How social value is scored

Where social value sits in the score

Every tender under the Procurement Act 2023 must set out its award criteria, how tenders will be assessed against them, and their relative importance (section 23). Award criteria must relate to the subject matter of the contract, be clear, measurable and specific, and be proportionate. Social value is one of those criteria, usually its own question with its own weighting alongside quality and price.

Where a buyer uses an absolute method such as price per quality point, the minimum applies to the quality score instead: 10% of it under PPN 002, and 10% or 20% under PPN 026. In a procurement with several stages, PPN 002's guidance says social value must account for 10% of the total score available at the final stage. The 2027 rules are covered in the rules across the UK.

Plans are scored, not volumes

This is the single most useful fact for a small firm. The central government guide to using the Social Value Model says that although suppliers state the quantity they commit to deliver, and that offer becomes a commitment in the contract, the assessment is qualitative: it scores how the method statement and implementation plan meet the award criteria and sub-criteria, and volumes are not evaluated.

An earlier Cabinet Office explanation put the consequence plainly: evaluating qualitative responses rather than volumes means larger suppliers cannot win on scale alone. A ten-person firm with a credible plan for one apprentice can outscore a national firm promising fifty with no plan for how.

What evaluators are told to look for

The central government Social Value Model sets out additional award criteria that apply to every social value response. They are the closest thing to an official marking guide:

• a specific, measurable and time-bound commitment, which the model calls the minimum requirement to score points;
• a description of how the commitment meets the award criteria;
• where the buyer has not named one, a specific target group of people, or how you will identify one, with how you will reach them and tailor what you offer;
• how you will influence staff, suppliers, customers and communities, for example through engagement, training, partnering or volunteering;
• any plans for publishing your commitments and performance;
• a timed project plan: actions and dates, the metrics you will use, how you will gather and monitor performance, governance and escalation, and how you will feed back and improve.

The guide adds two rules that catch suppliers out. Social value must be over and above the core deliverables of the contract, so doing the job itself is not social value. And general corporate policies, such as a corporate responsibility statement, are not relevant or proportionate to the contract and must not be used as criteria. Existing schemes can explain your method, but the score relates to what you will do in performing this contract.

Scoring scales

The current central government guide does not prescribe a scale: it asks buyers to set a scoring method that clearly differentiates responses, and allows a minimum quality score. The previous edition of the guide, from 2020, used this five-band scale. It is no longer the rule, but it shows the logic most scales follow: meeting the criteria is the middle, exceeding them is the top.

Source: Guide to using the Social Value Model, edition 1.1, December 2020. That guide also said responses must not be compared against each other for scoring: each is marked against the criteria.

The arithmetic

Scores become points through the weighting. The Cabinet Office's bid evaluation guidance uses a split of 60% quality, 10% social value and 30% price as an example. On that split, with social value marked out of 4:

Our illustration, not an official example. Moving from 2 to 3 is worth 2.5 points of the whole tender, which is often more than separates the top two bidders. Buyers can also split social value across more than one criterion, each with its own share of the weighting.

After the score: commitments become contract terms

PPN 002 says every social value commitment a supplier makes must be reflected in the contract as contract terms or performance indicators. From 2027, contracts of £5 million or more should carry at least one social value key performance indicator, published and reported at least every year, and PPN 026 says poor performance against social value indicators can be taken into account when deciding whether to exclude a supplier from future tenders. A promise that wins the points has to be delivered.

The worked examples show weak and strong answers scored side by side.