Social value is a way of maximising the benefits of public procurement by encouraging employment opportunities, developing skills and improving environmental sustainability.
This helps to contribute towards a level playing field for the UK's small businesses, voluntary and community sector organisations and social enterprises. SMEs are experts in their fields and can provide insight into MMC, innovative technologies and ways to minimise the GHG footprint of the proposed solutions across their whole lifecycle.
Early engagement is an opportunity for contracting authorities to test their approach to SMEs and social value. Further information on how departments and ALBs should take account of social value is set out in PPN 06/20 (see chapter 9).