Return due Friday, figures nowhere
You won a public sector job through a framework, and part of the tender was a set of social value commitments: a share of local labour, apprentices on site, spend with local suppliers and small businesses, careers talks at local schools. Every quarter the framework wants a return. Your bid manager, who wrote the commitments, asks the site manager for figures. The site manager has a rough idea. Accounts can produce spend by supplier, but not whether each supplier is local. Nobody wrote down the school visit's date.
The return goes in late, with estimates, and without the evidence the framework now wants attached.
Why the figures are never ready
Social value commitments are written by the bid team and delivered by site teams who are busy building. The data each measure needs is recorded in a different place, or not recorded, and nobody collects it as it happens.
- Local labour needs operatives' home postcodes, which the sign-in sheet does not record.
- Apprentice weeks are in subcontractors' records, not yours.
- Local and small business spend needs supplier postcodes and sizes matched to payments.
- Community activities are done but not logged with evidence.
- Each framework and client asks for a different format.
What the scramble costs
Bid managers and site managers lose days each quarter. Returns go in with estimates that are hard to defend if questioned. Commitments you actually met are under-reported because the evidence is missing. And when you bid for the next framework job, you cannot show a strong, evidenced track record, which is exactly what those tenders score.
The social value record we build
- Your commitments for each job are loaded with the measures and targets you agreed.
- Site sign-in captures each operative's home postcode district once, with their consent, so local labour is counted automatically from attendance.
- Apprentices and trainees are flagged in sign-in, including subcontractors' apprentices, so weeks on site are counted.
- Supplier and subcontractor records hold postcode and business size, and payments from your accounts system are matched to them for local and small business spend.
- Community activities, such as school talks, site visits and volunteering, are logged on a phone with date, hours, attendees and photos.
- Progress against each commitment is shown to the project team monthly, so shortfalls are seen while they can be addressed.
- Returns are produced in each framework's or client's format, with evidence attached. Where you use a social value measurement framework, figures are mapped to its measures.
| Measure | Where the data comes from |
|---|---|
| Local labour | Sign-in with postcode district |
| Apprentice weeks | Sign-in flag for trainees |
| Local and small business spend | Payments matched to supplier records |
| Community activity | Phone log with photos |
| Evidence | Held against each entry |
What you commit to and how you report it is agreed between you and your client. We make sure the figures and evidence exist when the return is due.
Returns that write themselves
The return becomes a check of figures that already exist, not a hunt. Evidence is attached as it was collected. Project teams can see during the job whether they are on track and do something about it, rather than finding out at the end. And your bid team has an evidenced record across jobs to use in the next framework tender.
Is your social value reporting like this?
- Social value returns take days to compile.
- Local labour figures are estimates.
- You cannot evidence spend with local or small suppliers.
- Community activities go unrecorded.
- Each framework's format means starting again.