eGuide: Maximising Social Value for Local Authorities
This guide provides local authorities with practical strategies for embedding social value into every stage of their operations, from project inception through to evaluation and reporting.
This guide aims to provide local authorities with practical strategies and best practices for embedding social value into their everyday operations. It outlines how social value can be integrated from project inception through to evaluation, helping authorities maximise the positive impacts of their activities.
Social value refers to the wider social, economic, and environmental benefits that arise from public sector activities. It encompasses efforts to improve community well-being, enhance environmental sustainability, and promote social equity.
For local authorities, integrating social value into their operations ensures that public spending delivers essential services along with broader benefits that strengthen communities, promote equality, and enhance the quality of life. By focusing on social value, local authorities can address pressing social issues and contribute to long-term community resilience.
Frequently asked questions
Expand a question to read the answer.
Local authorities in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland are subject to the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, which requires them to consider how public services contracts can improve the economic, social, and environmental wellbeing of the relevant area. The Procurement Act 2023 strengthens this framework by placing social value at the heart of how contracts are awarded and monitored. Central government's PPN 002 provides practical guidance on how social value should be defined, weighted, and assessed in tender processes.
The most commonly used approaches in local government include the Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology, the TOMs (Themes, Outcomes and Measures) Framework, and Social Value International's Principles. Many authorities use a combination, applying a standardised framework for procurement decisions while using SROI for deeper evaluations of flagship programmes. Increasingly, purpose-built platforms handle the calculation and reporting work, reducing the burden on internal teams and enabling more consistent reporting across different service areas.
Embedding social value in commissioning means ensuring that procurement processes consistently include social value criteria, weight them appropriately, and monitor delivery against commitments made at the bid stage. Embedding it in organisational culture means that social value thinking influences decisions across the authority, not just in procurement: in workforce planning, asset management, community investment, and the design of directly delivered services. The guide covers both dimensions, since commissioning changes alone will not achieve the outcomes that residents experience.
Priorities should reflect local need, informed by community consultation, population data, and the authority's own strategic objectives. A coastal authority facing high levels of economic inactivity will have different priorities from an inner-city authority focused on health inequalities or housing. Outcome priorities should also be proportionate to the scale and nature of each contract: it is not appropriate to require every supplier to address every possible social value theme regardless of relevance.
Recognised sources of financial proxy values include the Global Value Exchange, the HACT Social Value Bank, and Social Value International's maintained data resources. These are compiled from peer-reviewed economic research and are updated periodically to reflect changes in price levels. Platforms such as the Social Value Engine draw on these sources directly, allowing authorities to generate consistent, defensible valuations without needing specialist expertise in proxy selection.
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