Key questions to ask are:

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1. What are we already doing in relation to each theme?

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Many organisations already have initiatives in place that deliver social value, from offering apprenticeships and work placements to encouraging their staff to take part in voluntary work with local charities and communities. However, some contracts will require commitments that are contract-specific and that go above and beyond business as usual. Explore existing initiatives that can be built on or expanded for the contract.

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2. How are we capturing data about what we are doing?

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For each of the MAC themes, find out what information your organisation already captures. You can use this to provide evidence of what you are currently achieving and to demonstrate that you have robust metrics and tools for capturing social value activity within a new contract.

3. Are we keeping an organisational overview of social value initiatives and activities?

You can strengthen social value bid responses by showing how it is embedded into the organisation, so that it is part of business as usual rather than an add-on. It is helpful to identify who, in your organisation, has overall responsibility for delivering and monitoring social value, and how they link into your corporate governance structures.

4. What additional initiatives could we build into our existing activities or approaches, without requiring significant additional resources?

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Tenders will often require you to make commitments to activities that are additional to business as usual or to the delivery of the contract. It is extremely useful to take each MAC theme in turn and explore with your colleagues how you can build in additional initiatives. This might mean doing more of what you are already doing – increasing the number of work placements you offer – or doing something new, such as donating end-of-life equipment to local charities or community groups. The ideal way to do this is to work in small groups to brainstorm ideas – a group of people will generate many more ideas than someone working in isolation.

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5. Are we able to commit to investing in social value initiatives over and above our current activities?

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In the current economic climate, this can be a hard ask and some organisations can find this challenging. Tenders now frequently ask for commitments that go beyond business as usual.

Some organisations commit to investing a percentage of profit/surplus in a charitable fund to which community groups can apply for grants, or to earmark a percentage of the value of a contract to be used for a community project, such as enhancing local amenities.

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At Impart, we work with a wide range of customers across many sectors, including health, professional services, construction and civil engineering, IT and communications and more. This gives us a rich overview of good practice and innovation in delivering social value that we can use to help you to enhance your bid responses.

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If you’d like to get in touch with us to find out how Impart can help you to create compelling social value content for future bids, click here.