NHS England has extended the reach of mandatory social value requirements (PPN 06/20) to the commissioning and purchase of goods and services by all NHS organisations as well as those acting on the behalf of these. This shift has important implications for all companies and organisations bidding for NHS tenders as a minimum 10% weighting around social value now applies to all NHS procurement contracts, making tangible, realistic and locally relevant social value plans more important than ever.
The NHS is not the only public body committing to social value, but it aims to leverage its key role as an ‘anchor institute’ and use its purchasing power to build capabilities, strengths and assets within the regional geographies they operate within to ensure resilient local communities.
In order to follow the prescribed ‘best practises’, issued by Crown Commercial and prepare winning social value plans, early market engagement (EME) and exploring opportunities for strategic partnerships with VCSEs (voluntary, charity, social enterprise sector) is key to deliver innovation, social value, carbon net zero at the community, regional or national level.
Going forward, our research has brought to our attention some of the major challenges that companies can now face when applying the PPN 06/20 criteria and the Government’ Social Value Model outcomes to their tendering process. There are 4 major challenges and solutions that our platform, whatimpact.com can provide:
- Identify the right partnerships and approaches for social value themes:
The UK Government’s Social Value Model has 5 identified themes: climate change, Covid-19 recovery, tackling economic inequality, equal opportunity and wellbeing. Knowing what actions to take and what partnerships to pursue to achieve these can be difficult, but technology solutions are there to help you find the match with appropriate MACs (model award criteria), local geography and desired beneficiaries.
- Connect with the right local partners:
When you are planning social value for a specific tender, to tell a convincing story of impact in the tendering process, you need to get in and do some homework early on rather than relying on doing so in hindsight. Identifying key social value strategy and effective partnerships is key here. Our platform, whatimpact.com, has a location and beneficiary specific database of VCSEs that partner with companies as strategic social value delivery partners – which helps you find the perfect match for any tender.
- Report the impact as per the focused questions and KPIs mapped against the SV themes:
In the bid application process, you have to provide responses and contract KPIs related to time bound social value plans alongside the ways in which they would realise cost savings. Our platform, whatimpact.com, contains comprehensive impact reporting that covers all key aspects of the impact of your social value engagements, following the Social Impact Logic model. It is also easily downloadable or shared as a link to multiple external or internal stakeholders.
- Partnership management as part of effective contract management
When you’ve chosen to work with a VCSE, monitoring impact delivery and maintaining the relationship with the organisation as well as service delivery and contract management with the tendering authority can go hand in hand. Our platform, whatimpact.com, enables you to not only mobilise your social value plan into action through identifying and matching you with the right partners but also through thorough and embedded impact reporting – making sure you remain the preferred contractor.
whatimpact.com is the only platform in the UK which is built to help you plan, deliver and report on social value, aligned with government social value requirements – to speak to our team about how we can help you with your social value management, contact us here.
