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Messages for Greater Manchester Mayoral candidates

Posted on by GMSVN

The Greater Manchester Social Value Network (GMSVN) is a network of organisations which seeks to influence stakeholders, policy and strategy at the Greater Manchester level around social value.

GMSVN believes that social value should be at the heart of Mayoral priorities in Greater Manchester moving forward and has therefore submitted the below message to all mayoral candidates.

 

Messages for Greater Manchester (GM) Mayoral candidates from the Greater Manchester Social Value Network (GMSVN)

  • Social Value should be at the heart of all GM strategy – that means the Mayor needs to ‘Social Value-proof’ existing and future strategy to ensure it has a common thread and is adapted accordingly. Social Value should be one of the priorities throughout the GM Strategy, Spatial Framework, and wider devolution planning.
  • The creation of social impact should be ‘valued’ and recognised as a way to achieve the maximum return from investment of public and private money in GM, and measurement frameworks are required. But frameworks should not insist that every last piece of ‘value’ has to be measured and accounted for in financial terms. There needs to be understanding and agreement that this is the right way to do business, but not all social value can/should be measured. All ‘measuring’ should be proportionate and relevant.
  • Social Value needs leadership – it should be taken seriously and effort/resources put into changing the way that GM does business. This should include the policy lead for social value being included in the GM Mayor’s own office.
  • Social Value isn’t just procurement, it’s inclusive growth – measures are required to ensure that every development project in the Greater Manchester Strategic Framework maximises the delivery of social value and contributes towards inclusive growth.

 

What should the GM mayor put in his/ her manifesto?

I will ensure that the public sector in GM goes beyond the confines of the Public Services (Social Value) Act, embedding a social value approach into everything that they do; and will work with the private sector to create a GM where ‘responsible business’ is ‘normal business’.

Social value will be used to ensure that expenditure of the GM pound will create a fairer, more inclusive and caring place to live, work and do business.

 

Activities to support these objectives:

  •  A GM employment/ social value charter – including a single definition of social value and a commitment to a number of high level GM-wide priorities for social value (for example; paying the Living Wage, creating employment and skills for GM people and encouraging greater community activity).
  • A GM wide procurement policy – all public sector organisations should be mandated to follow a single policy and process for maximising social value in procurement and commissioning.
  • GM planning and development – embedding of a social value ‘ask’ in development agreements, funding awards and strategic plans.
  • A GM commissioning framework – which encourages the public sector across GM to work collaboratively on this and develop a joined up approach rather than developing different policies/frameworks/process within different parts of the GM system. Achievable and measurable outcomes should be established and achievements monitored.
  • Greater Manchester Social Value Network – resources and effort to support sharing learning and experience, training and awareness raising around social value.

 

The Importance of Social Value

Posted on by GMSVN

An update on Manchester City Council’s creation of social value through procurement activity:

Over the course of the last ten years, Manchester City Council has been at the forefront of progressive policy and practice around procurement. With an annual spend of over £600million, Manchester City Council has sought to ensure that every procurement decision it makes brings maximum benefit for the economy of Manchester and its residents. This means working with and utilising Manchester businesses to provide goods and services and ensuring that organisations providing goods and services (regardless of where they are based) bring social value including through creating jobs and apprenticeships, creating volunteering opportunities and reducing carbon footprint.

The work of Manchester City Council around procurement has involved a number of activities. First, they have developed a procurement policy statement which not only considers traditional factors such as cost and quality, but also ensure bidders for contracts consider social value. Second they have embedded the city’s corporate priorities into the procurement process, so that suppliers are actively encouraged to contribute towards achieving them.

Third, through work with the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES), they have actively measured where their procurement spend goes in geographical terms, and what wider impact it has on Manchester in economic and resident terms. As part of this work there has been a focus on monitoring and increasing spend with SME’s which reached £246m in 2015/16 and equates to 56.5% of spend with the Council’s top 300 suppliers. This compares with the government’s most up to date figures of 27% in 2014/15. And fourth, they have undertaken an array of work with Manchester based business to increase their skills and capability to bid for opportunities and also ensure their provision of goods and services brings maximum benefit. This has included: simplifying documents, hosting meet the buyer events, developing supplier networks, and visiting suppliers in areas of deprivation to promote the importance of social value.

The work described above and much more has impacted on the behaviour of procurement officers, the relationship of the City Council with business in Manchester, and has ultimately increased levels of investment with Manchester based business. The work around progressive procurement by Manchester City Council is far from done – procurement decisions are made with a minimum of 20% of the contract award score allocated to social value and Manchester City Council has recently launched an Ethical Procurement Policy.

Relevant documents can be downloaded from the Greater Manchester Chamber of Commerce website

Social Value – the key role of Commissioning and Procurement

Posted on by GMSVN

Matthew Jackson is the Chair of GMSVN and the Deputy Chief Executive of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES)

At the Greater Manchester Social Value Network (GMSVN) we are seeking to ensure that social value is embedded in everything that Greater Manchester as a place does. That means social value being at the heart of Greater Manchester strategy and embedded in the DNA of the public sector, businesses and the voluntary and community sector.

Just one component of that whole place approach to social value is the process of commissioning and procurement. If public authorities design goods and services with social value as a central plank, then the delivery of those goods and services are much more likely to bring a dividend in terms of social value outcomes.

Greater Manchester has a great framework for embedding social value into commissioning and procurement processes in the form of the Greater Manchester Social Value Policy, which has been in place since October 2014. This sets out six key outcomes which the process of commissioning and procurement can and should be contributing towards beyond the delivery of the good or service.

To date, the Policy has been successful in changing the behaviour of predominantly procurement teams in Greater Manchester’s ten local authorities. The challenge, however, with the Policy has been ensuring that its principles are embedded not only in the pre-contract considerations and behaviour of all public sector commissioners and procurers; but also in the subsequent behaviour of the supply chain. There are a number of ways in which commissioners and procurers can use the principles and outcomes of the Policy (these broadly follow the cycle of design and delivery of services of goods and services):

  1. Commissioners should consider the outcomes of the Policy right at the outset of the design of the good or service. In this they should be asking themselves which of the outcomes are appropriate to that particular good or service, and how the delivery of that good or service can potentially contribute to the achievement of those outcomes;
  2. Procurement teams should generally detail the outcomes of the Policy in their tender documentation, so that potential suppliers are aware of them;
  3. Where specific outcomes have been identified through the commissioning process for a particular good or service, questions should be asked of potential suppliers in their tender responses as to how they will deliver against them;
  4. Procurement teams when evaluating tender documents when evaluating tenders should score against the social value questions, much in the same way as they do for cost and quality;
  5. In the delivery of goods and services, suppliers should then ensure that they are delivering against social value outcomes and seeking support from voluntary and community sector organisations to do so, where appropriate;
  6. Suppliers should also be asked to come up with any proposals of their own that draw upon their ingenuity and ability to innovate to deliver better social value outcomes recognising that commissioners don’t know what they don’t know.
  7. Contract managers should monitor on a regular basis the achievement of social value commitments by suppliers, much in the same was as they would do for progress against budget and timeframes;

Embedding social value into commissioning and procurement does not need a re-invention of the process; it simply requires a shift in behaviour in the relevant elements of commissioning, tendering, delivery, and monitoring. Short term change will lead to longer term benefits and outcomes for the Greater Manchester economy and its residents.

GMSVN NEWSLETTER – JANUARY 2017

Posted on by GMSVN

This newsletter describes the ongoing work of GMSVN to develop the network and some of the key wider activities currently going on around social value in Greater Manchester.

Please contact us if you have news of interest to other members of the network to include in future newsletters.

GMSVN Website

The website provides: information about the network; cases studies of practice around social value in Greater Manchester; information about our events; and provides link to news and resources around social value. We welcome blog articles, case studies, and news for the website.

GMSVN Linked-In Group

We also have a Linked-In group where people can connect with others with an interest in social value and discuss issues. Please join!

The Network

The steering group of GMSVN consists of ten people. The role of the steering group, which meets on a bi-monthly basis, is to make the network thrive through: visioning, influencing, planning, coordinating, and evaluating. Over 125 people form part of the wider network.

Events

GMSVN hosted 2 events in 2016, both kindly supported by the University of Manchester and Greater Manchester Talent Match. The events were an opportunity for network members to meet and to raise awareness of the activities of the network and activities around social value in Greater Manchester more generally. View the presentations from our last events. Regular events are being planned for 2017.

Case Studies

GMSVN has developed and continues to develop case studies of practice around social value in Greater Manchester. There are case studies for BAM Construct UK and New Charter Homes with more to follow. Please send us case studies to include.

Training

There are many organisations across Greater Manchester offering training and support around social value. GMSVN has brought some of these organisations together to develop a collective offer. The offer is split into two parts: short policy courses; and practice based courses. The courses will be piloted in the next few months and then the course programme and resources will be made freely available for other organisations to use.

Wider activities being undertaken in Greater Manchester

This section of the newsletter describes some of the wider activities which are currently going on in Greater Manchester.

Greater Manchester Mayoral Election

The election for a Mayor of Greater Manchester will take place in May 2017. Various organisations are seeking to influence mayoral priorities and GMSVN is no different. We are looking to host a roundtable with one of the candidates, Andy Burnham, to ensure social value is at the forefront of mayoral priorities and Greater Manchester strategy moving forward. More information coming soon.

The health sector

A range of activities are being undertaken around social value with and in the health sector in Greater Manchester, all of which GMSVN members are involved in. GMSVN members are working closely with the Greater Manchester Director of Public Health Improvement to ensure social value is central to the GM Population Health Plan. A high-level proposal to secure resources through the Transformation Fund for this activity has been made.

Manchester Growth Company

The Manchester Growth Company seeks to make Greater Manchester an attractive place in which to invest in and support existing business to grow. They also have a desire to address the issues of economic and social inequality in Greater Manchester. They have therefore, with some support from GMSVN, been looking to embed social value strategically into the organisation and into their business support offer to ensure businesses also consider social value in their practices and behaviour.

Greater Manchester Housing Providers Group

Representatives from a few social housing providers recently met to discuss and share best practice on delivering social value through procurement. They have asked for this topic to be raised with the CEOs of the Greater Manchester Housing Providers Group to discuss how a consistent approach can be taken across the sector. They are due to meet with the core group of CEOs in the next couple of months to take this forward.

Greater Manchester Social Value Procurement Framework

The Greater Manchester Combined Authority (GMCA) signed off the Greater Manchester Social Value Procurement Framework in Autumn 2014. It is designed to ensure that commissioners and procurers consider social value outcomes at the various stages of the procurement process including in bidding and monitoring. GMSVN has been promoting the importance of the framework to commissioners across the public, commercial and social sectors.

The Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) and the AGMA Procurement Hub are currently updating the baseline position for the framework in relation to the achievement of outcomes by the suppliers to the ten Greater Manchester authorities.

Commissioning and outcomes framework

Linked to the procurement framework, GMCA and New Economy are currently developing a Greater Manchester Outcomes Framework that will measure the impact of devolution across local authorities and the health sector. Members of GMSVN are seeking to influence the framework to ensure that social value considerations and impact around procurement are embedded and to ensure that existing activity is not duplicated.

 

If you would like to become a member of GMSVN or have news items, please contact Nigel Rose at MACC on nigel@macc.org.uk

The Greater Manchester Social Value Network (GMSVN) seeks to influence stakeholders, policy and strategy at the GM level around social value. The Network undertakes three activities:

  1. It collects information, evidence and examples of social value across Greater Manchester;
  2. It supports organisations across all sectors to deliver more effective social value policy, practice and outcomes;
  3. It uses the skills and knowledge of the network to influence the behaviour of the range of individuals and organisations with a stake in social value.

 

The Social Value Exchange: how a new innovation is breathing life into the Social Value Act

Posted on by GMSVN

This blog by Tom Symons and Dan Ebanks at Nesta explores how innovations in procurement can change the relationship between procurement and innovation, in turn allowing greater innovation in the delivery of services.

It also describes a new approach – Firesouls’ Social Value Exchange, a platform that helps government suppliers win tenders by making a contribution to the community projects that are solving the most pressing local problems – http://svx.firesouls.co.uk/

Read the full blog on Nesta’s website

Measuring social impact ‘is like quicksilver in the hand’

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Anne blog photo.png
Anne Lythgoe, Salford City Council and Social Audit Network

I was at a conference recently about the future of Volunteering where discussion arose about how to measure its impact. Representatives from volunteering organisers complained about the problem of commissioners expecting longitudinal measurement of the social impact of volunteering, when this is something that varies and changes on a day to day basis. This made me think of Dorothy Parker’s quote about quicksilver. ‘Leave the fingers open and it stays. Clutch it and it darts away’.

I learned that most people, especially the young, volunteer for a short period of time, or just for a one-off event. Tracking the difference that this has made for them and for society is nigh on impossible. (…and certainly would involve a huge amount of effort).

So if commissioners need to know the difference that something as ever-changing as volunteering is making, can this really be done? Should we clutch the quicksilver and try to make it fit into a box of metrics, or leave the hand open and watch it change?

The whole problem of tracking change over a long period of time is not being addressed by most social impact measurement approaches, which take a ‘snap shot’ or try to clutch at the truth of the impact (not always capturing the true picture and certainly not understanding it in the medium to long term…)

So I have two suggestions – one for the volunteering organisers and a follow-up for commissioners;

Organisers – look to the use of social accounting and audit, which at least tries to track social impact over time due to the regularity of the process… Use a repeated and robust measurement system as part of your daily business, and keep it there.

Commissioners – would you accept the ‘passporting’ of evidence about social impact. or learning from evaluation between projects if there was a robust social accounting system in place? Rather than expecting measurement in minute detail for a provider to receive payment, would you be happy if observed and assumed impact/outcomes could be shown in the longer term through independently verified social accounts?

Dorothy Parker’s original quote was about Love. I also learned that people volunteer because they care about something! Let’s not put them off by stifling this caring with form-filling and over-zealous counting of what they do.

Anne Lythgoe is Manager of Policy and Partnerships at Salford City Council and is supporting a partnership between the public and VCSE sectors in the City and Greater Manchester. More information can be found at http://www.salfordsocialvalue.org..uk

Anne is also a Director of the Social Audit Network. http://www.socialauditnetwork.org.uk

Twitter: @anne_lythgoe

5 simple ways to deliver social value

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Tom Wilde, Social Value Advisor

I recently spoke at a Supply Chain Sustainability School event, to a room of construction industry SMEs, about how all businesses can deliver greater social value, and can respond to social value procurement questions.

A quick survey of the room showed that:

65% have been asked about social value in tender questions. – This means there is now a direct business benefit from delivering greater social value.

65% identified cost or resource constraints as the greatest barrier to social value activity.

Whatever sector you operate in, and whatever the business driver is, I believe there are 5 simple ways that all businesses could increase their social value activity. It doesn’t have to be difficult, and any associated costs would be easily outweighed by the business benefits, such as staff morale, competitive-edge, and more importantly doing the right thing!

  1. Buy Social – think about the impact of your supply chain spend. Try to identify social enterprises who could provide the products or services you require and invite them to quote for contracts.  If you can pay the same price, receive the same service, but know that the profits are being re-invested for social good – why wouldn’t you?  www.buysocialdirectory.org.uk
  2. Pay the Living Wage – not the ‘National Living Wage’ (NLW) of £7.20/hour set by Government, but the Living Wage Foundation wage of £8.25/hour, which is calculated according to the basic cost of living in the UK.  I am proud to work for an accredited Living Wage Employer, and believe that paying a fair wage should be a moral obligation of all employers: www.livingwage.org.uk
  3. Support long-term unemployed people – The idea of local employment is a valuable one, and is often requested in social value tenders.  However, the area where I think employers can offer the greatest value is in supporting long-term unemployed people, or those who face barriers to employment.  There are fantastic programmes (supported by local and national government) across the whole country which are crying out for employers to offer a range of support to people who face long-term barriers to employment. It’s not necessarily about jobs at this stage, but might be about work experience, or interview skills, or mentoring.  Examples of programmes in Greater Manchester include: GM TalentMatch (www.gmtalentmatch.org.uk) and; Working Well (www.thebiglifegroup.com/big-life-enterprises/)
  4. Support local charities and Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations – A good starting point is to offer your staff a volunteering day or to fund-raise for local charities.  Even better, think about what services or products you provide that could be of greater value to these organisations?  Rather than volunteering to paint a wall or litter-pick, could you offer some pro-bono skills such as IT, Marketing, Finance, Construction, etc?  Or maybe you could donate some of your products or materials to VCSE organisations who would otherwise need to pay full market price?
  5. Embed social value and do it as a matter of course –  Don’t look at social value simply as a business cost – instead look at it as an essential component of your business model, driving value whilst operating responsibly.  If you embed these practices into your everyday business operations, it will not only bring the cost of delivery down, but will massively increase your impact – therefore benefitting your business, your staff, and wider society.  There are loads of great examples of successful businesses who do these things as a matter of course (e.g. Timpsons have employed ex-offenders for over 12 years. As do Pret a Manger who set up the Pret Foundation Trust in 1995 which aims to help break the cycle of homelessness. This includes helping vulnerable people into work and donating unsold food to homeless charities).    If they can do it, why can’t you?