Social Value Act 2012: UK Procurement Requirements

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 is a UK Act of Parliament that requires public authorities to consider the social, economic, and environmental benefits of procurement decisions, not just the direct goods or services being purchased. Originally, the Act applied only to services contracts and was relatively narrow in scope. However, its practical impact has expanded dramatically since PPN 06/20 (Procurement Policy Note, published in September 2020) made social value a mandatory minimum 10% weighting in central government procurement evaluation.

The Act doesn’t prescribe what social value looks like — it requires authorities to “consider” it, leaving implementation to individual buyers. In practice, this means most major UK government tenders now include explicit social value questions in their evaluation criteria, and bidders must articulate how their delivery will create wider benefits beyond the core contract requirements. Common social value outcomes include job creation, apprenticeships, supply chain diversity, environmental sustainability, community engagement, and support for local economies.

Procurement Policy Note 06/20 (“Taking Account of Social Value in the Award of Central Government Contracts”) was the turning point that made social value a genuine differentiator in UK procurement. Published in September 2020, it requires all central government departments and their agencies to include social value as an explicit evaluation criterion with a minimum weighting of 10% in every procurement above the relevant threshold.

PPN 06/20 defined five social value themes: COVID-19 recovery (supporting communities affected by the pandemic), tackling economic inequality (creating jobs and skills), fighting climate change (reducing emissions, minimising waste), equal opportunity (reducing disability, gender, and ethnicity gaps), and wellbeing (improving mental and physical health in communities). Each theme contains specific policy outcomes that contracting authorities select based on the contract’s relevance. While PPN 06/20 applies to central government, many local authorities, NHS trusts, and other public bodies have adopted similar approaches voluntarily — and the Procurement Act 2023 embeds public benefit as a core procurement objective.

The Themes, Outcomes, and Measures (TOMs) framework, developed by the National Social Value Taskforce (now the Social Value Portal), provides a standardised way to measure and compare social value commitments. TOMs organises social value into five themes (jobs, growth, social, environment, innovation), each with specific outcomes and measurable indicators.

For example, under the ‘Jobs’ theme, a typical measure might be “number of new apprenticeships created on the contract.” Under ‘Environment,’ it could be “tons of CO2 emissions avoided through delivery methods.” TOMs enables contracting authorities to compare bids on a like-for-like basis using proxy values that convert each social value measure into a monetary equivalent. Not all authorities use TOMs — some define their own social value evaluation criteria — but the framework has become the most widely adopted approach in UK public procurement. Understanding TOMs helps you structure social value proposals that align with what buyers are looking for.

In a typical UK government tender, social value is evaluated as a scored section alongside technical quality and price. With PPN 06/20’s minimum 10% weighting, a common split might be 50% quality, 40% price, and 10% social value — though many procurements weight social value higher (15–20% is not uncommon). The social value section usually asks bidders to describe specific, measurable commitments they will deliver during the contract.

Evaluators score social value responses based on relevance (does the proposal address the authority’s stated priorities?), specificity (are commitments measurable and time-bound?), credibility (does the bidder have evidence of delivering similar outcomes?), and proportionality (are the commitments achievable within the contract’s scope and value?). Generic statements about “supporting local communities” score poorly. Winning social value responses include named initiatives, quantified targets, delivery timelines, and evidence of past social value delivery. Many successful bidders maintain a library of social value case studies and partnerships that they can deploy across different bid opportunities.

The Procurement Act 2023 embeds the concept of public benefit more deeply into UK procurement law than the 2012 Act alone achieved. The Act’s core objective of “maximising public benefit” extends the social value principle beyond services contracts to all procurement categories. This means goods and works contracts — previously outside the Social Value Act’s scope — are now expected to consider wider social, economic, and environmental benefits.

For suppliers, this means social value is no longer a nice-to-have add-on for services bids — it’s becoming a baseline expectation across all public procurement. Companies that invest in developing genuine social value capabilities (community partnerships, sustainability programmes, apprenticeship schemes, supply chain diversity) will have a structural competitive advantage in UK public sector bidding. Jorpex helps you find tender opportunities where your social value strengths are particularly relevant by monitoring keyword-matched opportunities across all UK procurement portals.