Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
Insights from our webinar “From Policy to Proof: Delivering Social Value and Value for Money in Central Government”, which took place in March 2026 and predates the arrival of PPN 026 in August 2026.
Key Takeaways
- Social value is moving beyond procurement into organisational strategy. Departments and ALBs are increasingly asking how social value connects to departmental priorities, place-based objectives, and post-tender governance – not just how it scores in a bid.
- Evidence, not narrative, is becoming the standard, with expectations aligning to the rigour seen in environmental and health and safety performance. Suppliers need measurement systems, clear processes, and accountability across the whole project lifecycle.
- Quantified, directive commitments outperform open-ended asks. Commissioners who set clear, needs-based objectives and require specific, measurable commitments get better social value outcomes and make it easier for suppliers to deliver.
- Coordinated delivery across suppliers delivers greater impact. Unified social value plans across multi-supplier frameworks, backed by senior sponsorship and collective funding, deliver far more than fragmented, siloed approaches.
- The next frontier is using data to inform procurement. The market needs to move from collecting data within individual contracts to building consistent, shareable data sets that allow past performance to shape future procurement design and policy.
Want to see the webinar and learn more? Contact us for the recording.
Social value expectations in central government and arm’s length bodies (ALBs) are changing fast. The Procurement Act 2023, PPN 002, and growing public scrutiny of how taxpayer money delivers wider outcomes mean that departments can no longer treat social value as a procurement-only exercise.
This shift is less about new policy requirements and more about how existing commitments are expected to be evidenced and managed over time.
In 19/3/26’s iGov/Thrive webinar, three senior practitioners explored what that shift means in practice — and what comes next. Here’s what they had to say.
From procurement add-on to organisational strategy
The panel agreed that the most significant shift in recent years is that social value is moving from a line in a tender response to a strategic capability embedded across the organisation.
In practical terms, this means social value can no longer be defined at bid stage and left there. It has to be carried through into delivery, reporting, and oversight.
Danni Aberg, Head of Social Value at Thrive, explained that five years ago most departments applied the Social Value Model themes quite literally within procurement. That was an important starting point, but it meant social value sat around procurement rather than being embedded within the organisation.
Tracey West, Head of Social Impact at Sellafield Limited, confirmed this analysis from a commissioning perspective, and noted the change:
“It’s how we build it into business cases, so it’s considered right at the beginning, instead of at the end where we think ‘right, what extra social value can we get from this?’”
— Tracey West, Sellafield Limited
Lucy Davies, ESG Director at Tilbury Douglas, agreed, adding that construction has been ahead of other sectors in looking beyond the procurement lens.
Proportionality across sectors
Tracey offered practical guidance on proportionality, warning that there is no one-size-fits-all answer, and every tender requires consideration of duration, value, scope, and desired outcomes. As a benchmark, she suggested proportionate contributions are broadly around 1% of contract value.
“When we’re awarding big contracts, some of the first questions stakeholders ask is ‘so what’s going to be the benefit to local community?’ And we want them to be sitting there saying ‘wow, that’s brilliant.’”
— Tracey West, Sellafield Limited
This places more emphasis on how requirements are set, not just how they are scored.
Evidence that stands up to scrutiny in delivery
Lucy welcomed the move towards audit-ready social value, describing how Tilbury Douglas has brought in a measurement system, rewritten its social value procedures, and embedded them into its integrated management system from bid stage through to aftercare.
“It’s just as important as getting a permit. All those other things that you take into account when you’re building something — social value is in there.”
— Lucy Davies, Tilbury Douglas
She stressed that accountability extends beyond social value managers. Multiple roles across a project all have a part to play. She also identified a persistent gap around a lack of education on the commissioning side, which means questions in tenders are sometimes not relevant to the sector or do not target the areas of greatest impact.
This level of integration depends on clear ownership of data, not just activity.
Danni explained that social value reporting is beginning to align with the rigour expected in environmental and health and safety performance, and identified three principles for helping supply chains keep pace: proportionality in what is asked of smaller suppliers, clarity and consistency in reporting, and genuine integration into contract management.
“When we talk about social value, it doesn’t sit with one team. It very much sits as a golden thread across the organisation.”
— Danni Aberg, Thrive
Quantified commitments and collaborative delivery
Tracey described how Sellafield has moved from broad social value questions to directive questions focused on specific initiatives and identified needs. All commitments must be quantified with clear numbers, and contracts now include incentivised KPIs with real consequences for non-delivery.
“The key thing is being able to quantify what the commitments are. Not fluffy statements — it’s quite clear what they’re going to do. We need to see numbers to be able to actually hold them to account.”
— Tracey West, Sellafield Limited
The shift is not just towards numbers, but towards commitments that can be monitored and managed over time.
Tracey shared a Sellafield case study from a 10-year framework involving five delivery partners and 16 companies.
Initially each had a separate plan, leading to fragmented delivery. The turning point came when the framework shifted to one unified plan with collective funding, senior sponsorship, and co-created projects rooted in community need. This model is now standard from contract award on major Sellafield frameworks.
Coordination becomes a delivery requirement, not just a governance preference.
Lucy echoed this from a Strategic Supplier perspective, citing Dorchester Hospital where the client’s clarity on objectives made it straightforward to align delivery. Clear objectives and active support, produce far better outcomes than broad, unstructured asks, she insisted.
Where should social value be delivered?
The panel tackled whether social value must always be delivered locally. Tracey acknowledged that Sellafield’s focus is inherently local due to its responsibilities under the Energy Act and the rural community it serves. The aim is to build economic resilience and ensure people can access skilled jobs without leaving the area.
But Danni pointed out that other organisations have more options:
- “Social value doesn’t mean localism. Social value, regardless of where you deliver it, is still social value. But social value in procurement often is indeed locally driven.”
— Danni Aberg, Thrive
This requires commissioners to be explicit about what they are prioritising, rather than assuming both can be maximised simultaneously.
She referenced Modern Methods of Construction as an example, where contracts simultaneously demanded MMC (usually built off-site, thus benefiting a different community and local economy) and high levels of local employment at the same time.
Speaking as a representative of a national-level supplier, Lucy naturally took a pragmatic view: clients spending public money will always want local impact, but for office-based or cross-regional suppliers, flexibility around location would enable better outcomes.
What comes next: using data to shape procurement
Looking ahead, Danni argued that the critical next step is moving beyond data collection towards using social value data to genuinely inform procurement design. Data still tends to sit within individual contracts or departments rather than providing a cross-system picture. That is not always for lack of willingness to share, but usually reflects understandable caution around commercial sensitivities.
Building cross-system visibility through consistent baselines and structural expectations around data sharing would allow commissioners to learn from evidence of what actually works, rather than each procurement starting from scratch.
In closing, each panellist named the one barrier they would remove.
Tracey pointed to the difficulty of measuring long-term impact across contracts that can run for 15 years, where you might begin working with a 10-year-old child with the aim that they eventually enter a skilled job, but the timescales make evidence extraordinarily difficult.
Lucy returned to the education issue, stressing that commissioners who better understand social value would ask better questions and recognise better answers.
“It’s the people that are procuring, understanding what’s needed through that contract, and then asking the right questions and understanding the answers that are given. We’d see far more value and far more impact if it was just understood a little bit more.”
— Lucy Davies, Tilbury Douglas
Both reinforce the same message: the infrastructure around social value – the data, the skills, and the expectations – needs to mature as fast as the ambition.
Panellists:
- Danni Aberg (Head of Social Value, Thrive)
- Lucy Davies (ESG Director, Tilbury Douglas)
- Tracey West (Head of Social Impact, Sellafield Limited)
- Chaired by Vicky Maggiani (Head of Content, iGov) Live
Thrive helps contracting authorities and suppliers measure, manage, and report social value through the Impact Evaluation Standard — an independently governed framework with 130+ metrics aligned to the Social Value Model and developed using HM Treasury Green Book methodology.
Authorities can collect standardised data, track delivery at contract level, and benchmark performance across portfolios. Suppliers submit evidence through structured forms at no cost to themselves.
Want to see the webinar and learn more? Contact us for the recording.
To see how the platform works, request a demonstration or contact the Thrive team.
Alan Boyce
Senior Researcher More articles by Alan >
