TBO24 Revisited: Social Value Past, Present and Future

In our last blog for 2024, the APMP UK Social Value Group revisits its session at the annual conference, including the in-session feedback.

Setting the scene

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.

Social Value Past

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:

  • Pre-tender engagement: We asked what conversations they are having with clients and prospects during capture. 

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. 

  • Tender questions: We prompted the audience to discuss what sorts of questions they are getting, whether they are relevant and proportionate and whether they are scored quantitatively, qualitatively or both. 

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.

  • Answering the questions: We were keen to hear how people create great answers and what challenges they face. 

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. 

  • Post-award: For those lucky winners, we wanted to know whether and how they are monitoring, measuring and reporting on their social value commitments and whether they are finding customers collaborative. 

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.

Social Value Future

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:

  • Government policy: Although the new Procurement Act is silent on social value, it does encourage more pre-tender market engagement and changes evaluation from MEAT (most economically advantageous tender to most advantageous tender)  to MAT. Combined with publishable Key Performance Indicators for contracts over £5m and an emphasis on sustainability, we have the basis for some impactful change. The key to how matters will change will lie in the new National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS), which is being re-drafted by the Labour Government. We know that social value was one of four topics in the recent public consultation. 
  • Private sector adoption: Social value is often coupled with the public sector, whereas ESG tends to be more of a private sector topic. However, we know from APMP members and external sources that the private sector is quickly catching onto social value and looking to the public sector for best practices. In particular, we have heard of moves by some private sector buyers to make social value contract-specific rather than an assessment of corporate good.
  • Continuous education: We know that training and support for central and local government commercial officers is ongoing. We urge this to continue as key social value principles and procurement guidance continue to be ignored in places. We reminded the audience that they can all help by improving their knowledge of social value, having early conversations with buyers, asking intelligent questions, pushing back on bad practices and sharing successes.
  • Measuring social value: On the back of publishing our "How To Approach Social Value Measurement" guide, we shared concerns about the proliferation of models, tools, frameworks and standards. This creates confusion and extra work, not to mention generating significant profit out of social value. We would welcome more standardisation, albeit not at the expense of flexibility and creativity for buyers and suppliers. And we would love to see more focus on impact and less on inputs and outputs, but we see evidence that the more innovative suppliers are progressing in this area. 
  • Cost: We wondered if the cost of social value will become too high. As companies are held to account for delivering social value, they will need to account for the costs of bidding and delivering, which will start to bite the bottom line. If the financial going gets tough and something has to give, it may be that social value is one of the first things to bite the dust.

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:

  • The other blogs on this page.
  • The APMP Community Area for How To guides and other collateral
  • Our LinkedIn Group is for APMP members to discuss and share useful articles.
  • Our LinkedIn Page for details on events.
  • Webinars and, new for 2025, a dedicated BIDx Roadshow.

Finally, let us know if there's anything you'd like us to focus on in our programme for next year. 

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