The Council is asked to consider the recommendations submitted to it by the Cabinet in respect of the adoption of a Social Value Policy.

Council was informed that, at its meeting held on 15 November 2024 (Minute 82 referred), the Cabinet had considered a report of the Portfolio for Assets which had presented to Cabinet for its 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 it 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 could 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 could also enable this Council to set out a framework for:

·      ensuring the social value measures we 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 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.

Cabinet had consequently:-

“RESOLVED that Cabinet -

(a)    approves the Social Value Policy, as set out in Appendix A, 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.”

A copy of the published reference report of the Assets Portfolio Holder (and its appendix) to the Cabinet meeting held on 15 November 2024 was before Council as attached to this reference report (A.5).

It was moved by Councillor M E Stephensonand:-

RESOLVED that Council approves and formally adopts the Social Value Policy, as set out in Appendix 2 to this reference report (A.5).