Social value sits as a legal requirement within the £300 billion a year spent by public bodies on business goods and services.
Across UK counties, and across their public buying groups, this equates to tens of thousands of supply contracts a year - each one required to deliver social value re-investment from the businesses awarded them.
However, across counties the public buying for social value is not connected, we're not driving it into the locally-led activities known to be building healthier, safer and more resilient communities.
This social value equates to millions in money, equipment and time from businesses but is not being harnessed across buyers within areas, to help tackle the issues which matter most.
A 3rd and public sector partnership created a social value marketplace to address this need.
The Pluggin Marketplace was built with and for public procurement, as a competitive environment and cost-free support for public supply contracting across 44 areas of the UK.
In addition to addressing cross-procurement social value, the marketplace answers a growing scepticism from public buyers around supplier self-reporting of their social value and impact. A public-facing marketplace provides them a real-time visibility of social value - where a county's suppliers showcase how their social value is part of known local activities making the impact communities need.
Moving social value from nice to do, and making it a business imperative!
Businesses know very well the power of brand engagement and using this as part of revenue generation.
It's a fact that social value, as part of the £300 billion in public buying, is being weighted by public buyers as 10-15% of their tender scoring criteria - meaning that businesses are already having to work harder to prove their social value in order to win a contract.
Therefore, social value is a sales factor alongside product/service, price and other USPs within the competitive public contracting process.
By establishing a standalone and public-facing social value marketplace, where businesses can develop and showcase their social value to public buyers, social value will stand-out through the best "always-on" marketing activities.