New Procurement Policy – is your company ready?

On 1 January 2021, additional new measures came into force making it mandatory for companies to demonstrate this social value. Prior to this date, there was no obligation for companies to evidence their impact, which resulted in the importance of social value being overlooked and underdelivered.

Companies can no longer simply make reference to a company policy. Now, they will need to deliver and evidence targeted social value improvements applicable to the contract’s entire life cycle. If these targets are not met, the company could risk losing the contract.

This means that the cheapest contract is no longer the most attractive. What is more attractive is a company that can demonstrate a high-quality delivery of a contract that benefits society before, during and after the contract has been won. This change has levelled the playing field for SMEs and social enterprises to also bid.

How important is the new procurement policy?

• It’s a mandatory requirement for all companies bidding for public contracts
• Social Value now forms a new score of 10-30% in the evaluation criteria for tender bids
• Social value offers must be in addition to the core elements of the tender (no double-counting – if it’s already in your CSR strategy, it cannot also be included in your tender)
• You must be able to show evidence of social, economic and environmental benefits for the entire life cycle of the contract
• The competition has increased, so it is more important than ever to stand out from the crowd

What is the Social Value model?

The UK government has set out 5x Social Value priorities for procurement:

1. Covid-19 recovery: helping local communities to manage and recover from the impact of COVID-19
2. Tackling economic inequality: creating new skills, jobs and businesses and increase supply chain resilience and capacity
3. Fighting climate change: ensuring effective stewardship of the environment
4. Equal opportunity: reducing the disability employment gap and tackling workforce inequality
5. Wellbeing: improving health and wellbeing and enhancing community integration

How can whatimpact help?

• Match your company with charities and social enterprises within the Social Value Model priorities and your preferred geographic areas
• Evaluate applications and carry out due diligence
• Get a validated social impact report on the impact your company helped achieve, with testimonials and proof
• Provide evidence of your tender bid

Your public profile demonstrates your company’s social, economic and environmental contributions and everything is in one place:

• Annual donations (money, services, products, skills-based volunteering)
• All ‘matches’ with charities and social enterprises, demonstrating who you collaborate with and what problems in which geographical area(s) you are solving
• Impact reports of all activities your company has funded with donations worth £5,000 + (money, skills, product or service donations)
• Link to your Companies House profile
• Automated celebratory matching videos

We know this is a big task, so we will provide:

• Social value strategy session
• Advice on how to maximise your whatimpact company profile to help you stand out
• Templates to help communicate your social value initiatives and the whatimpact platform to your staff
• Press release templates and banners for your external communications
• Short videos showing your partnerships with charities or social enterprises
• Meet-Up opportunities to find sustainable partnerships with charities and social enterprises
• And of course, our customer service team is here to answer any questions