Social value mandate for Northern Ireland

June 2022 heralded a new social value era for Northern Ireland, bringing mandatory social value scoring to public procurement contracts. We’ve been discussing the implications with our public sector clients.

The new policy, as set out in PPN 01/21 – Scoring Social Value, broadly aligns with legislation in England and requires tenders to allocate a minimum of 10 per cent of the total award criteria to a scoring of social value.

This applies to service contracts above £123k and construction contracts above £4.7m—accounting for 97 per cent of central government procurement spend.^[1]  The minimum weighting will increase to 20 per cent from June 2023, subject to NI Executive approval. The policy is supported by a clear and well-developed website which will help public sector bodies incorporate social value into their tenders.

The implications

To add social value implies that additional, positive benefits should arise from government spending, secondary to delivering the main project or service, but not necessarily adding additional cost.

My impression is that there’s real goodwill towards the new mandate, with NI public sector clients and their supply chains wanting to do the right thing. It makes sense—central and local government spend more than £3bn annually on supplies, services and construction works. This significant sum can make a lasting positive contribution to economic, environmental and social outcomes, via the four themes specified in the PPN:

• Increasing secure employment and skills
• Building ethical and resilient supply chains
• Delivering zero carbon
• Promoting well-being

AtkinsRéalis’s recent NI social value roadshow saw us meet with key public sector clients to get their take on the new policy.

At this stage some organizations are still getting to grips with the legislation and in some cases even the basics of social value—this is where AtkinsRéalis can play a transformative role

Avoiding the tick-box mentality and considering the project lifecycle

One of the challenges discussed at our recent social value roadshow was the need to maintain momentum, so that the envisaged social value is actually delivered at project completion. There’s a risk of it languishing as a tick-box exercise at the bidding stage—currently, the mandate applies only to the tender, with no statutory follow-up. To get the maximum benefit, all stakeholders need to aim high, moving away from social value as a bidding activity, and focusing on embedding it throughout the project lifecycle.

At our event, some clients were struggling to identify the optimum social value initiatives, others highlighted the management and monitoring as problematic. There was also discussion of how best to determine and demonstrate tangible evidence of the financial value of these initiatives through evaluation.

All valid points—we now need to break down these challenges and, where possible, embrace them as opportunities.

What does social value success look like?

The best social value is well planned and informed by an intimate knowledge of local areas and a real sense of what their communities need. Planning far-reaching social value provides all bodies with an opportunity to really get to know the people, the volunteers, and the groups already providing great services in the community; helping to maximize their great work and ensure that future plans enhance or elevate these initiatives.

This in turn will lead to a clear idea of what success looks like and how social value should be measured. It’s all too easy in our industry to revert to quantifying in purely monetary or physical terms. These metrics are not enough when considering the wider impacts a space may have on a community, the environment or an individual’s wellbeing.

Instead, public sector clients will be aiming to fully understand the wider implications of the social value process and to find ways of embedding this throughout the lifecycle of their project.

Bringing UK-wide experience

Here at AtkinsRéalis in Belfast, we’re in a great position to support our NI clients throughout NI with the new requirement. Our expertise and experience began some years ago, with our own in-house social value schemes, where we go beyond corporate social responsibility activity, seeking ways to help transform lives. A recent example is our work with built environment students at Queen’s University, Belfast, where we share our expertise in project planning, sustainability and digital futures.

Prior to the NI mandate, we had already been supporting clients with their social value initiatives, typically advising them on how to introduce schemes similar to our own, and helping them to evaluate the social impact. We have helped our clients to measure the social value impact throughout the lifecycle of an asset, from the early stage of planning, through design, construction and the 25 years following completion.

How can we help you?

We’re now extending our reach, offering a suite of social value consultancy services to enable our clients to embed social value into their organization. Our business’s experience has already been honed in Scotland, England and Wales, where we’ve built expertise in defining, nurturing and measuring mandated social value requirements. 

We offer support at individual stages of a project, or throughout the entire project lifecycle. Typical services include audit of existing contracts; establishing a social value framework; creating a social value strategy; training workshops; reporting and measurement tools; evaluation, and lessons learned reviews.

True social value will reach far beyond the imagination of the designers and owners of our buildings. By recognizing the importance of social value early and helping clients understand the potential of their local areas, we can create a built asset that is so much more than bricks and mortar. 

PPN01/21 heralds significant change, and the responsibility falls not just on the public bodies, but on all construction industry stakeholders to achieve social value in the myriad ways available to our local communities.

[1] Northern Ireland Executive, July 2021.