Management of financial responsibility

Key aspects of financial responsibility include the monitoring of contract suppliers’ financial operating abilities, fighting the grey economy, and ensuring that Hansel itself operates responsibly financially.

At Hansel, the existence of grounds for excluding a tenderer, as well as the meeting of the suitability requirements, is always checked during the tendering process, before a contract is signed. Some of the points to be checked, such as whether the supplier candidate has committed certain crimes, can lead to automatic exclusion, while some are discretionary suitability requirements related to the object of acquisition.

In the Hanki service for electronic tendering processes, the ESPD form, European Single Procurement Document, has been integrated into the process, and, apart from criminal records, information from authorities are received in the system automatically.

The monitoring of contract suppliers’ financial responsibility during the contract period is bought by Hansel as a monitoring service. Hansel has specified certain indicators, any changes in which the company is alerted to. These indicators include the following:

• change in the company name
• change in the company status
• change in the company form
• notice of the rectification regarding the removal of a non-payment entry because of payment
• notice of a new non-payment entry or the removal of an old one
• addition to a non-payment entry
• changes to the prepayment register
• loss of share capital
• change in risk category
• reorganisation activities, such as a merger

Hansel’s financial unit is informed of changes to any of these indicators. If an expert in the financial unit deems the matter important, the financial unit then conveys the information to the category. The category decides on any further actions and consults a company lawyer or the Chief Category Officer, if necessary.

The monitoring service has functioned well, and Hansel has been able to anticipate suppliers’ financial problems and other issues. Currently, the monitoring service includes 413 companies, all of Hansel’s Finnish contract suppliers among these.

Hansel monitors the implementation of the Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability when Work is Contracted Out as applicable. The purpose of the Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability when Work is Contracted Out is to promote equal competition between companies, ensure that conditions of employment are met and help communities governed by public law to make sure that the companies they sign contracts with regarding temporary agency workers or subcontracting fulfil their legal obligations as employers and parties to a contract. According to the Act on the Contractor’s Obligations and Liability when Work is Contracted Out, the customer is obliged to determine the financial responsibility of the other contracting party during the procurement process.

Hansel has determined the framework agreements governed by the law, for which Hansel performs the required checks. The actual checking process is partly bought as a service from Suomen Tilaajavastuu Oy, while Hansel performs some of the checks itself by asking the suppliers directly. Hansel’s online service includes a mention that for certain framework agreements, Hansel performs the checks on behalf of its customers. This additional service is appreciated by customers, and the number of contracts to be monitored has been increased gradually. In 2017, monitoring was performed on 16 framework agreements and 219 companies, of which 52 were contract suppliers and the rest subcontractors for these suppliers.

Hansel’s own responsible operations include management of finances in accordance with established financial processes.