I’ve seen several UK public sector tenders this year and the inclusion of social value factors in the evaluation process is really becoming established. That “social value” terminology is very broad in this context, incorporating potentially the full range of what we classify as environmental, social and economic issues in our Procurement with Purpose book.
Major public sector tenders do attract large companies as bidders of course, so the evaluation questions can cover both steps the bidder takes that are internally focused and actions that the bidder will apply through its own supply chain. The internal focus for instance may include factors around staff wellbeing. Whilst that is not the most obvious example of social value, I assume the argument is that staff wellbeing does have wider societal benefits, and might even mean less pressure on the National Health Service ultimately.
The externally focused factors being used in tenders include a focus on the Government’s “levelling up” agenda. So bidders might be asked how their own actions can help disadvantaged parts of the country, individuals or groups. Large suppliers to the public sector are working out how they can best respond to this – not just to feel good about themselves, but to maximise their chances of winning government contacts. Sodexho for instance has been quick of the mark with this report, titled “Sodexo’s levelling up impact in the UK” and produced by ex-government minister Justine Greening’s “Purpose Coalition”.
That leads onto one of the areas of interest that really any organisation, public or private sector, can consider as part of a Procurement with Purpose strategy. Supporting charities, social enterprises and similar organisations is a relatively easy step that can be taken to deliver wider value, and indeed many buyers are already supporting this concept.
A good example was reported recently on the BusinessLive website. Leading construction, engineering and services firm Bouygues is driving an extensive programme around social value, including supporting a social enterprise which helps women who have experienced domestic abuse get back into employment. Commercial and domestic cleaning company Thrive Group Wales has grown from four employees to 44 after securing new housekeeping related contracts with Bouygues to maintain its welfare buildings on the Kingsway in Swansea and the Pentre Awel project in Llanelli.
Thrive was founded in Port Talbot in 2017 to develop a sustainable income stream in support of parent charity, Thrive Women’s Aid, by creating employment opportunities with child-friendly hours for women who had experienced domestic abuse. It became a social enterprise with support from the European Regional Development fund (pre Brexit of course!) It now turns over around £500K a year, with profits invested back into supporting its purpose.
There are social enterprises that support a vast range of good causes, including mental health, rehabilitation of offenders, kids coming through the care system, and other various disadvantaged or minority groups. In the Procurement with Purpose book, we mention an interesting example:
“…. auticon is an IT consulting firm that provides employment opportunities for people on the autism spectrum, who often have extraordinary technical or cognitive abilities. It employs more than 150 IT consultants on the spectrum in the UK, US, Germany, Italy and France. In the UK, consultants work on IT projects for clients including Linklaters, KPMG, RBS, Experian and GlaxoSmithKline. As the firm says: “By creating autism-positive work environments and offering highly individualised, sustained support mechanisms to autistic employees, auticon provides its corporate clients with a means to tap into the amazing talents of autistic people while creating well paid long term careers for its team.”
Social Enterprise UK is the umbrella body that supports the sector in the UK (there are probably similar bodies in other countries), and can provide useful information if you want to start engaging with social enterprises in your supply chain. Some social enterprises follow a premium pricing strategy; but many don’t, and you should not assume that engaging with such organisations is going to cost you money. So for most buyers, this can be a worthwhile and relatively straightforward element of a purposeful procurement programme.