Social value guidance for contract managers

The guidance notes below provide a summary of the steps involved in enabling and ensuring the delivery of social value commitments as a part of contract delivery.

For the full guidance document, which also includes a one-minute guide, useful contact details and other supporting documents, please contact svprogramme.team@surreycc.gov.uk

Social value delivery in five steps

Review the social value commitments and key performance indicators proposed by the supplier, and the method statement if there was one.
Talk to the service who initiated the project or service design about any additional or revised ambitions or expectations.
Work with the supplier to agree the delivery plan, targets and indicators for quarter 1 to quarter 4. In longer contracts, the initial targets/milestones may include establishing governance, forming community partnerships and undertaking research and engagement. Larger suppliers may have a Social Value Lead, who you will work closely with.
Agree reporting mechanism and frequency, using the tracking and reporting tools listed in the two sections below.
Make yourself familiar with the list of Social Value Champions in the council and connect the supplier with any relevant service staff if you think their delivery would benefit from this.

Tracking and reporting on social value

The main principle, as with all contract management, is to make reporting proportionate to the value, complexity and length of the contract.

There are three key tools for suppliers to report on social value. Please contact svprogramme.team@surreycc.gov.uk for templates.

A social value tracker

This helps to record the narrative, capture learning and demonstrate the efforts made by the supplier.
A basic template should include a date entry and a brief description of the activity undertaken that day, week or month such as "Contacted three schools this week to deliver career awareness talks. One accepted, two declined. Will contact two more next week."
This should be the most document that is shared most regularly, either monthly or quarterly depending on the contract.

The social value measurement charter

This is helpful for capturing the numbers delivered against the original targets and commitments, such as three workshops, one apprenticeship, 100 volunteering hours.
It also automatically generates a proxy financial value, which we can use for headline reporting on this contract, or on a larger group of contracts.
If the supplier did not use the charter during the bidding process, they can still complete this, as it will help us to report consistently across all contracts.
Completing this an annual or six-monthly basis is sufficient in most contracts.

Qualitative reporting

It is important to remember why we ask for social value commitments; we want to see a positive impact in the community, and this is often best demonstrated with qualitative data such as photos, quotes and case studies.
Depending on the length and value of the contract, it might be appropriate to ask for an annual report on Social Value which includes additional quantitative and qualitative feedback and case studies.
For example, including information such as "30% of the apprenticeship programme participants are in paid employment six months later, 60% of them felt more self-confident at the end of the programme, and Charlie said "…".
Whether they have used the charter or not, each activity or resource commitment should be able to be measured in qualitative terms.

If suppliers are reporting using the templates mentioned above, the contract managers' role in reporting will be straightforward.

A procurement colleague will already have inputted any social value commitments into Proactis, along with the charter as an attachment if this was completed.

When you open up the contract on Proactis, you can update progress by ticking the relevant fields on the social value tab, adding notes in the free-form entry box, and uploading attachments such as case studies or annual reports in PDF form.

For full guidance notes or for any other queries, please contact svprogramme.team@surreycc.gov.uk