Social value is everyone's business

(L-R) Guy Battle (Social Value Portal), Cllr Andrew Western (Leader, Trafford Council), Lorraine Cox (Director of STAR Procurement), Cllr Mike Cordingley (STAR Joint Committee Member for Trafford Council)

A procurement service that works with Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford Councils, has announced a new way of working to help provide much-needed support to local communities.

STAR Procurement’s campaign; ‘Social Value is Everyone’s Business’ includes the use of a new IT system, the ‘Social Value Portal’ that will help businesses to support communities as part of contract tender submissions.

The system will give opportunities for businesses to commit to provide community support for homelessness schemes, local employment, local suppliers, the voluntary sector, and much more. It will be used throughout the life of the contract and will report on progress using the National Social Value Measurement Framework (The National TOMs).

This will allow STAR Procurement to measure how well businesses are delivering the community benefits they have promised. The Social Value Portal will be used for all businesses bidding for contracts with a value over £50k with Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford Councils.

STAR Procurement has also launched a new Responsible Procurement Strategy which shows how issues such as social value, modern slavery and single use plastics, can be addressed through ethical and sustainable procurement.

Cllr Andrew Western, Leader of Trafford Council said: “Our vision is about working together to build the best future for all our communities. Our new Strategy and the Social Value Portal will help us to deliver even more through our contracts and suppliers, and we will see the real and tangible benefits for our communities.”

Lorraine Cox, Director of STAR Procurement said: “We are excited to be launching these brand new initiatives and leading the way to challenge the requirement of delivering responsible procurement and ensuring that Social Value obtained through procurement is tangible, deliverable and measurable so we can demonstrate it is making a real impact in our communities. We also want to use these initiatives to drive more of our spending to our local business communities”.

Guy Battle, from the Social Value Portal, said: “We are very excited to be working with Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside and Trafford Councils and trailblazing the Social Value Portal within Greater Manchester. The Social Value Portal organisation is a social enterprise and we too will deliver Social Value through this contract. By using the National TOMs through the Portal it will be possible to deliver significantly more value to all communities as well as reducing the burden on existing services by unlocking the inherent good of businesses in the area.’’

Local businesses will be invited to attend events over the coming months to find out more about this new approach and to help them to be as prepared as possible to compete for contract opportunities.  These events will be promoted via the STAR website at:

• www.star-procurement.gov.uk

The National TOMs can be reviewed and downloaded here:

• socialvalueportal.com/national-toms