Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Having built the DICM with public buyers, the Pluggin Ecosystem is the host environment which facilitates the end-to-end processes of the DICM - a business needs to be inside the ecosystem in order to access the DICM.

Unlike the other self-input and assessment style social value portals or planning tools, the DICM is a dynamic and interactive digital model embedded through mobile devices into communities and provisions addressing local issues. The DICM makes social value a real, interactive and visible activity - significantly enhancing public contracting (saving time, cost and application within the pre and post contract award stages). It also helps businesses save time and money, making it easier and faster to forge collaborations can then be hard-wired into supply contracts.

Yes. The purpose is for businesses to switch their approach to a collaborative, supportive one and stop developing their own stand-alone social value activities when often the local needs are being missed. The objective is to position what works, and for businesses to design ways for their core expertise and resources to support and sustain these community providers and their activities within geographies - a crowd-resourcing approach.

Social value, as a contribution within a dual impact collaboration with a community provider, can be one or all of the following: financial (funding/part-funding the activity), in-kind (utilising business equipment/resources), or/and volunteering (employee time and expertise shared for strategic or operational benefit). This is clearly broken down within the digital process and submitted within bids. 

This is a transition from current approaches to preferred. Within this transition is the need to onboard and protect existing and proven relationships between businesses and community organisations. Therefore, businesses can align existing activities and relationships under the DICM - and their contracts too.

Yes, the DICM is a complementary approach within regions. If a businesses chooses to reference another social value proposition within bids, this will be accepted.

Yes, every community provider and their provisions have been audited by the buyers within the DICM, they recognise and seek support from suppliers to sustain these providers and the activities. 

Yes. The DICM is ultimately designed to maximise how a business markets social value and innovates in terms of collaborations which fit with the needs of community providers - from knowledge sharing in back office functions, to knowledge transfer in provisions, to equipment recycling, to financial impact investment and much more. The Pluggin Ecosystem enables the DICM to establish a social value marketplace for businesses - a virtual, 24/7 social value trade show.

Yes. The DICM is designed to facilitate and maximise collaborations for dual impact between community providers and the businesses supplying into areas. The in-built digital process creates an automated way for a formal collaboration to be established with the specifics of social value agreed between them. This is an auditable document which buyers receive within bids, used to then evaluate as part of the social value % in the tender. This then converts to a signed collaboration agreement between business and provider, when a contract is awarded -  set by the buyer against a supply contract.

There are FOUR stages to an SPO within the DICM. Stage 1 is a Proposal which is submitted in a bid - it carries no obligation. If the bid is unsuccessful, the business can ask for the SPO to be deleted - there is also an automatic deletion if an SPO is not moved onto Stage 2.

The SPO (proposal and final agreement) is generated by a business through admin access within the ecosystem, and is uploaded as a PDF into tenders by the business. At contract award, the SPO converts to a dual-signed Dual Impact Agreement (between business and community provider) and again, submitted by the business to the public buyer who attaches it to the supply contract. At no time is this visible to ecosystem audiences.

If a business has an established process it uses to measure and report its social value then this doesn't change. However, the DICM has a a regional reaserch approach which collects data from community providers and also from public bodies to create an end-to-end picture of impact within an area. The social value support a business contributes within a collaboration SPO with a community provider is linked into the impact measurement the DICM attributes to that community provider - and shares this with buyers and residents.     

Yes. The SPO is a unique referenced document, which when converted to an agreement and placed on a contract, can be seen by buyers in any area - making it perfect to signpost evaluators when bidding. The DICM standardises focus and strategically aligns social value - across regions but retains the TOMs linkage. It meets all of the needs set-out in Police & Crime Plans across the UK.

Pluggin Ecosystem Limited is a social enterprise, with a very clear and transparent business model which enables us to fund and sustain the ecosystem as it grows. We built the DICM with senior public procurement leaders, to the point that it is now operated with and through regional procurement bodies - we provide the ecosystem and support and they use the DICM for contracting and ongoing social value strategic development (through a DICM Steering Group).