Social Value

Supporting organisations across Lancashire to deliver social value

 

 

Social value is a term that is used often in the public sector. It isn’t the easiest to understand as it can mean different things in different settings. However at its heart, its about trying to make public spending or resource create as much impact as possible for people and communities. Social value means creating extra benefits for people, the economy, and the environment — on top of what you’re already being paid to do.

Example: In a simplified example imagine a company is hired to build a new office. The main job is to construct the building—that’s the “core” value. But the company might also:

  • Hire local workers, helping the community earn income.
  • Use eco-friendly materials, reducing harm to the environment.
  • Train young people, giving them skills for future jobs.

These extra steps don’t change the main job (building the office), but they add extra value that benefits society. That’s what we mean by creating social value.

 

 

We try to maximise this extra ‘social value’ as it can have a beneficial impact on local people and the communities that we serve. It’s also one of the most effective ways Local Government can create an impact without committing lots of additional resources.

We also try to maximise social value in other ways. Such as embedding social value in developments across Lancashire or supporting businesses that need to deliver social value

 

 

As a business you may have heard of social value, or been asked about it when bidding for work. In simple terms social value refers to the additional social, economic, and environmental benefits that can be generated by your organisation. This is over and above either the core goods, services, or works being delivered, or your day-to-day business operation.

Social value is becoming an increasingly important aspect of business. Businesses that have a strong social value offer are better able to win bids and tenders. Investors and Boards are also increasingly interested in the impact that their businesses deliver. Social value also plays a role in attracting talent, enhancing reputation and driving purpose.

We can support you to deliver social value in the following ways:

  • Lancashire Social Value Network. We deliver a bi-annual social value network to support organisations to develop their understanding of social value and meet with other organisations and charities that can make delivering social value easier.
  • We work with LCC’s Procurement function around including social value in our procurement. A whole array of information is available here including local needs, they types of things we ask for and tips on bidding.
  • Advice and guidance around delivering social value. If you need support identifying ways to deliver social value, local partners or projects, or general information around social value we can provided one to one advice and support. Just contact the team and let us know what issue you need support with.

 

 

 

Partners and stakeholders play a vital role in helping us maximise the social, economic, and environmental benefits through our collective work. For us the work we do around social value is about enabling others, as well as ourselves, to create additional social, economic and environmental wellbeing above and beyond our core delivery to create lasting impact for local people and places.

As such we are interested in hearing from organisations who:

  • Lancashire based organisations who are developing an approach to delivering social value. We are always eager to hear how others do social value, share learning or collaborate.
  • Developers or Contractors that are delivering social value in Lancashire
  • Can support other organisations to deliver social value, with a specific focus on skills and employment.
  • Have a contract with social value targets included that focus on Lancashire.

 

The Skills Hub has played a leading role in embedding social value within previous public sector programmes. It was previously aligned to the LEP and led od embedding social value with Growth Deal, City Deal and LEP programmes. In recent years we have repositioned our approach to:

Provide a more consistent approach to capturing Social Value that contributes to achieving Lancashire 2050 priorities.

This had led us to adopt the following Social Value objectives:

  • Development of a shared Social Value framework, building on existing good practice.
  • Embed Social Value into Lancashire 2050.
  • Influencing anchor employers and public sector organisations to gain wider buy-in to Social Value.

We play a leading role working with Lancashire County Council’s Growth and Development team to support the inclusion of social value in their Developments, such as Lancashire Central or Farrington Cricket Club. We also advocate and facilitate the inclusion of social value into a broader range of significant Lancashire developments such as Eden Project Morecambe and Nation Cyber Force.

 

 

We’re committed to supporting our partners to embed and deliver social value effectively. This includes:

  • Lancashire Social Value Network. We deliver a bi-annual social value network to support organisations to develop their understanding of social value and meet with other organisations and charities that can make delivering social value easier.
  • Advice and guidance around delivering social value. If you need support identifying ways to deliver social value, local partners or projects, or general information around social value we can provided one to one advice and support. Just contact the team and let us know what issue you need support with.
  • Partnerships. If you are working on a project that has social value as a key priority we can work with you to develop and deliver on those aims. We can mobilise support and local partners and guide thinking around social value so that it best meets local needs and opportunities. If you are working on a project that would benefit just let us know via the contact us link below.