Scedu Tender Readiness Toolkit

The issue of procurement was particularly important in South Yorkshire as many mainstream funding opportunities were diminishing with the end of the Single Regeneration Budget (SRB) and the European Union's expansion leading to a decrease in Objective 1 Structural funds.

Sheffield City Council approved a report in April 2004 entitled A policy for the expansion of opportunities for social enterprises through public procurement and planning policies which outlined the council's ambition for a mixed economy of provision through procurement: "A thriving social enterprise sector in the city is also a mechanism for bringing excluded groups into the labour market, raising skill levels and increasing future employability, which in turn improves the quality of life for the individuals concerned and their families and helps to secure the sustainability of communities."

The Scedu Tender Readiness Toolkit differed from the likes of the DTI's 2003 report Public procurement: a toolkit for social enterprises, in that it offered a practical solution for social enterprises and voluntary and community organisations to assess their options, benchmark their current status, set development targets, and find contract opportunities.

The Tender Readiness Toolkit won a Tools of the Trade award run by BURA(the British Urban Regeneration Association) in June 2007.

The judges marked the Toolkit against components identified by Sir John Egan as those of a sustainable community.