Social Value Commitments

Social value commitments (SVCs) present a massive opportunity to drive digital inclusion. For procurers, they are a great source of funding. For suppliers, they provide a natural fit for a huge range of bids. Properly planned and implemented, they deliver genuine impact as well as a wealth of benefits to everyone involved.

Social value commitments: the theory

What are SVCs?

SVCs are legal requirements in UK public sector tendering.

When central government bodies purchase goods and services, the suppliers must commit a minimum of 10% of the budget to projects that bring wider social, economic or environmental benefits. It is a legal requirement that the SVC be taken into account as part of the overall bid. This currently also applies to NHS Trusts and it's expected other public bodies will shortly follow suit.
For example, a telecoms company bidding for an NHS project includes a commitment to running community digital skills programmes to help manage health online.
SVCs must meet specific criteria, and there are standardised frameworks for measuring their value. The most common looks at themes, outcomes and values (TOMs) and contains proxy financial values to enable consistent valuations of social impact. There's more on the detail of how bids are evaluated in our guide below.

Public sector procurement is worth around £434bn a year. So SVCs have the potential to make a huge digital inclusion difference if leveraged.

Some suppliers have taken this on board, and have for example, digital inclusion (DI) specialists in their bid teams. Some public bodies are making it work for example 100% Digital Leeds have raised more than £4m in extra funding through SVCs. But many public sector organisations simply don't have the capacity (time, expertise) to exploit SVCs systematically and with confidence.

How do SVCs fit with digital inclusion?

SVCs must map to the Government's five core missions which cover areas like growth, opportunity and the NHS.

We think digital inclusion should be considered in all social value bids as a basic strategic requirement, because you can’t meet any of the missions if citizens aren't digitally included. More pragmatically, so many people in so many areas need help with digital inclusion - access, skills, support - that it fits into a huge range of bids.
They can be delivered to support digital inclusion in multiple ways - from the simple to the complex. For example, some local authorities use SVCs to access data and device contributions; fund membership of our Digital Champions Network or fund Inspire training; or use employee volunteers from the supplier workforce as Digital Champions. Others work with trusted partners to set up and run specific place-based, community digital inclusion projects over a number of years (DU examples below)
When it works best for both suppliers and procurers is when it is more than a one-off project and is aligned with the supplier's wider CSR/ ESG goals and a long-term DI commitment.

This 'sum of the parts' can bring new connections, perspectives and opportunities to both sides - bottom up and top down.

Combining SVCs with ESG & CSR

In-depth, downloadable guide:

"Digital inclusion and social value commitments in detail: exploring mechanisms for business and industry to deliver change"

This guide looks in detail at how bids work and are evaluated, and includes interviews/ case-studies with two suppliers running DI-based SVCs in different ways.

It's useful for anyone interested in how SVCs and DI can work together.

Read or download the guide to digital inclusion and SVCs

Social value commitments: in practice

What we offer

We've been running SVCs for corporate clients since 2022. We think it is a great and growing opportunity - so we talk a lot with our public sector clients about how best they can use it and co-produce consultation papers about it. We support suppliers and procurers to understand:

How the SVC bidding structure works and how DI-based projects fit into it.
The range and breadth of opportunities.
How to evaluate the impact of projects through a tailored framework.

And we work as partners to:

Run SVC projects.
Grow and evolve SVC projects for maximum benefit for all involved.

An SVC in action: Let's Get Digital

A good practical example of SVCs in action are the three we run for global business and technology transformation partner, Capgemini, under the Let's Get Digital umbrella. Two are for government departments and one for Sellafield Six. They all have slightly different remits (for example one is targeted at increasing skills for work), but run along broadly similar lines. They support local communities, each other and the wider, long term commitments Capgemini have made to combat digital exclusion.

How it works: A local co-ordinator helps community organisations understand digital exclusion and provides them with tools to tackle it. Some organisations just want more understanding of the issues and to be networked and connected to resources in their area; some want to put their staff/ volunteers through basic DI training, via our Inspire course. Others want to run Digital Champion projects, via the Digital Champions Network and to weave DI through their offer. As everyone starts at different levels, we aim to increase their digital inclusion maturity wherever they are on the journey.

We work closely with Capgemini to measure the outcomes of the project and consult on how it can grow and improve year on year.

From LGD

LGD started in West Cumbria in 2022 and has since been joined by sister projects in Newcastle and Durham. These pages give an idea of the kind activity going on in each area

The projects' story

From Capgemini

We've been working together for more than 5 years on a growing, evolving programme. This outline from their Head of DI shows how long term commitments bring great benefits.

The suppliers's story