The Social Value Model: What Buyers Must Do and What Suppliers Should Watch For
In this article, we highlight the four golden rules which Public Sector Buyers must follow to ensure that Social Value is applied properly in their Procurements and explain what that means for suppliers.
Whilst suppliers will be familiar with the Model Award Criteria part of the Social Value Model, what a lot of people don’t realise is that it also contains Guidance for Public Sector Buyers on how to use and apply it.
This guidance covers how Buyers should use the Social Value Model during the whole buying process – from planning and talking to suppliers, to choosing who wins the contract and checking how they deliver it. It shows them how to select social value outcomes, ask the right questions for their contract, and score suppliers fairly.
The guide deliberately contains a lot of flexibility to allow Public Sector Buyers to tailor their social value requirements to suit their needs and contract. It also reminds them to follow the law, treat all suppliers equally, and make sure small businesses and international suppliers aren’t unfairly left out.
By knowing what Buyers are required to do and what they’re not, you can shape your responses to score well, avoid wasted effort, and reduce the risk of legal challenges.
Here are the ‘Four Golden Rules’ all UK Central Government Public Sector Buyers Must follow.
1. Social Value must be explicitly evaluated on all tenders above the threshold ( currently £139,888)
Procurers must apply a minimum 10% weighting (or an equivalent measurement) of the total score, for social value.
What that means for Suppliers:
Social Value is important to your bid, which means you should treat it in the same way you would any other section, which was worth 10% of the marks. It’s not uncommon for Social Value scores to be even higher than 10%. Don’t treat it as an add on. Resource it properly and make sure you give it the time it needs from your technical team to develop a solution that is aligned with your delivery of the contract. It could make the difference between you winning and losing a contract.
2. Social Value must be proportionate and relevant to the contract
Proportionate means that the effort required from suppliers should match the value or risk of the contract. Buyers can’t ask suppliers for something which is too demanding for the size or type of contract.
Relevant means that the social value requirements should be closely linked to the contract’s purpose or the needs of the community. In other words, they should make sense for what’s being bought.
For example, if a procurer was buying construction services, asking for local job creation or environmental improvements would be relevant, but asking for digital skills training might not be.
These terms are in place to help ensure fairness, avoid unnecessary burdens on suppliers (especially SMEs), and keep the focus on meaningful outcomes.
What this means for Suppliers:
Be careful that the social value commitments you make are proportionate and relevant to the contract you are bidding for. That means thinking twice before being tempted to include ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ in your social value offer to win the 10% points.
If what you are offering is hugely disproportionate to the nature, size and scale of the contract, there’s a risk that your offer could be scored down, or even discounted, by an evaluator.
Perhaps more importantly, contract management is at the forefront of the new Procurement Act and we are seeing more Public Sector Authorities holding suppliers to account to deliver what’s in their bids. If you make a commitment, you need to be prepared to deliver it. The new Social Value Model makes it very clear that the commitments you make in bid will form part of your contractual obligations so don’t commit to doing something you can’t deliver.
3. Any benefit identified in tenders as Social Value must be over and above the core deliverables of the contract
What this means for Suppliers:
Any social value commitment you make must be separate from the core requirements for the contract. If you commit to doing something as social value, but it’s been specified as a Requirement (ongoing training for staff, for example), it will be dismissed and discounted during the evaluation phase.
To avoid this, Social Value Response writers should be integrated into the overall bid team; familiarised with the contract requirements (and your solution); and be given access to all the tender documents.
4. Social Value must be evaluated qualitatively, not quantitatively.
When evaluating social value responses, Buyers must look at how well a supplier’s plan matches the chosen social value goals. This is judged during the assessment stage, just like any other part of the tender that checks for quality.
What this means for Suppliers:
It’s all about the quality of your commitments, not the quantity. Less really is more when it comes to Social Value. You should make quantifiable, measurable commitments but the focus should be on how you will deliver them because that’s what will be assessed by the evaluator. The score is based on the quality of your method statement and delivery plan, not the numbers (although you should make sure that what you offer is proportionate to the contract so that doesn’t mean you should do as little as possible).
If you are a supplier working with the Central Government, understanding these rules will help you ensure the solution you put forward will score as highly as possible. A procurement that doesn't follow these guidelines could be open to challenge – particularly if the Social Value score makes the difference between winning and losing the bid.
Nobody likes a legal challenge, but Procurers do make mistakes. So if you spot social value requirements that aren’t in line with the guidelines - for example, a requirement isn’t relevant and proportionate - we recommend flagging it via a Clarifying Question.
If you are facing requirements that you think don’t comply with any of these points and you want help clarifying them, give us a call.
Our experienced team includes former public sector procurement professionals and they can help advise you on how to flag issues and create compliant and competitive responses.
What’s Next?
At Samtaler, we understand the importance of social value to help businesses become better and stronger. To find out how we can help send an email to hello@samtaler.co.uk , complete our contact form or book a discovery call
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