Procurement Policy 2025 to 2029 - including the Social Value statement - How Social Value is communicated and implemented

The Procurement team will advise and support Directorates on inclusion of Social Value in their tendering opportunities, and ensure the questions asked and outcomes sought are relevant and proportionate to the contract and its size.

Social Value is communicated internally via the Procurement team to Officers in all Directorates.

Externally, we will endeavour to ensure information to support the supply chain will be made available at Supplier Engagement Events and part of any pre-market engagement information, however generic support will always be available on the Council website.

Please note that individual Officers are responsible for the development and application of Social Value to their own procurements as they are the subject matter experts in relation to the goods, works of services being procured.

Procurement team’s commitments

• we will challenge when Social Value is not considered as an evaluation criteria in a tender
• we will apply a weighted evaluation criterion of between 10% - 20% in any tender, where relevant and proportionate to do so
• our supply chain will be required to make contractual commitments on Social Value statements they make in tender submissions
• we will request progress updates on delivered Social Value commitments at contract review meetings
• we have a dedicated Data and Community Impact Lead within the Procurement team to support teams/Officers to achieve social value outcomes through procurement activities

Monitoring of Social Value

Social Value commitments made by suppliers will be turned into KPI and will be discussed and reported on as part of contract review meetings throughout the delivery of the contract with the outcomes forwarded to the Procurement Team for central collation.

Evidence of Social Value delivery will be provided by suppliers and will be reviewed to ensure benefits are realised and the information will be collated centrally for reporting.

Suppliers may be asked to produce a case study linked to the outcomes achieved

Achievements and benefits realisation

Where possible monitoring (for instance as part of KPIs) will include quantifiable measurables to assist reporting on the achievement and benefits realised through Social Value within our contracts. These may include:

• number of employment and skills opportunities (types of roles, number of opportunities, number of hours achieved etc.)
• local spend
• SME spend
• carbon reduction: tonnes
• additional funding secured and invested into Cumbria’s services from external sources