Boost your TIP: Social Value
The Towns Fund Delivery Partner is sharing blog posts this week and next, covering topics that we believe can enhance your Town Investment Plans. This blog post focuses on Health & Wellbeing.
The COVID-19 pandemic is bringing immense change. The past few months have shown that the world is evolving rapidly in response to a range of drivers and impacts: climate change, levelling up and improving equality, health and wellbeing. This is all driving a social value agenda.
With the planned investment through Towns Fund matched with potential socio-economic fall-out from the COVID-19 crisis, there is now more than ever a need and opportunity for development and infrastructure projects to create additional social value over a project’s lifecycle and help to rebuild local economies.
The Public Services (Social Value Act) 2012, empowered local authorities to use social value to maximise purchasing power through procurement and secure as much benefit as possible for the local area.
Social Value Model
This year has seen government updates in its social value agenda. In September 2020, the Cabinet Office published a new social value Procurement Policy Note PPN 0620. This was then followed in early December 2020, when Government subsequently published its new Social Value Model with important implications for how the public sector makes procurement decisions.
This is a significant development in the Government’s approach to driving social value. From January 2021, there will be explicit evaluation of social value within procurement of goods, services and works with a minimum of a 10% weighting.
The Model will shift focus from cost to value, maximising the additional societal benefits that can be achieved in the delivery of contracts, using policy outcomes aligned with current government’s priorities to boost growth and productivity, help communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and tackle climate change.
Government published a ‘Guide to using the Social Value Model’ to support those implementing the Model within procurement decisions. The Model aims to be a powerful driver for delivering social value and its implementation aims to make a lasting difference for local communities.
How to apply this to your Town Investment Plans
Embedding social value in built environment projects (such as those to be funded through the Towns Fund) means finding ways to add value across a project’s lifecycle, from early commissioning and investment decisions, through design, planning, and construction, and into long-term operation, decommissioning and post-closure plans.
Social value can include a range of outcomes, such as leaving a skills legacy by employing locally and creating sustainable apprenticeships or boosting local small, medium and micro businesses and social enterprise by ensuring that they form a core part of the supply chain and that a high proportion of the project spend goes to local suppliers. Reducing air pollution, maximising green space and ensuring the value of materials is optimised through a circular economy.
Designing buildings and infrastructure with diverse groups of individuals and communities in mind can create social value. This can be by supporting economic prosperity through creating jobs for unemployed people, providing opportunities for small and medium enterprises, supporting connectivity, cultural integration, social cohesion and improving social capital.
Integrating stakeholders into the design process provides a sense of ownership and involvement, connecting people with places and making them feel valued. The way that places are planned, maintained, built and operated can create jobs and bolster economic growth, improve local health and wellbeing, and strengthen the community. Designing places that are valued and that people want to spend time in, increases quality of life and boosts the long-term value of an asset.
Projects such as those that we have seen included in Towns Investment Plans bring forward opportunities for investment in regeneration which can boost “life chances” of people in local communities.
What next?
We have produced a guidance document Social Value 101 setting out how towns can set out social value outcomes for the projects included in their Town Investment Plan and actions to embed social value at every stage of a project’s life cycle.
If you are developing projects for your TIP or business case in which you want to apply more social value consideration, talk to your Town Coordinator or book an Expert Drop-in Hour with our Social Value experts.