In true Christmas Carol style, our (g)host, Angela Benson, set the scene. We aimed to cover some of the main principles of social value to enhance your understanding of social value so you can have better dialogue and craft better answers. We also wanted to gather feedback for our constant quest to inform policymakers and commercial teams on the suppliers’ perspective and help improve the end-to-end procurement process.
A quick poll of the 30-strong audience showed about 85% had experience with social value, and only about 15% were new to the subject, but we had catered for everyone in our canter through social value past, present and future.
Carole Davey stepped up to present social value past. She recapped the rise of social value and its relationship to CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) or ESG (Environment, Social and Governance) policies using the following diagram:
Using Mentimeter, we asked the audience to share key learning points from the past three years, which produced our first word cloud:
Our word cloud highlighted that people had learnt the importance of making social value local and contract-specific and that social value means nothing if you can't measure and report on it. They had also learnt that senior-level buy-in is crucial and that social value commitments must be practical and deliverable. On the downside, poor buyer understanding and procurement practices were also aspects our audience had learnt about – more on that later.
Carole concluded her session with three tips from us, which concurred with our feedback. We felt the top three learning points for us over the past three years had been (i) getting the whole company on board, (ii) how customer research can help inform a great social value strategy for each bid and (iii) additional, contract-specific commitments will make you stand out – never rely on corporate initiatives.
Social Value Present
Receiving the baton from Carole, Isabel Moritz talked us through current best practice in responding to social value questions. The key is to treat them like any other question in the bid – build on any capture work completed by sales before the tender arrived; read, understand and clarify the question and evaluation; work out your strategy, contract-specific commitments and metrics; plan your content; write a clear, concise response showing accountability; review and approve the response; and remember to run lessons learnt sessions internally and externally so you can refine continuously improve your approach.
We then set the audience an exercise to share their experiences across the procurement lifecycle:
We then set the audience an exercise to share their experiences across the procurement lifecycle:
The feedback was that dialogue with buyers is variable and depends on the buyer and the bid. No one reported experience of social value being on the capture agenda, and we heard that delivery teams designing solutions don't focus on social value. Everyone acknowledged that more pre-tender engagement is an absolute must on all sides.
Carbon reduction, employment and equality, diversity and inclusion were mentioned as common question themes. Sadly, there were reports of irrelevant and disproportionate questions, with people feeling that questions were just picked from a list at random.
Qualitative and quantitative evaluation methods were mentioned, noting that certain models and tools are not highly regarded. There was a particular concern about quantitative evaluation disadvantaging small- and medium-sized enterprises where the highest value gets the highest score.
Great answers rely on SMART (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and timely), contract-specific commitments that relate directly to the customer's needs and wants. However, this can sometimes be tricky to achieve. Including clear metrics and evidence to boost delivery credibility were also cited as important factors in a great response.
The main challenges reported were the constant complaint about tight space constraints especially when the response must include a timed action plan.
We found further evidence of social value not becoming part of the contract – a constant refrain. Delivery teams are not including it in their project management plans, and customers are not chasing impact reports. At the same time, customers are not always collaborative or cooperative in supporting suppliers to deliver their commitments.
Almost a year on from our last survey, based on this audience, it appears not much has changed – social value is still a mixed picture with pockets of good, but some distinct areas that are a bit challenging.
The end of Isabel's audience participation activity segued neatly into Sarah Hinchliffe exploring what the future might hold for us all. Sarah summarised five areas:
Finally, we asked our audience to share their hopes and fears for social value future, which produced our second word cloud:
Many of the themes from our first word cloud were echoed here, which makes perfect sense - our current challenges become our hopes for the future – but it was good to see a crisp, positive set of themes shining through.
Wrapping it all up
Handing back to our (g)host, Angela wrapped up the session with our list of dos and don'ts.
And remember, there are these resources available to you, which we will add to in 2025:
Finally, let us know if there's anything you'd like us to focus on in our programme for next year.