its valuable, unprotected immovable heritage. In this way, major works can be avoided as long as possible. These preventive works are often small-scale and labour-intensive.

The contracting authority decided to use a reservation for this procurement. Social economy entities are usually well equipped to carry out such works. The Province had also experienced that it was often difficult to find contractors from conventional businesses to deliver these small-scale maintenance and restoration services.

Procurement objectives

By means of this procurement procedure, the Heritage Department of the Province of Flemish Brabant sought to hire teams to carry out maintenance and restoration work on valuable, non-protected immovable heritage with a public function, located in its territory. These services include both precautionary measures and urgent maintenance work on heritage.

This contract was concluded in the form of framework agreements. Public entities that can request services from these framework agreements are municipalities, church administration, Autonomous Municipal Companies and Autonomous Province Companies, social housing companies, educational and care institutions; and finally, non-profit organisations can also be eligible, provided that their main objective, enshrined in their statutes, is the management of real estate and that they have been entrusted with management of real estate for a period of at least five years. Examples of eligible works under this contract are listed below:

Concerning buildings:
- Precautionary measures to improve accessibility (e.g. sealing galleries, scaffold holes and other openings; trapping pigeons; careful removal of plant growth; cleaning of towers, attics, stairwells, cellars; repair and installation of walkways, ladders, stairs lighting, etc.
- Urgent works providing a temporary solution, such as provisional sealing of openings in windows, in case of roof damage to keep animals and moisture out; provisional scaffolding works.
- Local repairs of limited scope and regular maintenance, such as: replacing drains and repairing parts of rainwater drains; replacing broken glass; repairing or replacing locally eroded or degraded materials or parts, such as repairing wall work, indented bearing or wall slab, connecting dikes, floors, cobblestones, roof and exterior joinery; control of mould and insect infestations in simple wooden objects and structures.
- Preparatory and post-monitoring works and repair and maintenance works.
Specific to small historical heritage: carrying out repair and conservation work (roof construction, rainwater drainage, wall work, stability, etc.).
Specific to archaeological heritage (removal of woody storage to prevent afforestation; mowing ground cover with light equipment, such as a brush cutter, and subsequent removal of clippings; sealing of molehills and rabbit holes; removal of wood and leaf litter and storage from dry canals, without (stirring) the solid soil; consolidation of wall remains).

The contribution paid by the Province for each assignment within this framework contract is of maximum 5,000 EUR excluding VAT. If the cost for the service required exceeds this amount, the contractors will issue an invoice about the additional costs to the public authority that has requested the service.

Tender requirements

The contracting authority opted for a reservation of the contract in accordance with Article 15 of the Belgian Law on Public Procurement of June 17, 2016, which transposed Article 20 of Directive 2014/24/EU. The bidder had to meet two cumulative conditions:

Be an enterprise as defined in Article 15 of the Law on Public Procurement of June 17, 2016, i.e., a social workshop or an enterprise whose purpose is the social and professional integration of persons with disabilities or disadvantaged workers.
Have a workforce that consists of at least 30% of persons with disabilities or disadvantaged workers. For example, the following may be considered disadvantaged workers:
- Job seekers who are difficult to employ due to their age (e.g., younger than 24 years or older than 50 years);
- Job seekers who are difficult to place;
- Members of disadvantaged minorities; and
- Members of socially marginalized groups.

Bidders had to demonstrate compliance with the above conditions by including the following documents and information in their offer:

A document from the competent authority, showing that the bidder's organization is officially recognized as a social economy enterprise as described above under point 1 or equivalent; and
If the recognition presented does not show that the organization's workforce consists of at least 30% persons with disabilities or disadvantaged workers: a description of the workforce of the organization, indicating: - the total number of employees employed; - the number of employees with disabilities employed; and - the number of disadvantaged employees employed.
If the recognition does not prove that the 30% condition is met, the bidder must include with their offer documents from the competent governmental authority(s), attesting the profile of the specified employees with disabilities and/or disadvantaged workers (e.g., certificate from the public employment service -VDAB, from the Directorate General for Persons with Disabilities, from a recognized psychiatric facility, etc., showing that these employees meet the specific profile).
In case the bidder is not a company from the social economy, they can still participate in the contract by demonstrating in their offer that at least 30% of the employees involved are disadvantaged or have disabilities. The bidder must also demonstrate how they will continue to meet this condition throughout the duration of the contract.

To facilitate access to social economy entities which are usually of small size and locally rooted, the Province of Flemish Brabant combined a reservation with division of the contract into two lots, coinciding with the territorial areas of the districts of Halle-Vilvoorde (lot 1) and of Leuven (lot 2).

Tender documents also included the following contract performance conditions:

Tenderers had to undertake to comply with the standards stipulated in the basic conventions of the International Labour Organisation (ILO) and to declare that the wage conditions it applies are in line with collective agreements applicable to the sector.
Tenderers (and their subcontractors) had to undertake to invest in the continuous improvement of internal business processes in terms of human resources management during the course of the contract.
Tenderers had to commit to respect the non-discrimination clause throughout the performance of the contract and to declare that the organisation:
- does not tolerate any form of discrimination based on gender, nationality, so-called race, colour, descent, national or ethnic origin, age, sexual orientation, marital status, birth, wealth, religion or belief, political opinion, language, current or future health condition, disability, physical or genetic characteristic or social origin;
- commits to being accessible to all;
- undertakes to prevent any discriminatory behaviour in the workplace and, if necessary, to combat and punish it;
- complies with the laws and regulations that promote and defend the application of non-discrimination and equal opportunities;
- also undertakes to bring this code to the attention of its subcontractors and to ensure that they too comply with it in the contribution they make to the performance of this contract.

Failure to respect the non-discrimination clause can lead to the unilateral termination of the contract.

Results

The contracting authority concluded two framework agreements of the duration of four years with two social enterprises. The framework agreement for lot 1 was concluded with 3W Plus, a social enterprise active around Brussels in the 35 municipalities of the district of Halle-Vilvoorde, which provides childcare services, work integration services in the maintenance and facility sector, and services linked to affordable, good quality and energy-efficient housing for all.

The framework agreement for lot 2 was signed with Igo-W, a social enterprise which offers, among others, activation tools for people with a large distance to the labour market, by means of neighborhood works.

Social impacts

The four year durations of the framework agreements give the social economy entities that won the contract the prospect of a long-term period within which service orders can be received. This offers people at a distance to the labour market the opportunity to strengthen their skills and experience, which can reinforce their self-esteem. The assignments they carry out are adapted to their abilities, are varied and the work experience gained can lower the barrier to the mainstream labor market.

The contracting authority deems that using a reserved contract was the right choice, because monument conservation activities, which are often labor intensive and of small-scale, are more suitable to entities of the social economy rather than conventional businesses. The services provided with this contract take place only in buildings owned or managed by public authorities, where there is/should be support for social employment. The positive outcomes of this tendering procedure are already encouraging other contracting authorities to launch similar reserved tenders.

Lessons learned

The execution of the works is monitored by a provincial monument watcher, at the start, during and/or at the end. The follow-up often consists of advice, adjustment, etc. After completion of the work, the executor provides photos of the work.

In the performance of the contract, the most difficult aspect remains the respect of the proposed delivery times, which is influenced by the availability of people, their skills, weather conditions, and which is regularly not met.

Main recommendations:

Set requirements for good and permanent supervision of the workers' teams to guarantee continuity in guidance and quality.
Inform the public entity for which the works have to be carried out to make sure that they are open to working with people with disabilities.
Give the employees of social enterprises every opportunity to develop further by learning new practices and showing them appreciation.

More information

Province of Flemish Brabant, Department of Heritage, Team for heritage maintenance.