WHERE
Primavera Nuova is a type B social co-operative dealing with employment opportunities, located in the north of the province of Vicenza. It is operating mainly in the town of Schio. The co-operative’s staff members are hired by private customers to take care of private green areas with maintenance and gardening work assignments. These assignments allow the company’s disadvantaged employees to develop a professional curriculum.
The co-operative also runs a social-educational centre for minors that the local health-care department recommends through its service for the protection of minors and infant neural-psychiatry. Moreover, it promotes educational actions at home for families and young adults with social difficulties, organises and runs teaching laboratories (art & crafts, theatre) in some elementary schools and organises and runs the summer recreational centres for the municipality of Marano Vicentino.
The co-operative’s main business area is the maintenance of local green areas for the public administration. A distinctive mark of the co-operative is the role of the social welfare assistant, who deals with all employment opportunities and takes care of the management of all the internal services and the contacts with the welfare services involved.
The co-operative has 18 members and 8 non-members, of whom 5 are disadvantaged and 3 non-disdadvantaged. The annual turnover is 700,000 euros.
WHY
The co-operative has needed better co-ordination and co-operation in the field for mutual benefit. This need concerns the main business area (maintenance of local green areas) but also work within employment opportunities for the disabled.
HOW
Primavera Nuova has chosen to establish a collaborative approach with other local co-operative companies. In 1994 the co-operative joined the Prisma Consortium in Vicenza. The main work is done in two committees.
Green Area Committee
The municipalities assign work through public procurement tenders. The Prisma Consortium participates in tendering as a representative of its members.
The Green Area Committee coordinates the co-operation. Its members are the people in charge of the green areas maintenance of the various co-operatives. The committee divides the work opportunities according to the needs and possibilities each organisation expresses. The committee also activates technical training plans for the staff. In this committee the co-operatives have a chance to establish positive relations and work in a non-competitive framework with other co-operatives working in the green areas maintenance.
The Prisma Consortium includes also other local organisations dealing with gardening and green areas maintenance, such as a number of small-sized companies.
Choosing the Prisma Consortium turned out to be a winning choice for Primavera Nuova, especially with regard to the acquisition of work, as the consortium divides the assignments among its members, according to each member’s possibilities.
The Green Areas Committee has also enabled its members to align their prices, to acquire important work assignments, to activate training plans for the staff, to avoid competition and to share their competencies. This, however, does not mean that there are not any other competitors (private gardening companies), but it helps keep the competitive situation under control.
Agency for Employment Opportunities
The Consortium has also established an Agency for Employment Opportunities, whose main goal is to promote the connections between the public institutions that identify the disadvantaged people who need a job or some professional training, and the co-operatives that can possibly help these people. In collaboration with the local trade unions, the Prisma Consortium is also trying to build a strategy to promote improvements in co-operation with public administration, public welfare associations and nursing homes, so as to keep the quality of the services on a satisfactory level.
Experiences and future plans
The membership in the Prisma Consortium and the good relations and support from the local public administration are critical success factors for the co-operative.
In the future, the co-operative will consolidate its relations with the local public administration by promoting a direct agreement strategy: this strategy would enable both parties to skip the procurement tender procedure for assignments below the European standard amount of 200,000.00 euros and save time and resources.
Enclosure: Full Primavera Nuova case study as PDF
For more information:
Primavera Nuova, Via Lago di Tovel, 16 – Schio, Italy; researchers: Silvia Cariolato, scariolato(at)cuoa.it, tel. +39 444 333849; Giuliana Corrado, gcorrado(at)cuoa.it, tel. +39 444 333838