The latest changes to the UK’s approach to social value through PPN 026 put a sharper focus on jobs, skills and economic opportunity. There’s something to be said about the language of ‘building a fairer economy.’ And in principle, that focus is a good thing.
As consultants working in impact measurement across markets, sectors and geographies, at Simetrica-Jacobs we always encourage organisations to define 'social value' in a way that reflects what matters most to their strategy, their stakeholders and the places where they operate. It’s almost always one of the first (and one of the most important) things I say when working with a new client: focus your social value strategy, curate your definition, be deliberate in selecting a set of outcomes that align most closely with the impact you want to deliver, and ensure you’ve got the capacity to measure those things well.
The definition matters because it drives what we do.
When procurement defines social value focusing on jobs, apprenticeships, training opportunities or other employment outcomes, businesses will focus on achieving the numbers that help them win contracts.
This underscores the risk many of us have long been debating in this space: are we genuinely creating additional social value, or are we rewarding businesses for outcomes that would have happened anyway?
So while we’re all dissecting PPN 026 (and with good reason), the conversation needs to be bigger than procurement.
Many of us have said it before, but it's worth repeating. Procurement is one lever for creating social value. It is not the lever.
We need to think beyond social value and beyond procurement. (I have thoughts about how the term 'social value' has been unhelpfully conflated and entangled with 'social value delivered through procurement,' but that's another rant for another day.)
We need to think about impact. Authentic and positive impact is created when organisations integrate considerations about wider societal and environmental value, wellbeing, and quality of life into how they make decisions.
It happens when we think about where and how we build, the materials we use and the supply chains we rely on.
It happens when we select partners for what they are genuinely good at, rather than simply what they can promise in a tender response.
It happens when we recognise that a healthy, engaged and supported workforce is more likely to be productive and resilient (and more likely to be retained).
And it happens when we understand that many of the risks businesses face – from staff turnover and skills shortages to investor uncertainty, supply-chain fragility and lengthy planning processes – can be reduced when we deliberately design for better outcomes for people, for communities, and for the environment. If we do all of this well, designing through holistic systems rather than compliance levers, risks can be mitigated, and economic benefit and viability strengthened.
So, does PPN 026 matter? Yes. Huge amounts of contract spend will be directed by the Social Value Model.
But if we focus too heavily on the procurement mechanism, we remain at risk of making social value a compliance exercise rather than a strategic opportunity.
The bigger opportunity is to recognise that we are at inflection point. One where we can choose to deliberately build and deliver strategies, partnerships, infrastructure and projects that create impact for people and society (and that mitigate business risk simultaneously) - and to do so by default and by design.
This is where there is real opportunity to drive sustainable and lasting impact. But we must be bold enough to seize the opportunity.
This article was originally posted on LinkedIn. You can read the original article here.
