The Red Review - Social Value Fireside chat with Carrie-Ann Huelin
Starting a new season of podcasts, this episode is a recording of a webinar session we broadcast recently. The session was a fireside chat with Social Value consultant and expert, Carrie Ann-Huelin.
We talked about the different types of SV, balancing monetised and real-world impact, where to listen to understand the right impact to drive and the wonderful world of SV in bidding - with some audience Q&A along the way.
If you have any questions or enquiries on social value and winning work you can contact Carrie-Ann at: Carrie-Ann.Huelin@violaclause.com
Transcript
[00:00.2]
It does look, I like to mix it up. Very good. Right, well we can get underway with a bit of introductions and all that sort of stuff. So I'll introduce you in in a sec. So welcome everybody. Thank you for joining, our drop, in session.
[00:17.5]
So this one's directly as a result of the last one actually. So normally we've got into running drop in sessions which are normally normal zoom calls. So this one's a webinar format. So you're all sitting out there in the ether rather than being in the call with Caran and I.
[00:35.9]
Normally we just have a, a smaller call which was originally designed for people that I've trained or worked with, friends, colleagues, family, you know, to be able to drop in once a month and talk about whatever the issues at hand are in the world of winning work.
[00:53.9]
So not just bidding, but capture cam sales skills, you know, what are we finding? And so we had one of those sessions about a month and we had a good chat about various things, PAZ360 and how rubbish it is and all sorts of things.
[01:10.5]
And how we can improve. But the key theme that came out, a number of people asked if we could run a session specifically on social value. And I've seen in the market, obviously social value is becoming a bigger and bigger subject as it becomes quite critically worth more and more points in procurements as we'll talk about later on in this, this fireside chat.
[01:36.0]
And so, why not? So I see in the market lots of people blagging it, if I'm honest. There's, you know, social value as bidding is, is still fairly immature. We have a Social Value act, but how it's interpreted and how that's matured since its introduction and in combination with PPN notices and you know, the new Procurement act to come, it's still on a bit of a journey and so I, much rather than me just prattle on about something that I don't really know about, I thought I'd get a grown up on and so, and the joy of my job is I I get to work with people and, and talk to people that I like.
[02:20.2]
And so one of those, one of my favourites is Carrie Anne. Welcome Carrie Anne. Thank you for joining us. So would you mind carrying, just giving us a little introduction to yourself, who you are, what you do these days. Yes, I can absolutely do that.
[02:35.4]
So, Carrie Anne Hewling I have been around in social volume world for about 17 years, started off very operational, very delivery focused, working for private sector contractors and did a good stint of time doing that and working into social value through it being economic regeneration or social sustainability or all the different names that it was, it was given.
[03:07.5]
And then after kind of like 10 years or so doing that, I thought, you know what, I could probably just go and do this by myself. Because I want to do interesting things and I want to get involved client side and I want to do stuff outside of the built environment sector.
[03:24.4]
So I spent a good six and a half years working for everybody, helping, different organisations and different sectors of different sizes doing social value. Then I spent a couple of years at ISG heading up the kind of global social value function and setting a new strategy and, understanding how to take what I'd learned and apply it to an organisation and then feed it through that organisation.
[03:53.6]
And now I'm back to consulting again because I need the diverse portfolio. I need to be able to change things up a little bit. So I'm excited to be back into consultancy world and doing different things in different sectors. And I was at the event, a couple of weeks ago and someone had us pick from a selection of pictures on a table, about how we felt about social value at that point in time in, in our careers and our lives.
[04:21.6]
And I picked a picture that had a little, love heart, shape of clouds in a sky and people like, why have you picked that? And I was like, because 17 years in, in all the different work that I've done and all the different people that I've worked with and the inspirational people I meet all the time, I still love it.
[04:39.6]
It's really hard. Social volume is really challenging and it changes all the time and it's complex but I still love it. It's because you're using your power for good, you're using your brain for good and you can feel positive about that. So that's just a little, a little snippet about me.
[04:56.9]
I've been around a while, but I'm still really passionate. I'm really excited about the subject matter as well. Very good. And so the bit that's pretty unique is that you are a bit of a hired gun to work on bids from a social perspective.
[05:13.5]
And I'm bloody glad that you've come back because I haven't had anyone else to talk to a couple of years. If I'm honest, I would trust with this stuff. So I'm glad to have you Back on speed dial for this. So thank you for making the time and joining us on it. So what is.
[05:28.8]
So we're just. It's a Fireside Chat format. I, I should say you are audience. You're very welcome, to use the Q and A function to ask questions. We might get a bit of time for Q and A towards the end. But in the meantime Carrie Anne and I have got a bit of an orchestrated, set of questions or Fireside Chat subjects.
[05:48.1]
So first of all, carry on. What does social value mean? What is it? Oh, yeah, the, the age old, the age old question. There's a lot of very technical versions of definitions of social value.
[06:03.3]
And when I say a lot, I mean by hundreds. And you have to find the type of description that works for you. And the type of description that works for me is just to keep it as simple as possible. So in my view, I think social value is an organisation or a group of people consciously and purposefully trying to do good things for other human beings as part of the work that they're doing.
[06:31.7]
It can be described as, as creating monetized positive social impacts, and mitigating negative impacts. There's lots of fancy terms that can come with it, but the fundamental driver that is present in 2024 right now is to do good things for other people with purpose.
[06:56.3]
And to be able to have an idea about why you're doing something and to be able to back up what you're saying you're doing. So, so social value is, is essentially that. But there is a lot of technical, convoluted language that will surround it, that will make it sound a lot less simple than that, which doesn't help.
[07:18.7]
And so I mentioned the act earlier on was that kind of the genesis moment. And what's the, what's the journey been so far? Just a high level. Yeah. So, so we essentially, this, this stuff, social value and doing good things for other human beings has been around since Charles Dickens was writing novels.
[07:41.2]
You know, kind of the, the people with more giving to the people that have less. It's been a part of the human condition for a big, for a big part of our world for a long time. But we, we've been through a journey in the last few decades where it's become business specific and business relevant because it's been able to be used as a differentiator and it's kind of taken the shine off the original reason why we wanted to do good things for other humans.
[08:12.7]
The social Value act that that was, that was passed is the shortest and wooliest piece of legislation you probably ever see. And in itself was quite naff. But what it meant and what it did to kind of light a bit of a fire under public sector about social value was more important than the act itself.
[08:40.5]
So it, because it was passed and that was new and serious when that happened and it was like, right, crikey, this stuff is in, is in the legal system in terms of what we're going to have to do with social value, demonstrate that we are thinking about, made people change their approach and it made local authorities in particular compete with each other for who was doing better to demonstrate credentials against that piece of legislation than others.
[09:09.7]
So in the northwest, Liverpool and Manchester were a prime example where they wanted to be seen better than the other as to what they were doing with the Act. And the act was reviewed year on year in terms of how it was manifesting. There was a good chunk of time where it started to really focus on the use of social enterprises and spend with the voluntary community and social enterprise sector.
[09:35.5]
And that joined kind of social value and social enterprise UK into the mix. But the big pivotal piece that we've had of late is PPN 0620 which was different to that in that it wasn't a piece of legislation but the detail of it asked for the social value to be demonstrable rather than just considered.
[09:59.8]
So even though PPN0620 is not a piece of legislation and we haven't had any more legislation about social value since then, the ppn content, not just 0620 but that one in particular has been more pivotal to create change.
[10:18.6]
And that's what you'll be seeing in your procurement exercises. That's you'll be seeing through your bids when you're bidding for public sector work through to central government and even some local authorities piggybacked on PN0620 in the model that came with that, even though they weren't supposed to.
[10:39.3]
And they got in a bit of trouble for doing that because it wasn't for them, it was for central government. So yeah, that's what we're dealing with. And when we think about private sector work and investor developer led work that we might be tendering for or that might be involved somewhere in the ecosystem of the public sector work we're tendering for, then they know this is esg.
[11:04.6]
So that terminology starts to come back in and you kind of like, well, is it ESG. Is it social value? Is it PPN0620 social volume model? Like, you know, there's a lot of. There's a lot of confusing kind of information about.
[11:20.3]
And I get that that, that could be a bit discombobulating for people. Yeah. Particularly where for most people on the call who are bidding people, we get asked questions about it and there's scoring criteria and it's not little stuff anymore, you know, it's 20% of your quality score for public sector bids.
[11:37.9]
I've done a MOD defence bid recently where the questions about how we were going to deliver a billion quids worth of construction projects was 30 pages. And the social value response was 20 pages, 20% of the overall score.
[11:56.3]
So, yeah, this is really serious stuff. So we could do with it not being so grey, I guess. Just, just for those who aren't aware, PPN stands for Procurement Policy Notice, right? Yeah, that's the government or. Yeah, the government's commercial function pumps those out from time to time to build on legislation or to steer public bodies in the right direction about how to do stuff.
[12:20.2]
And you'll write that one on social valuers. Pretty critical. As you'd know better than me. So, so the. Yeah, we had a question. Are we saving questions till the end or shall we? We are. Spotted. That one. I'm gonna knit. I'm gonna mesh it in at the right point.
[12:37.0]
But thank you. That's fine. That's fine. So, first of all, then, figuring out how to talk about the different types of social value that can be delivered. So how do we articulate to clients and the world about different types of social value, first of all?
[12:55.6]
Okay, so I'm hoping this is helpful for people to get a different way of framing what they're trying to offer. So we get asked a social value question and it might be, in a tender, and it might be either very generalised, what social value can you offer as part of this contract?
[13:16.2]
Or it might be very clinical and convoluted, like aligning to the PPN0620 social value model in the back criteria that comes in that. But what happens is we, we end up putting a social value offer together in one.
[13:36.8]
In one big bulk offer. So everything that, that we're saying we're going to do, from education and skills support to employment and employability to, what we're doing with our spend to what we're doing in the community, it comes as, this is our offer and it's in a big pack all together.
[14:01.9]
And what businesses could do with doing to try and start to differentiate themselves and explain how they understand this more is compartmentalising a little bit what they're offering into usually three types of activity and offer that you're doing.
[14:24.3]
So when you have to put together a social value offer for a community, a business community, residential community, whoever it might be, you're trying to meet three things that are going on in that, in that geography, in that space.
[14:41.6]
People's needs, people's wants and people's ambitions. So when you're putting together a social value offer, technically you should have some diversity in your offer that you can explain as, this is what we're doing to meet the things we've identified as needs in that community.
[15:08.7]
And the needs are quite basic and the needs are usually something that you can find a data set to explain to you in terms of they need help with employment, employability, distance from the job market, those, those things, as well as helping with some of the real fundamental needs people struggle with, like access to food and warmth and security and housing and all that other kind of stuff.
[15:37.2]
And a lot of the time when we're putting our social value offers together, we confuse needs and wants and we badge them all together and put them all together into like one, one whole offer. But what people want is quite different from what they need.
[15:54.4]
And so if you can understand that, and I'll say a little bit more about this because I got, we've got a bit in the agenda about where to look and listen to how to get information to drive some of this as a solution. So when we think about what people want, it's quite different because they're, they're beyond just the basics that people need.
[16:14.1]
So they might, they might want a good job, not just any job, you know, they might want, they might want to, you know, have, have health and well being that is better than, I'm just coping with life. You know, they might want things for their friends and family that aren't about them.
[16:33.1]
And then when we get into ambitions, those are the things that are driving the humans that are around us. Those are the things that they're coming together usually to express things that they've got ambitions for in their geography as an individual or a group of people.
[16:53.4]
And if you can find a way to explain how you have created a social value offer for a client, for a framework for a community or a region that has the diversity of the types of social value, you're offering it shows that you understand that community better and it helps to explain why you actually have a higher offer when it comes to meeting people's needs.
[17:26.0]
See I do more of that. See people meeting people's needs is key because if the needs aren't being met that's where we need to focus and do the most. Helping people get what they want is next up the ladder. We might do slightly less of that because it takes a little bit more resource, it takes a bit longer.
[17:48.3]
And helping people in community meet their aspirations, that's legacy leaving stuff, that's innovation, that's bigger stuff. So you're going to have one or two of those things in a tender because they're going to need money, time, collaboration, the client buying, all that kind of stuff.
[18:06.8]
So instead of the client seeing one big grouped bulk generic McBlund offer of social value, you've started to explain the nuance of why you are doing particular types of activity and why there are more of some and less of others because you're explaining that impact.
[18:29.3]
So when I'm talking about the different types of social value that's what I'm talking about. Okay, that's, that's really interesting. So we for donkey's years I've tended to when coaching boards and stuff and work winning teams we tend to talk about a kind of pyramid of strategy tactics, business as usual and aligned to that kind of strategies about impact.
[18:59.8]
Tactics are about outcomes and the outputs are about business as usual outputs. And that aligns nicely with what you were saying there because the needs, the wide base of the pyramid of the business as usual really you build on that with the wants could be aligned with the bigger outcomes.
[19:22.2]
And then the impact is the aspiration, isn't it? I guess. And super KPIs, KPIs and MPIs. In terms of how you measure that. If I. Outsourcing. Yeah. And it, it steers, it steers as well some decisions.
[19:38.8]
So we were having a chat about this in an, in another kind of get together that we're having and we used a bit of an anecdote when there was a, there was a local kind of like gastro pub type place that used some of their space next to the pub to open a little mini art studio and a little deli and people were like that was pretty cool idea and started to try and investigate like why did that come about.
[20:08.3]
And obviously from a social volume point of view that was about providing space and, business opportunity for a small independent deli. And, it. And independent artists. And it was like, well, why is that going to get traction? Like, why don't we put them in high street?
[20:24.5]
Like, like, why don't. Why aren't we promoting for them, for them to get support online, or on Amazon or whatever it might be. And we talked a little bit about the people that are in that geographical space. So the people that are at the gastropub, they didn't need to go to the gastropub.
[20:44.6]
It's not a need, it's a want. They wanted to go for a meal, out. So that was a choice about something you wanted. And if they're in want headspace, they're gonna have more openness to having a look in a deli for something else they might want because they're in that headspace.
[21:05.3]
They're in that. They're in that zone. If they were in Asda getting loo roll and milk. Are they going to be thinking about whether they want some fancy so adore loaf from some independent deli or to look at some nice bespoke soy wax candles in some art, studio.
[21:29.6]
They're probably more focused on what do I need? What do I need from Asda? I need my shopping, I need my basics. I'm going to get that. So the reason that this, this kind of the decision to put community, like outlets and opportunities for small businesses somewhere where people were already in the headspace beyond need.
[21:56.4]
And that made sense and that was why that was a conscious decision and that's why they put that there. And that's why it's still going and it's really successful because we thought about what's the headspace of the people that are interacting with these spaces. That, that brings us nicely to our, next theme.
[22:15.9]
But also the question from Natalie actually, which I think we can bring the two together so that we were going to talk about balancing that monetized impact measurement because I think we've all got, in the bidding world, we've all got used to the TOMS model and just trying to stuff as many apprenticeships in as possible.
[22:32.9]
And that's how you win, when actually it's about genuinely making a difference, isn't it? So how do we balance that monetized measurement piece. Piece, with real world impact? And then if we met, if we. As a secondary point, if we take Nathalie's question here, or mixture of it in terms of this arms race to just get the Biggest number, local authorities just looking for the biggest number that spits out the bottom of the model wins the maximum points for the question, is that fair?
[23:06.1]
Etc. So, yeah, let's come back to that point. But the, the how do we balance that monetized value that spits out of the model versus the real world impact? I guess, first of all, yeah, so we've got, we've got two sides of, of a coin with this situation in terms of this balance of the monetized piece and, and, and the hoe and the, the human element.
[23:29.2]
The reality is we still have some, some very uninformed clients that are still using that monetized highest figure wins approach to what they're doing. And, some of them are doing that because they're on a framework that's years old and it seemed appropriate to take that tactic when they set the framework.
[23:53.1]
And.
[23:56.6]
Sorry, I just got distracted by the text box. I need to minimise it because I. So I'm like, oh, someone's written something else. So, it was just about reading the question in full, so. Well, yeah, so we still have it and there's, and when we have it, there's nothing we can do and we have to generate the number that we feel is the most comfortable, highest number that we're going to be able to do.
[24:27.0]
And usually when you're in a competition situation with peer organisations that are very similar, so if you've got three or four Tier one contractors that are all very similar, we know from experience and seeing the results of these tenders that those monetized figures aren't usually that far apart from each other because the Tier one will maximise the local spend and the SME spend and NT1, the labour workforce.
[24:57.3]
They know which of the national comms, the big numbers and they'll focus in on them and, it will be very similar. We also know that clients are starting to weight the rationale and the methodology section for how you're going to deliver that, that monetized value equally with the monetized value itself.
[25:24.3]
And that's being seen more and more through frameworks and through independent procurement, exercises as well. So my thoughts on customers and local authorities using the biggest number is that they're very foolish and, it's in our gift to try to work with them once we've won a project to get them to see there is a different way of doing this.
[25:50.0]
So I think there's a big education piece, but the irony is you can't do that. Education until you're on the framework and you can talk to them outside of the competition. So that is a tricky thing, but it's about remembering once you get into the framework or the project and you've won it, that you need to have that dialogue with them to say actually when you're doing this again, there are different ways that you need to look at it.
[26:16.5]
And churning the biggest number is not the best solution. Yeah, so this is very similar in our bid writing course we talk about the sort of classics in scoring criteria of answering the question, evidence, but particularly added value.
[26:33.6]
You tend it and or exceeding expectations. And added value is a similar problem to social value, in that there seems to be, in the added value world there seems to be two schools of thought.
[26:48.9]
So just Natalie's question again was, what are your thoughts about potential customers, local authorities using get the biggest number and you score maximum points kind of thing out the back of the TOMS model or whatever social value model they're using.
[27:05.3]
So, and it's similar with added value. You know, the more commitments you make, the are worth the most money to the client. They may well give you maximum points. But what we tend to find in that world is that half of people, half of procurement people and clients think that added value means the synergy benefit in how you deliver the service.
[27:28.3]
So you give them a dashboard technology piece so they don't need as many meetings with you. So that saves them time travel time expenses, et cetera. That that's genuine added value versus the other school of thought is that they think it means free stuff, that you're going to give them some money or some free furniture or something that's a bribe.
[27:52.3]
So that's not the same thing. And I suspect we get, we'll get the same with social value. So the, the way to debunk that is to get ahead of it with clients through captcha. So try and much like we would want to shape the client's thinking in terms of their general specification for whatever the service is to suit us and perhaps weaken your competitors, if we think there's a problem with how, if we look at their previous procurements and they, they are just going for most social value, money wins.
[28:27.6]
Even though we know that perhaps our competitors haven't been quite straight on that, we need to get ahead of that issue with the client and try and educate them and explain we can come up with a number, but actually we would like to do these things and our methodology is more robust. We're being honest about this stuff.
[28:44.7]
If you need to ask questions about how we're really going to do this. And the interesting bit will be in the New Procurement act, which our next webinar is about next week. The New Procurement act has more opportunity for clients to do more of that sort of investigation.
[29:01.7]
They can do site visits, they can you know, do more audits of things. There's more opportunity for them to really see your metal and how you do stuff and really test your methodology potentially. And I think that'll be quite interesting in this space.
[29:18.4]
So yeah, it is a tricky one, isn't it? There are going to be clients who take a very black and white view of you know, who deliver, who puts forward the biggest social value number wins because they can't get challenged for that. Yeah, that's a big thing.
[29:35.8]
And I think some of the, some of the key to it is it's rubbish that we going to have to continue fighting that fight against this monetized approach which continues to happen. The good news is that we do see some fatigue, some kind of TOMS fatigue because I think that when some more educated clients are looking at what they actually got as a delivery,
[30:06.9]
against that offer that was put in, they see that the two aren't matching up. The other thing with this is that the reason that clients are rigid is because they don't understand some of the detail behind this monetization piece.
[30:24.2]
So there's little like couple of minute conversations that you can have with clients to explain why more well being or, or testimonial or human story approach to, to measuring the impact of what you've done and forecasting and offering your impact at the beginning of a bid is better than the monetization.
[30:49.7]
So one of those examples that we've used before was an apprentice gaining a new apprenticeship and that just all positive economic and fiscal or well being impact through some of the systems and tools that we use.
[31:08.8]
But by showing the story of that apprenticeship and one of the examples we had was that a young person had the responsibility of walking the family dog every morning. So they were either not working or they were in education and it was their job to take the dog out for a walk half an hour in the morning.
[31:31.4]
And they have their apprenticeship and they've gained that and it's great and they feel wonderful about the fact that they're on a different track now but they no longer have the time to walk the dog in the morning. And actually that's having an Effect on the well being because they get, they don't get that half an hour out of the house away from younger siblings that were driving them mad.
[31:51.3]
They don't get that time with the pet, they don't get the exercise that they were getting. And if you don't ask the human how is this experience going for you? What are the things you get to do positively and negatively in your new situation?
[32:09.9]
The truth is that whatever is churned out of the TOMS or social value portal or loop or thrive is not explaining the true impact of that intervention. And that's what clients need to be shown.
[32:25.7]
So if we do that on our projects and we, we get those anecdotes and we create those stories, it's only by showing the clients that information to get them to see that there's another way. Because currently haven't got another option.
[32:41.7]
It's monetization or nothing. So we have to show them there's another way. Yeah, well you're gonna have to play the game and do both, aren't you? I guess. Because we've got to win deals. There's a lot of at score here. So you do need to get a carry on or your, your social value people or someone in the business to understand this stuff into an nth degree of detail and specifically for opportunities or frameworks etc.
[33:07.5]
And learn how to game that system without being you know, fraudulent or naughty. But you've got to put forward the best possible offer that's going to help you score maximum points. But then I think you credentialise that with the more story based aspect of that.
[33:25.1]
Until such time that we can transition clients to not worrying so much about that numerical point. So I've said we've got an anonymous question about COVID but we'll take Sarah's question that's just come in because it's aligned with what we were just talking about.
[33:42.8]
In terms of. She remembers years ago that seeing expectations of a social value initiative being delivered per pound of contract spend, or as a percentage of the revenue that's going to go through the contract. So she's asking is there a typical social value spend that the public sector expects to see on a contract value?
[34:03.2]
Is there a certain percentage, you know, if they spend 100 quid are they expecting a pound back or five or and how do we feel? So I'm just, yeah, I'm just reading, I'm just reading that to make sure I've understood it.
[34:19.4]
Yeah, so it, it Varies.
[34:25.4]
I think the easiest way to kind of explain that is the more mature.
[34:37.0]
Hello? Hello. No, we can hear you. Yeah, good. The more mature organisations and clients have a higher expectation of that percentage and their expectation is based on results from tenders that have come through from more traditional build larger scale projects.
[35:03.7]
So if you were, if a decade ago you were building a 150 million pound project with no MMC at all, no kind of innovation in there other than some cost saving kind of ve elements and things like that, we were seeing the high workforce, local kind of commitments and this spend locally was churning percentages of 20 to 60% return on project value.
[35:41.2]
Because the, the Tom, if you think about the TOMS and how it was created and when it was created it was, it first came through like in 2012, it was, it was ages ago that this, that this came through.
[35:57.6]
And the trouble we have is that the expectation of the return is based on historic data. And historic data is based on different models of build which will churn different outcomes. When you put that through tom.
[36:14.0]
So some of this is about again educating clients and having that dialogue and communication with clients. But consultants, so like consultants are sometimes asked to commit to a percentage and when I last spoke to Social Value Portal about that they were saying oh, that should be like a 2% or a 3% return on investment.
[36:41.5]
Because consultants are the prime example of organisations that have no labour churn and no local spend. So just to be clear, a lot of, a lot of the legacy of social values come from main construction, builders building big things.
[36:57.1]
Yeah. Schools, hospitals, etc. Yeah, but very manually. Yeah, in that space, like project managers, quantities phase. But also we've got people on the call that are from completely different markets, outsourcers, all of that kind of stuff. There's kind of a continuum, isn't there? Because the depth of supply chain, complexity of solution, the number of people involved differs, doesn't it, depending on what you're doing.
[37:20.1]
But I think that comparison of building contractor versus consultant is a good one. Because the consultants really struggle with this stuff, don't they? You and I have worked on a Crown commercial services bid together before where we're really having to push the edge of the envelope because they can't commit to that many apprentices involved in delivering project management services because they don't have that many.
[37:43.5]
But they wouldn't. Yeah, and it's difficult in, in Sarah's question as well, kind of like she's mentioning, is there a typical spend that the that the public sector expect to see and I guess spend on social value is very different than to the monetized figure that you get out of a system.
[38:04.7]
So yeah, I don't see a lot of expectation of spend on social value based on contract value coming through because that's cash, that's actual real money and that you get in very scary territory when you're expecting a business to contribute a level of cash because is that meeting what's needed with competition rules and everything else.
[38:32.9]
But the monetized figure coming out the system is normally set. There's normally an expectation of a percentage in terms of the fake money that could, that comes out of Toms or it really should be about if you're going to spend £100 million delivering a construction project as a contractor, what social value is about is about deploying as much of that spend as possible in ways that benefit the local community.
[39:04.5]
Yeah, you're going to spend that money anyway. I mean that you might spend some additional money in methods, you know, invest as a business in methods to measure it or certain types of recruitment or whatever it is. But fundamentally most of social value is actually about doing the things you're doing in such a way that is better for the community and better for humans.
[39:26.0]
Yeah. So it's not necessarily your right to differentiate between spending and how you're deploying resources you were going to deploy anyway. So it's stuff like with builders, some of it's about some simple stuff like rather than buying your site signage from Amazon or you know, some faceless provider, there are charities that will do that for you.
[39:44.9]
Rather than recycling your waste with a Biffa or whoever that turn up with their big lorries, there are charities that will come and take your waste away and they make money off of recycling that waste waste or you know, whatever it might be. So you were going to do that stuff anyway. You've just done it in such a way that benefits the local community or humans in general.
[40:06.8]
Another point along service sort of lines. Actually you and I have worked with an MMC contractor before, where they've got very high levels of pre manufactured value, I. E. Most of the activity happens in their factory in Yorkshire year and then those big bits of a building are, you know, stuck on a truck and taken to Kent or wherever the building is and just craned into place there so that the number of people in actually involved in a project is much lower on site.
[40:39.1]
And you might get the same sorts of things with I did some work with Serco for instance on contact centre stuff and their contact centres are in Liverpool or wherever. But the service, they're looking to win a contract with an ambulance trust in Dorset or somewhere.
[40:55.5]
So how do you square that in terms of, with clients? How do you demonstrate social value? Because the clients are very selfishly looking for social value for their particularly local authorities for their community, aren't they? So how do we square that or what story do we tell to get over that?
[41:10.8]
I guess there are some things that you can do around that. So just making. If you've got logistics that are taking your pre manufactured component from the non local factory to the site then you just use, use a logistics company based where the site is not based where your factory is.
[41:33.0]
There's also kind of piggybacking on post Covid there being an appetite for kind of like digital engagement. So if you've got expertise in your factory and then you've got a local college near your site then those experts can go around that manufacturing facility wearing a GoPro camera narrating their job the day, the things they have to think about and they can feed that in to that education establishment to upskill those local learners and explain something to them like remotely.
[42:11.9]
And that never used to be accepted as something that was valuable until post Covid and they realised that it didn't matter if something was delivered virtually to education it was still really valuable. The same goes for producing lesson plans and STEM projects from the type of work can be sent and delivered into the local school.
[42:40.0]
So you can do stuff like that from, from Germany, from, from Spain. You can, you can have content translated. It's about using digital kind of tools to be able to connect the geography that your stuff is manufactured into the project where it's going.
[42:59.1]
But whilst levelling up is still a thing and still talked about which might not last that much longer. You can also talk about the fact that investing outside of the south in manufacturing facilities in the non southern geographies and bringing that product into the south is meeting the levelling up agenda because it's investing outside of that very London centric piece so white, whilst it's still around kind of levelling up bombing into your bid response does show that you can see that it is adding UK value.
[43:39.7]
And central government and local authority should respond to that in a positive way. Okay, and you said the word so and it was nicely aligned with the question we'd already got. And then Sarah's asked the same sort of question actually around the COVID 19 recovery recovery theme.
[43:55.8]
So do you have any insight that is going to be removed or updated in the social value model? They're still getting questions to address that theme when it feels less relevant. And the other question we'd had was basically the same as that. Yeah. So I've not heard any whisperings from the several government departments are all involved in this.
[44:18.8]
People like Samantha Butler and people that were involved in creating that and signing off that social value model. I think they get asked this question all the time, but I think it's very low down on the priority of the people involved to actually address it.
[44:37.2]
I mean, I know people will be doing this already, but my gut reaction when you see it in a bid is to tq it and just say why? Why are you needing a response to that? We could see that it would be more valuable for us to use the page based on the non Covid themes of the social value model and to get the client to actually have a think about whether they want that answer from you.
[45:03.5]
So my gut reaction would be just to be brave and tq it if you see it come through. Because they're supposed to cherry pick the themes they want, not just ask you to respond to all the themes. So it's usually when they've been lazy and not pick themes that you end up seeing the COVID theme.
[45:24.3]
And so if you push them on it, they might actually say, no, we don't want you to cover that. Okay, that's good to know. Thank you. So where are we? Up to 12 minutes or so. The where to look and listen to make sure you're offering social value initiatives that the client actually wants.
[45:43.1]
Carrie, how, do we do that? So if we go back to the needs, wants and ambitions piece, if we're looking to understand, what our local needs, typically there are data sets available through ONS data and local data on the indices of multiple deprivation and unemployment statistics and things like that.
[46:12.0]
And those data sets, if you get familiar with them and you know when and where to go and check them, will typically tell you what the burning kind of core need issues are. Like if you've got education establishments nearby, you can see how many free school meals children there are, which an idea of how many families are closer to the breadline and struggling.
[46:38.9]
So when we're looking for needs, then data is usually our friend. When we're in a bid situation, especially if it's a confidential bid, when we're Looking for wants. Then we need to start talking to people.
[46:54.8]
So we need to start having some conversations with people. It's trickier when we're in confidential territory. But usually who we're allowed to speak to are stakeholders directly involved with the tender. Whereas there are, if we go and look at the voluntary community, social enterprise groups in that local area who have a community centre or they have a community, get together or they do a, safe women's walking group or something like that locally, those people are the humans that are listening to the stories from people on a daily basis.
[47:32.2]
So their intel is key. And also when you're writing your tenders, what we need to, people need to stop doing is we've engaged with local community groups to form our offer for the local community.
[47:49.4]
It's no more of that, it's. We had a conversation with Jeremy who runs the community centre, such a body from our team had a meeting with him to talk about the needs of the community. This is what we found out and this is why we're offering what we're offering.
[48:08.2]
So we did, we engaged with the local community. Should not be a sentence in anybody's bid ever, because you need to name who, who, which human being spoke to which human being. Yeah, I, I was going to say carrion. You, you couldn't possibly do this.
[48:24.0]
Well, in just the bid time frame. You know, as soon as that ITT document's out or RFP's out, it's too late because you're, you're not realistically, in a four week tender period, you're not going to be able to do a good job of that, are you?
[48:40.4]
And that's where you end up with the flagging it. You know, we've talked to so and so. Yeah. Kind of stuff. But in a, in a four week tender period, I would, I would argue that somebody in the mix of, of, of who is involved in this tender could email or phone or walk over to the local community centre or youth centre and have a conversation with the human that works there like that.
[49:06.6]
Like what? Even one thing, it's good to prep. So if you know, if you've got your tender pipeline and you know you must wins and you know when they're coming and the geographies they're in, then proactively do that talking. Yeah, yeah, I think you've got to do that. Ideally the big, big team here.
[49:24.7]
I argue that the, the future opportunity for bid teams is in getting upstream, in capture and trying to influence opportunities pre Tender, you know, AI is coming for the job of bid writers. You know, we've got five to 10 years before we're all going to be prompt engineers in, in that space at best.
[49:46.1]
How, how are we going to win deals? Is this human factor of going and talking to people and influencing it is because if you can say like, yeah, we, we had that, we had that conversation with that trusted community partner, this is when we had it, this is who was part of it and this is what we learned, we listened and we heard and this is what we found out and that's what shapes what we're saying we're going to do for you.
[50:10.0]
Yeah, yeah. So when it, when it comes to the wants of people, then talking to stakeholders is key. You'll also get ambitions from those conversations too. So the blue sky thinking of what community wants.
[50:25.8]
But the other place to understand where ambitions are is to look at funding, that are happening in and around that piece of work that you're bidding for, the geography or whatever it might be. So if, if there is a big small business accelerator programme being funded by the local authority in and around where your project is, you know that that has come about because the local authority knows that there is a growing, entrepreneurship ambition in that area.
[51:00.1]
That's why they put the Fund There, because they're not going to fund something when there's no appetite. So they've done the groundwork, they've gone into the community and they said, who wants to set up their own business? Me, Me, me, me. So they've said, right, here's some funding to help accelerate those programmes.
[51:16.7]
So, so if you look at what funding is about and you ask the right stakeholders what funded programmes are happening in the next 12 months, then that will help you understand the ambition piece.
[51:31.7]
Yeah. So perhaps talk to the economic development officer at the local council, that kind of stuff, I guess, because they'll you to those kind of, ideas, won't they? Very good. Okay, so I think we've had an anonymous question about the more detail on the wants compared to the needs and ambitions.
[51:50.0]
I think you've just talked through that actually. Carrie Ann or certainly how to go. Yeah. So once the things like a better job. So I have a job and I want a better job. I'm doing a hobby and I want to turn it into a business. I have a job and I'm literate and I'm happy, but I want to do a qualification.
[52:13.1]
I want to, I want to progress and better myself. You know, I, I've got basic like house issues dealt with by my landlord, like leaky taps and stuff. But I want to learn how to do some of that fancy panelling that I've seen all over Instagram, so.
[52:31.4]
Because I think that's going to look really lovely and I've heard it's cheap. So once again you find them through conversations but they're just that layer up from. I needed the heating fixed but I want to put panelling up.
[52:47.5]
Yeah, no, understood. Good. Thank you. So any other. We've got a couple of minutes. What, what are your other observations of late of social value in the, the weird and wonderful world of bidding? I guess. Are there any top tips, where you're asked some social value questions?
[53:06.7]
I think that there is room for being slightly left field with some, some of the things. I think our intention in bids is to try to get something in that narrative that the reader hasn't seen before because the, the reader of these tenders is seen again and again and again.
[53:28.1]
But I've been that side of it. I've, I've scored bids for local authorities and I know it's tedious and if you see something that is different that not seen before, it will catch your eye and behaviorally it will do something to you and engage you with that bidder in a different way.
[53:50.7]
So some of the things, there are some examples of things that have come through. We had a big development that had a big workforce of like thousands of people coming into a new logistics and distribution centre.
[54:11.2]
So what, what would differentiate something in that, that would help give the community something that they needed but be a bit left field. So the thing that went into that bid was we'd spoken to the guide dogs charity.
[54:28.9]
So the guide dogs charity has challenges of people hosting the puppies at night whilst they go to puppy school in a day because families struggle to get the puppy in the morning from the house to the drop off centre and then take the kids to school law, go to work.
[54:50.7]
So we said thousands of people in this logistics and distribution campus, let's put a puppy drop off centre in the L and D campus. So if 20 families out of those thousands of people want to horse a puppy whilst they go to school during the day then that justifies it for the guide dogs.
[55:10.8]
And that means we're bringing well being to those families and we're also creating more much needed trained guide dogs for for that, that population that's struggling with the site. And everybody was like that's the weirdest offer we've ever heard of.
[55:27.8]
And I was like, put it in, put it in. Because it shows that we've listened and we thought outside the box in terms of what could add value to this very boring, sterile logistics and distribution piece. So there are things like that.
[55:45.4]
There was another client that was wanting to offer some residential modules, as part of an offer that they were looking at. And the community was really, really diverse and that meant high proportion of multi generational families.
[56:04.0]
So those ready pieces needed to be more multi generational, living relevant and by taking that consideration rather than just saying here's some resi that differentiated that offer straight away because it showed an understanding of, of relevance to the community rather than just this is easy for us to do because this is, this is a product we have in our business.
[56:29.8]
So I think the thing that's coming through in bidding is if it feels a little bit left field and a little bit unusual, it's going to catch the eye of the reader. And if you can strategize it and tie it back to the needs, wants or ambitions, just start to be brave.
[56:52.4]
Yeah, okay. Start to put stuff like that in there. That's really helpful, thank you. So I'm just conscious of time we're nearly out. So, yeah, I would advise obviously to storyboard your responses in the detail. Usually there's quite complex scoring criteria, multifaceted questions with social value and then you've got to play in all of these aspects and now your needs, wants and ambitions in that.
[57:18.8]
So you need to storyboard these really well and ideally get ahead of it with clients, try and shape their thinking about social value. Pre bid, drive your business to do that. Not. This doesn't have to be us as work winning people. It could be that we're getting people in the business to go and engage early, shape clients thinking, educate them on what works, what doesn't work in social value and procurement, and go from there.
[57:43.7]
But thank you very much, Carrie Anne, that's really no worries as always. In terms of next things, we've got a session on Friday next week actually on the new Procurement act, with my colleague Gemma Waring, because that's beginning to fire up.
[57:59.3]
The date has been, issued 28th of October for the, the go live date for the new Procurement Act. So, we've got, I think twice as many people signed up for that one. It's obviously interesting. If anyone's not signed up, do join us and thank you very much. I'll see you on that one.
[58:15.0]
Or if not, another session, another time. And lovely to see you, Carrie Anne. Thank you very much. No worries. Thank you. Bye. Bye.