The Opportunity
Approaches to implementing social value within procurement have taken great strides forward over recent years. This has included the development of legislation and policy, while various practical techniques such as measurement tools and methodologies have been adopted. Both procurement professionals, stakeholders and suppliers now have a far greater understanding of the potential of social value, with many procurements already incorporating specific social value evaluation criteria.
The opportunity today is to amalgamate existing work and create an extensive and readily available body of best practice that will enable professionals and organisations to embed social value more effectively into strategic and operating practices.
Social Value UK as a national chapter of Social Value International. We advocate for a ‘principles-led’ approach to accounting for social value. These principles can also be embedded throughout an organisation from functional strategy all the way down to detailed procurement operating practices. This would include embedding social value creation in:
- Organisational procurement strategy development;
- Business planning and business case development;
- Procurement and commissioning policy, governance and processes;
- Category management, including pre-market engagement, specification development, sourcing, contract management and SRM;
- Performance management, measurement of outcomes and Social Return on Investment (SROI).