IT'S TIME TO ACT
SOCIAL VALUE WILL CHANGE THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS
AND IT AFFECTS YOUR BUSINESS
The days of a bid being evaluated on Quality and Price alone, are long gone. Procurers from both the public and private sectors will now be looking for high quality social value and wellbeing responses over a much wider range of areas in all contract bids. The illustration gives a rough idea of how a 'Most Advantageous Tender' might be segmented. "For every £1 invested in wellbeing, there is a £5 return - Deloitte".
Improving your bid writing skills meets the government's Social Value criteria in Policy Outcome section 2.2 - 11: "In-work career development policy into skills shortages or high growth areas."
It also meets the government's Social Value criteria in Policy Outcome section 1.3 - 2: "Communicating ways to improve your business's tendering capability."
... and procurement will change forever.
The reforms will shake up and improve our outdated procurement system, so that every procurement pound spent, gives greater value for money for our public services.
Public procurement will change forever when the Procurement Act 2023, with
its Social Value and Wellbeing principles, becomes mandatory law in October 2024.
As most businesses are within a supply chain involving public bodies, or large private organisations, they need to understand and adapt to these procurement law changes.
However far removed you might think you are; business will always be an eco-system of interconnected supply chains.
Start-ups, scale-ups, and SME's stand to benefit the most.
THE BIGGEST CHANGE OF ALL -
is that the decision-making criteria for awarding contracts, is no longer driven solely by price, nor quality, nor history, nor personal relationships.
No longer does the ‘Most Economically Advantageous Tender’ win, but the ‘Most Advantageous Tender’.
The only point of difference in contract bids will be the quality of the social value and wellbeing embedded within it.
Smaller, more agile, and innovative businesses are now more able to dazzle procurers as they embed a high quality of social value and wellbeing into their contract bids. This represents a fabulous opportunity for smaller businesses to drive innovation, deliver better outcomes, and redefine the business landscape in their favour.
BUSINESSES WHICH IGNORE THE LEGAL CHANGES RISK LOSING WORK!
Successful bids will have to embed social value.
Businesses which ignore the changes to the procurement law risk losing existing work and losing out to Social Value Ready competitors. The degree to which a business embraces this new law, will directly impact their capacity to thrive and grow.
The government now requires its procurement officials to 'explicitly evaluate social value and wellbeing in all contract bids'.
(As will procurement officers on any overseas contract bids as per the WTO GPA).
INCREDIBLE GROWTH OPPORTUNITIES
THE NEW LAW WILL MAKE IT EASIER FOR YOU TO BID FOR, AND WIN, NEW WORK. HERE'S HOW.
- Removal of bureaucratic barriers, levelling the business playing field for smaller businesses, so you can compete equally with larger organisations for contracts.
- Access to a full range of appropriate contracts for your business in one digital library, for example, a £20k print contract, up to a £5 million construction contract. Let us help you go get them.
- Guaranteed access to £1.3 trillion of overseas procurement opportunities for social value ready British business, thanks to the UK joining the WTO's Agreement on Government Procurement on 1st January 2021.
- This is a 2-way street however, with overseas social value ready businesses having full access to bid for UK government public contracts with procurement officers legally bound to explicitly evaluate them!
- It will create a central digital platform for you to register and store your business details used for multiple bids, and ‘Commercial Frameworks’ will be more flexible.
- Prompt 60-day payment regime. Most smaller businesses fail due to cash flow.
- Removal of obstacles around the provision of accounts, and insurance, at the early bidding stage.
- Stronger exclusions framework with tougher action on underperforming suppliers.
- Transparency right through the commercial lifecycle of a contract, so you can access procurement data and see how the billions of government’s procurement money is spent.
- Guidance and support from procurers for the supplier community.
- Feedback on every failed bid, as procurers want you to keep trying.
BUT WHAT DOES SOCIAL VALUE AND WELLBEING REALLY MEAN?
SOCIAL VALUE ...
is the extent to which your organisation positively impacts your community, by Social,
Economic, and Environmental aspects, which are measured by a specific set
of government metrics, especially when you bid for public and private contracts.
WELLBEING ...
is the government’s new framework for measuring your organisation’s commitment to the wellbeing of your people, and of your wider community, both social and business.
Social aspects include community development, education, health and social justice etc.
Economic aspects include economic growth, income distribution, poverty, unemployment etc.
Environmental aspects include emission levels, pollution, conservation, recycling etc.
They represent the 3 pillars that contribute to the overall health and sustainability of our communities and planet that we all live on.
THE UNITED NATIONS SDGs
Social Value and Wellbeing aligns with the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs), that all its 193 member Countries are embedding. The Government is concerned that businesses will fail to compete in UK and global markets, as no business will be able to bid for tenders in the UK or abroad, or continue to supply other businesses with their services and products, without demonstrating social value and wellbeing using the government's metric awards criteria.
THE ERA OF LARGER ORGANISATIONS IS OVER
The era of big organisations dominating supply chains is over, after the government’s failure to secure enough PPE using just a few giant suppliers during Covid, and the catastrophic collapse of both Carillion and RBS. The government wants to level-up the business playing field, diversify and secure supply chains, and ensure transparency of the beneficiaries of contract work.
THE SOCIAL VALUE MODEL IS NOT NEW.
THE IMPACT ON YOUR BUSINESS OF EMBRACING, OR IGNORING, IT IS NEW.
Embedding Social Value and Wellbeing into your business (as outlined in The Procurement Act 2023) will become law in Autumn 2024. Its 8 policy outcomes will be expressly evaluated by all procurement commissioners to any contract bid.
Social Value considers consumers, employees, suppliers, supply chain partners, and the communities in which they operate. It aligns with the United Nations ‘Sustainable Development Goals’ (SDGs), that all its 193 member Countries are embedding. It is the new ISO 9001.
A type of social value and wellbeing model has long been adopted by some of the most successful businesses in the world. BMW, Caterpillar, Costco, eBay, Google, Harley-Davidson, Honda, IKEA, JetBlue, Johnson & Johnson, Starbucks, Timberland, Toyota, to name a few.
The concept is already well established in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, all having their own social value models.
DO THE RIGHT THING. DO THE SVRE THING.
The Government is levelling-up the business playing field, by giving all Social Value Ready SMEs, VCSEs (Voluntary organisations, Charities, Social Enterprises) access to tender for £100 billion of government contracts. Their procurement commissioners will score a business’s level of compliance, with specific and mandatory, social value and wellbeing standards and requirements. The degree to which a business embraces this new law, will directly impact their capacity to thrive and grow.
