The government has formally recognised the “inherent social value” of civil society organisations in its procurement guidance.
Published this week, the Cabinet Office’s latest guidance on how public body commissioners should recognise social value also reinforces the merit of bidders including voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations (VCSEs) in their supply chains.
The guidance accompanies the department’s planned changes announced in August, which will remove the standard 10% social value weighting from all contracts under £1m while increasing the score to 20% for tenders of £5m or more.
While the August announcement was broadly welcomed by sector bodies, Social Enterprise UK (SEUK) had expressed several concerns, some of which the new guidance addresses.
Peter Holbrook, chief executive of SEUK, told Civil Society this week: “Many of our members expressed disappointment at the government’s decision to narrow the definition of social value to jobs and skills, which is misaligned with the original Social Value Act.
“We recently wrote to the Cabinet Office with these concerns, including a policy note on how PPN 026 might be strengthened before guidance was rolled out to commissioners.
“Although the narrow definition of social value remains now that guidance has been published, we’re heartened to see including VCSEs in supply chains as part of the awarding criteria.
“We’re also pleased the inherent social value that VCSEs offer has been recognised, which is something we have been pushing for consistently.”
Jobs and skills
The PPN 026 guidance for how government commissioners should take account of social value effectively replaces earlier versions including PPN 002, published last year.
For the first time, it includes a section on “inherent social value”, which states: “Some organisations, such as VCSEs, can deliver social value as standard practice.”
It includes “activities to increase the number of SME, scale-ups and VCSEs in the supply chain” as sub-criteria for assessing whether contracts deliver “good jobs”.
The number of VCSEs in supply chains is also mentioned as one of many ways to assess whether a contract bidder is helping to address the UK’s “skills shortage”.
