Now the Procurement Act has been ‘live’ for a few months and PPN002 (https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/ppn-002-taking-account-of-social-value-in-the-award-of-contracts) being mandatory from October 2025 – lots of people are trying to understand the impact of the changes on their ability to win work in the future.
Although the proof will be in the pudding – the key ingredient you can’t ignore is a move away from cost evaluations of tenders in favour of added value evaluations. Contracting Authorities will be looking for what else their prospective partners bring to the party alongside a competitive price. They will be looking for how organisations have adjusted their processes in line with the Act and how they have embedded the skills, behaviours and a changed culture of procurement functions which are now necessary.
The Act is clear that specific objectives of the new approach is to not only deliver value for money but ‘maximise public benefit’ as a result of any given procurement exercise.
Out with MEAT, in with the new MAT
Tenders are now to be evaluated not in the traditional way of Most Economically Advantageous Tender (MEAT) but by allocating scores for the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT). This means that Contracting Authorities can score more highly, tenders that offer non-economic elements such as Social Value or Environment over other that don’t.
Also there is nowhere to hide regarding performance!
If a Contracting Authority chooses Social Value as one of their 3 project KPI’s, they will be publishing your performance for all to see.
So now is a perfect time to consider how your business will invest in planning, delivering and measuring Social Value so you continue to flourish as a company – winning new work as well as generating local community benefits for generations to come
Speak to us about how we can SOLVE your social value challenges and help you to stay compliant and competitive in local and national procurement:
- Develop a deliverable, costed social value options bespoke to your business and what you do best
- Update your processes to align with the Act and PPN002
- Collate and validate past social value activities into case study evidence
- Best Practice bid writing for social value questions
- Social value management when you are appointed on a project (including project set-up and stakeholder liaison)
- Use of our dynamic Solve Platform for programming activities, performance against targets, reporting and collecting evidence
Send us an email for a chat and one of our team will get back to you 😊
