Integrating Social Value in the Supply Chain
Creating social value is fundamental to our work, as genuine social value is a foundation on which people can build their lives and contribute to thriving communities, so I’m always happy to share our pioneering approach to embedding and maximising social value within our procurement process.
Michelle McSorley
Social Value Director, Wates Residential
As one of the UK’s leading developers, we operate across London, the South of England and Wales, working with public sector partners to build more and better homes. Hence, we have been at the forefront of embedding social value while working with our customers and partners to implement the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 and PPN 06/21 legislation that requires public sector bodies to take account of the broader value to be gained by society when awarding contracts, as well as its ‘explicit’ evaluation.
Embedding social value in projects
We embed social value at every stage of our projects, including the procurement process. At the bid stage we establish the customer’s specific community requirements to develop a tender which is informed by our social value manager, about the most effective community investment strategy for the social and economic demographics of the area. In pre-construction, we develop the Community Investment Plan which will be built into supplier tender packs and contract mandates. During the delivery phase, we will track and evaluate our own and our suppliers’ social value performance, based on the Social Value Portal’s national TOMs framework for measuring and reporting social value.
Supporting the supply chain
Crucially, we support the supply chain throughout the procurement process. At the start of the supplier’s contract our social value manager will offer support to create an action plan detailing each of the supplier’s social value commitments, e.g the number of apprenticeships or hours of training and volunteering to be provided. The supplier is also provided with a tracker to record progress against those commitments, for submission when applying for payment. We also provide training and advice on building capacity to help the supplier meet their social value commitments, including supporting their workforce to benefit by enhancing their skills and knowledge too.
The seven key social value KPIs which the supply chain may be asked to commit to are:
- Providing full-time jobs for local people
- Supporting local economic growth through local spending
- Offering apprenticeships
- Creating work experience placements for local people
- Supporting education and employability activities
- Upskilling the supplier’s existing workforce
- Volunteering in the local community
