‘Social Value UK has launched a Thought Leadership Group called Contract for Change, in collaboration with our Strategic Partners, Value Match. This group will bring together volunteers to collaborate, and embed the principles of social value into procurement and commissioning best practice.

This initiative is a major opportunity for the procurement profession to make a significant contribution to a national policy initiative which has implications at every level of society and within each of the organisations we work for and organisations we work with.

This Thought Leadership Group will harness the know-how from procurement and social value practitioners from across civil society, the public and particularly the private sectors to embed this in mainstream practice.

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).

Steering Group

Contract for Change is led by a Steering Committee of cross-sectoral leaders who are passionate about collaborating, and embedding the principles of social value into procurement and commissioning best practice.

Terms of Reference for the Steering Committee can be found here.

List of current Steering Committee members can be found here.

The Steering Group meets bi-monthly, Powerpoints and minutes can be found below:

February 2023 Steering Committee Meeting 

October 2022 Steering Committee Meeting 

July 2022 Steering Committee Meeting 

May 2022 Steering Committee Meeting 

February 2022 Steering Committee Meeting 

February 2020 Steering Group Powerpoint & Minutes 

January 2020 Steering Group Powerpoint & Minutes 

Members of the Steering Group can be found here.

December 2019 Steering Group Powerpoint & Minutes