Social Value Policy

Get to know our Social Value Policy for suppliers in West Berkshire

The 2012 Public Services (Social Value) Act and more recently Procurement Policy Statement (6/20) places an obligation upon all councils to consider how they can secure social, economic and environmental benefits from the procurement of public contracts.

Social Value is about maximising the wider benefit to be gained through meeting our needs for goods and services in a way that achieves value for money for the life of the contract.

By adopting a Social Value Policy here in West Berkshire, we recognise there is significant scope to do things differently through our procurement activity. These include helping to support community benefits such as the prevention of social isolation and encouraging the creation of job opportunities for local people, among others. Many opportunities also exist to innovate and generate environmental benefits in support of the delivery of the West Berkshire Environment Strategy.

A key element of the West Berkshire policy is around 'additionality' or 'added value'. Additionality enables extra economic, environmental and/or social benefits to be achieved from West Berkshire contracts with third party providers that would have not generally been included as essential criteria in the specification.

The Council will aim for 10% of the evaluation score for social value to be considered on all Council procurements, where it is possible to do so.

The decisions around weighting and indicators will be made on a case by case basis with a focus on achieving positive outcomes without creating barriers for our suppliers.

The policy is a live document and will be reviewed regularly to ensure it is continuing to meet its objectives.

Social Value Policy

Social Value Policy poster