Issue - meetings

To present to Cabinet for approval a Social Value Policy to demonstrate how the Council will deliver corporate priorities by achieving social value through procurement ensuring the additional benefit to the community which we can derive, over and above the direct purchasing of goods, services and outcomes, where these quality criteria are relevant and proportionate to the subject matter of the contract and non-discriminatory.

RESOLVED that Cabinet -

(a)    approves the Social Value Policy, as set out in Appendix A to item A.7 of the Report of the Assets Portfolio Holder, for recommendation onto Full Council for adoption;

(b)    authorises the Portfolio Holder for Assets (with responsibility for procurement) to approve changes to the list of Social Value Measures in the TOMs Calculator, where those measures deliver on the Outcomes agreed by Cabinet;

(c)    authorises the Director (Governance) (with responsibility for procurement) to approve the removal of TOMs measures for specific procurements, in order to meet the Public Contracts Regulations requirements for relevance, proportionality to the subject matter of the contract and non-discrimination; and

(d)    endorses an annual social value statement to reaffirm their goals to suppliers and measuring social value progress.

Cabinet considered a detailed report of the Assets Portfolio Holder (A.7) which presentedfor approval a Social Value Policy to demonstrate how the Council would deliver corporate priorities by achieving social value through procurement ensuring the additional benefit to the community which the Council could derive, over and above the direct purchasing of goods, services and outcomes, where those quality criteria were relevant and proportionate to the subject matter of the contract and non-discriminatory.

The Portfolio Holder had put forward that implementing a Social Value Policy would elevate social value from a procurement process to an organisation-wide policy.   Organisation-wide ownership of social value, would encourage each project owner across the Authority to consider how they could achieve priority objectives in the Corporate Plan, thereby ensuring they made a commercial contribution in line with the Local Government Act 1988.  For example, a project manager in Directorate A could enable local jobs and skills opportunities, thereby delivering on corporate objectives in Directorate B.

The Policy would also enable this Council to set out a framework for:

·      ensuring the social value measures the Council used aligned to the Corporate Planand how changes to Social Value Themes, Outcomes and Priorities were made; and

·      how changes to the specific measures listed in the TOMs Calculator were made where they delivered Outcomes agreed by the Cabinet.  Each Measure sat under one of the agreed Social Value Outcomes.

This option had been recommended because it met best practice principles of publishing an organisation-wide Social Value Policy and it would enable the Council to adopt the TOMs Calculator efficiently to harness specific opportunities to deliver on corporate objectives (but only where they delivered on the outcomes already agreed by the Cabinet).

Whilst Social Value could apply with any value of contract, there was an operational cost to preparing and scoring the evaluation model. Therefore, the Assets Portfolio Holder had proposed that the Council would normally only require social value to be considered when it was procuring a contract with a value of over £100,000.

It was moved by Councillor Kotz, seconded by Councillor M E Stephenson and:-

RESOLVED that Cabinet -

(a)    approves the Social Value Policy, as set out in Appendix A to item A.7 of the Report of the Assets Portfolio Holder, for recommendation onto Full Council for adoption;

(b)    authorises the Portfolio Holder for Assets (with responsibility for procurement) to approve changes to the list of Social Value Measures in the TOMs Calculator, where those measures deliver on the Outcomes agreed by Cabinet;

(c)    authorises the Director (Governance) (with responsibility for procurement) to approve the removal of TOMs measures for specific procurements, in order to meet the Public Contracts Regulations requirements for relevance, proportionality to the subject matter of the contract and non-discrimination; and

(d)    endorses an annual social value statement to reaffirm their goals to suppliers and measuring social value progress.