Posted 28th March 2024
By Natasha Jolob, Member Services Director
Time to Revisit Contract for Change?
From 2019 to 2022 Social Value UK members co-developed an amazing project called ‘Contract for Change’ – a Thought Leadership Group that looked at how to ‘Position, Plan, Procure, and Provide’ for the creation of greater Social Value by organisations. See here for the great work completed.
Social Value UK also previously collated excellent good practice case studies of social value in commissioning, see here.
The aim was to create a broad ‘principles-led’ approach to social value that could be embedded throughout an organisation from organisational strategy all the way down to detailed commissioning and procurement practices. Significant progress was made and lots of excellent work was undertaken including sourcing best practice in social value in procurement and the development of guidance and tools.
Proposed next steps
As a follow up Social Value UK has been in discussion with members and would like to set up a Partnership Procurement Thought Leadership Group – to provide a space for SVUK’s members to continue to support social value and public sector reform. We would like to draw on the work undertaken by the Contract for Change programme but also start a fresh page.
Hearts and Minds: Commissioning from the Voluntary Sector
The overall aim of the Partnership Procurement Thought Leadership Group will be to support Intelligent Commissioning and the embedding of the principles of social value in public sector commissioning and procurement. SVUK’s expertise and interest is at the interface between the public, private and civil society sectors supporting new ways of working and partnerships. Members from all sectors that are social value practitioners and/ or that bring experience in public sector reform are welcome.
What will it do?
- Develop an open, collaborative, cross sectoral community to share and develop good practice in social value and commissioning and procurement building on previous work undertaken
- Explore the key policy drivers for social value in strategic commissioning, the contradictions and tensions and opportunities available to improve public services
- To produce Social Value UK procurement policy position papers
- Increase the skills and knowledge of public sector staff in social value
If you are interested in joining this group then please complete and initial expression of interest form here and we will be in touch to follow up.
Why is this needed?
My first external engagement in my new role as Member Services Director with Social Value UK I attended the Social Enterprise UK Social Value Leaders’ Summit in Manchester last week. With my background in supporting the VCSE to influence commissioning in Leicestershire, developing social impact bonds for government and supporting social enterprises in contract readiness, I was excited and enthusiastic to support Social Enterprise UK on its Social Value journey.
Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) is delivering to its Social Value 2032 Programme and its latest research highlighted that:
- Almost a third of council’s still do not have a policy for social value
- Nearly half of all local authorities have never provided training on the Act and two thirds have no toolkits or resources to support how it is applied
- As many as 31 different approaches to measurement are used and half do not use a calculation tool
- More than half never apply social value or provided no information on implementing social value.
The conference was an incredible gathering of amazing social value leaders all in one place. Some key points that I noted were:
- Whilst there has been progress in implementing social value in procurement, there is still a long way to go including embedding social value at every stage of the commissioning cycle
- Citizens and users are not at the heart of service commissioning, especially the voices of diverse communities and this is due to time and financial pressures – a creative space is needed for co-production
- More transparency and accountability in public service commissioning is needed
- There is a need for social value data to be used for continuous improvement and innovation
All of these issues are at the heart of the Social Value UK principles and best practices, and we hope to support Social Enterprise UK on its roadmap towards Social Value 2032.