From 1 January 2027, a new Social Value Model decides up to a fifth of your score on central government contracts. PPN 026 replaces the PPN 002 Model, narrows social value to jobs and skills, and makes delivery against your commitments public.
For suppliers, the question is no longer whether social value matters to winning work, but whether your organisation can evidence it better than the bidder next to you.
Five things determine how this plays out for your business
1. Social value now swings contract awards [Win rate]
Contracts of £5m or more carry a minimum 20% social value weighting under PPN 026, double the previous floor; contracts of £1m to £5m carry 10%. At 20%, a strong social value response can beat a cheaper competitor, and a weak one can sink an otherwise winning bid. Bid strategy, pricing and social value can no longer be run separately.
2. The scope is now jobs and skills [Focus]
In PPN 026, two outcomes, Good Jobs and Skills, replace the previous eight. Environment, wellbeing and supply chain diversity are no longer scored at central government level. Capability built there is not wasted: local government and the NHS still use broader frameworks, and buyers can embed those themes in core specifications. But central government bids must now lead with employment: job quality, fair pay, training, progression and talent pipelines for people facing barriers to work.
3. Commitments become published performance [Risk]
Every £5m+ contract must carry at least one social value KPI, published on the government’s central digital platform and reported at least annually. Evidence of poor delivery can count against you in future procurements. An ambitious pledge that wins the bid and fails in delivery is now a visible, priced liability. Bid teams and the operational leaders who will own the commitments need to write them together.
4. The rules of evaluation are not published yet [Timing]
PPN 026 is an outline; the evaluation methodology, sub-criteria and the new List of Community Programmes arrive in guidance this autumn. Until then, treat draft commitments as provisional, and expect the market to test whether evaluators reward the scale of a programme or the difference it makes. Both the new and old Models will run side by side during the transition, so live bids may face either.
5. Workforce data is the differentiator [Advantage]
“Good jobs in every postcode” will be evidenced with data: pay, conditions, progression, retention, location, and outcomes for target cohorts such as NEETs and care leavers. Suppliers who can already show where their jobs are, what they pay and who they reach will move faster than those assembling the picture from scratch in December.
PPN 026 and the measurement question
Not all social value data will survive this level of scrutiny. Published KPIs, annual reporting and exclusion risk reward figures that are verifiable, additional and independently governed, and expose figures that are not.
The winners under PPN 026 will be the suppliers whose social value numbers stand up when a contract manager, a competitor or a journalist checks them. Building that measurement infrastructure now costs far less than retrofitting it under a live contract.
Need to know more about PPN 026? Read our recent blogs on the subject:
Alan Boyce
Senior Researcher More articles by Alan >
