Putting the 'Local' into Social Value

I like to think everyone agrees that at the core of Social Value is trying to achieve impact. Across every opportunity, we want to make a tangible impact in a local area, and we do this through how we work, who we work with, and what we deliver.

From this jumping off point, the questions come thick and fast: Who pays for it? How do you know you’ve delivered it? What methodology are you using? How do you know it has an impact? How do you ensure you aren’t double counting? Is this contractual additionally, or conflating central ESG initiatives?

Plenty can be written on all of these topics, but often, in the fast world of bidding, the core question can often be missed: “Why are we doing this?”

Why are we proposing what we are proposing? How do we know it's what's needed in the area? How do we know it will achieve impact?

This is exactly the conversation we had with a new Bid Manager here in QinetiQ…

A dream scenario is a leisurely 12-month capture period – plenty of time to visit the local area, conduct listening exercises, build relationships to build a meaningful needs analysis. Or a deep budget for a fantastic team of researchers to conduct this on your behalf.

Whilst we all love a dream, the reality is often far from that. Tight timelines and budget are the norm for all of us. So, in this situation, how do you ensure you are clear on your why behind your interventions?

A practical guide to establishing local barriers

Time is short. The word count is even shorter. You have been asked to deliver meaningful social value in an area you have no knowledge of. You don’t know where to start. What should you do?

There are plenty of ways to go, and this is by no means an exhaustive list, but our top three places to start are:

1. Start with the data

Data is your friend. It paints a great overall picture of an area, the barriers and the opportunities.

The Office for National Statistics is always our starting point to understand a new area, alongside an IMD Map (Index of Multiple Deprivation). These give us a good sense of an area – we can see broad trends and pockets of inequality, and we can start picking up the correlations between the sets.

Figure 1 IMD Map of Birmingham; helping to target local areas

When working with the UK Government Social Value Model, depending on Model Award Criteria (MAC) area, we then look at a more targeted data set – a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment (JSNA) can give a strong overview of the local barriers covering multiple MACs, POLAR4 data shows progression rates to Higher Education Institutes (HEIs) for MAC 2.2 or 2.3, or look at health inequalities dashboards in the case of MAC 7.2 or 8.2

Figure 2 JSNA Dashboard for Birmingham; to identify local barriers

And if you're feeling brave, AI can provide some brilliant summaries on the data available for a particular geography – just be careful to check your sources!

2. Check out the Local Strategy

Everyone loves a strategy document, and these can be really insightful to understand local drivers, barriers and plans for the next 5-15 years. Typically, we would start by reviewing:

Local Area Growth Strategy – for example, the WMCA
LEP Skills Strategy – for example, Leicester and Leicestershire
Local Green Strategies – for example, a local Integrated Care System in Leicestershire or Nottingham
Regional Social Value Strategies - for example, the Greater Manchester strategy

Figure 3 Example of Leicestershire ICS Green Plan:

This will give you a flavour of what people based in the area are doing and what they are trying to achieve, so you can consider how you are best placed to support and accelerate.

3. Speak to people

The most important aspect to any meaningful social value is engaging with stakeholders (no.1 principle with Social Value UK)

"How do we do that?" we are often asked – "we’re not based in the area", "we don’t have contacts", "I don’t know where to begin"!

Pick up the phone!

Search for local VCSEs and speak to them about the barriers they face? What are they hearing from their local community? What can you help with?

Speak to the local Careers and Enterprise Company. What are they trying to impact in the area? And what are the local faith or volunteering groups doing?

Follow these three steps and within a day you’ll have been able to get a sense of what the largest barriers are within the area. This starting point will ensure you ground all of your social value offering in local need, and then keep the end recipients of your offering at the heart of your plans as you move forward.

Article written by Ben Tucker, Social Value Manager at QinetiQ and Emma Bell, Social Value Work Winning Lead at QinetiQ

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