From price to value in public procurement?a proposalusing Social Accounting

Resumen

Public procurement represents around 15% of the GDP and has gained moreimportance due to the extraordinary funds allocated to face the pandemic situation.The evolution of the legislation has favoured the introduction of criteria linked withsustainability and procurement is mentioned specifically in an increasing number oflegislations as a tool to implement them. However, there is not yet a consistentliterature that delves into the impacts of the public expenditures in terms that couldbe linked with sustainable development. The value created by the publicadministration has not been measured and more deep analysis are needed. This studyaims to propose a theoretical model, based on Social Accounting, to set the bases to thedetermination of social value achieve the execution of public contracts. In addition, itsets a system of indicator that could be used to achieve quantitative results in social,economic, and environmental aspects affected by the actions of the contractor.Practical results are shown for 10 contracts executed by socialentities in the Canary Islands. The findings could be an important tool to improvepublic policies evaluations and to link local and national strategies devoted tosustainable development and public procurement