00:12
Sarah Stone
Hello and welcome to let's talk Social Value, a podcast where we explore what creating value for society means and the practical ways you can go about creating it. My name's Sarah and my guests work in different areas of social value across public, private and third sector organisations, from public sector procurement to esg and sustainability, social enterprise and impact measurement. I'll be asking them about their work and what they've learned, and they will be sharing their tips and experience to help us all make our organisations better. Today, I'm delighted to be joined by Lorraine Cox, who is director of SAR procurement and chair of the National Social Value Task Force. Lorraine, I'm absolutely thrilled to have you on the podcast. Thank you so much for joining us. Let's start by asking about star procurement. So what is star?

00:57
Lorraine Cox
So, star? Firstly, we are the public sector. I think people always look at us and because we don't have the word council tagged on the end, and we are the public sector, we are what we call a hosted model. So we are owned as such and hosted by Trafford Council. So the way I try and explain that is from a pay and rations point of view, that's who we belong to, but we are what we call a shared service. So we actually serve now six councils across the Greater Manchester region and two in the Liverpool City region, and we do collaborative procurement for six key councils, anything over 25,000 pounds in contract value. And we procure, sometimes individually and sometimes collectively, to obviously drive collaboration and value. So we are a procurement service. We also do commissions nationally for other public sector organisations.

01:43
Lorraine Cox
We have anywhere between 20 and 30 clients at any one time. So councils in particular, that may want a service review in procurement because they're looking at, you know, change transformation. They may want help with creating, perhaps a shared service or considering joining a shared service. And it's not just in procurement. We'll cover all aspects of the public sector in that regard, and clearly social value, anybody that wants advice and guidance or support on their social value journey. So we are basically the public sector and we're here to help the public sector.

02:12
Sarah Stone
That's amazing. And it's super exciting that when you talk about social value, because the local authorities, the councils that you work with in the north, in Liverpool and Manchester, that was really where I. You know, if you ask people, where does social value start? It was those areas, wasn't it?

02:25
Lorraine Cox
It was. It's interesting, actually, because if you think of Tom's, you know, some people will know of Tom's themes, outcomes and measures, which is one of the many measurement tools that is actually out there in the market. It's one that we use in star that was actually born from colleagues who worked in Greater Manchester and worked with the national task force. So we always think that social value, in terms of how it was practiced in the public sector, was born very much out of greater Manchester. And I think we do have a history. We had AGMA, as was before the combined authority was created, and we have a history of collaborating, you know, across all of the ten councils within the region and working very strongly and very closely. And I think that success has built.

03:02
Lorraine Cox
And Star was formed on the back of that. I think we started with three councils ten years ago that we brought in number four and then we're actually up to number six. So it clearly is a successful model because we've gone from three to six and we've taken ten years to do that. So it takes a long time. But actually, you know, we're seeing the fruits of the labour as we sit here today.

03:22
Sarah Stone
Yeah. And how do you do social value? So how does star integrate it into contracts and what kind of scoring do you use?

03:28
Lorraine Cox
Okay, well, we started. We've always had social value in procurement. Obviously, the audience will know that the app came out in 2012. And from 2013 onwards, you know, a number of public sector organisations grasped it and ran with it. We were one.

03:42
Sarah Stone
Yeah, that's when I think about Liverpool and Manchester. That's what I think about in 2013, when everybody was kind of scratching their heads and going, what does this mean? How can we use it? It was those local authorities and it was individuals, wasn't it, in the third sector and in different parts of the communities in those areas that came together and said, right, let's think about this and let's use this.

04:00
Lorraine Cox
I think what we did in Greater Manchester at the time, I was in a different role during 2013, but in Greater Manchester, there was a social value framework created. So the ten councils came together to say, how can we do this together? And look at consistency and aligning approaches, which was really powerful and that set us as a region on a really strong journey. At the time, I was in Halton council in the Merseyside region, and were one of the councils that were nominated and got the award for best council to do business with. So I think were on this journey very early. And, you know, for me, back in 2013, I was absolutely an advocate then and even more so an advocate now.

04:37
Lorraine Cox
But what we've done in star over time is we've looked at our practices, processes, we've said, you know, how do we make social value a really key element? So we actually have a weighting now of 20% in our evaluation. So we have quality, price and social value. We consistently.

04:52
Sarah Stone
Is it 20% across the board?

04:54
Lorraine Cox
We sometimes go slightly under. It just depends what we're procuring, because, you know, procurement actually varies in terms of how you approach it, depending on are you doing place people, professional services. So what we try and do is adapt social value to align with the procurement that we're actually undertaking. But what we found is we're actually up to a consistent return now of mainly 20% across all of our procurement, above 25,000 pounds. Some contracts may have 40% in for various reasons and some may dip slightly under that 20%. But we try and think of sort of relevance and proportionality, really, as we start to build the tender and go out to market. But we've definitely been a success story in terms of our journey.

05:32
Lorraine Cox
I think to date we're looking at securing somewhere around about 280 million pounds across four GM councils and the two new Liverpool city region councils. So it's definitely working in terms of actually pushing businesses and bidders to offer us some added value through our procurement processes.

05:52
Sarah Stone
And the social value task force. Some people will have heard of it, some people won't. For anyone that's never heard of it, what is it? What does it do?

05:58
Lorraine Cox
It's what we describe as a coalition of the willing. You always need people who want to be early adopters. We have a variety of people on that group. There's probably about 55 members now of public, private and third sector. And what we try and do is explore different ways of working. We do a lot of sharing in terms of approach models. We look at obviously different measurement tools. We look at things around social value maturity index to actually say, can we build tools that actually help people to assess, where are you on this journey and how can you create an action plan? We look at things like targets and measures and performance, and actually, how do we align our focus in social value to actually make greater impact?

06:37
Lorraine Cox
Because it's okay grabbing a tool and implementing it into your process, but ultimately this is about impact. And I think unless social value is truly delivering impact to our residents and our businesses within our regions, then actually you've got to question, why are you doing it? So the task force is a coalition, it's a voluntary group gang that meets quarterly now, and we have a steering group that sits above that to obviously set the agenda and set the tone. And the task force also feeds into annual conference that we have this year. It's in October 2024 in Birmingham, and it's actually going to be a three day event, two days online and one day face to face.

07:14
Lorraine Cox
So it's where, again, another coalition of probably about 500 people this year, face to face on day three, will come together to share experiences, share practices, good, bad and ugly, I might say, because it's really important that we reflect and we learn, and that's what the social value task force is about.

07:30
Sarah Stone
Yeah. Is it just for local government? Because you sit within the local government association, don't you? So does it just focus on local government and social value in local government procurement, or do you have any connections with the Cabinet Office and central government?

07:40
Lorraine Cox
Yeah, it's not a local government thing. I mean, my appointment is, as the chair is, through the LGA, because they were very heavily part of forming the task force, I think, about ten years ago, and we have an organisation called Nag National Advisory Group that works under the LGA and social value is one of their work streams. So they've appointed the chair because they always felt that the chair should be a public sector person. Part of the task force sort of duty and responsibility is to liaise and advise and work with central government. So we do have cabinet office representation on the group as well, because it's really important that public procurement is looked at in terms of local, regional and national organisations doing some work internationally as well.

08:21
Lorraine Cox
So it's important that we compare and contrast and look at what we need at each of those different sort of democratic levels. So, yeah, it's a broad church, I think is my favourite phrase. And equally, we very much welcome the private sector in because we're all in the same gang here. We just sit on different sides of the fence. And more importantly, what we're really pushing is trying to get more of the third sector involved, because for me, the whole way that we should be pushing social value forward should be that we work in partnership, public, private and third sector, because that way we all get the best for our residents and businesses.

08:52
Sarah Stone
That is an area that I couldn't agree with you more on. And so can anyone join it? How do you get involved if somebody's listening and thinks, oh, I'd quite like be part of that?

08:59
Lorraine Cox
Well, the first thing I would say is just google it, you will see that there is a website, it is out of date and it needs updating, so apologies for that, but there is an application form on there where anybody can apply to join. We do have something called a communities of practice, which is an online facility that people can register and join. There are certain working groups on there. I think we've reduced it down to about ten now. We did have too many. So our work and our focus and our working groups are more, you know, with outcome sort of task and finish groups. So anybody that's interested can sign up and they can join a working group, they can obviously look at the communities of practice and do some sharing.

09:34
Lorraine Cox
And then once we've seen that people are actually active and committed, we encourage people to apply to join the actual task force and then we very simply go through very quick betting exercise just to check that your reasons for joining are ethical in terms of actually wanting to help to drive the cause. Because very much this is a two way road, is the way I see it, Sarah, that people need to be contributing as well as taking from the task force, because otherwise, you know, if this was a commercial operation, then we would be obviously charging people to join. But actually, for me it's about that sharing, it's about trust and it's about being very open and honest. So people need to bring something to the party as well as, you know, learn and take things from the party as well.

10:13
Sarah Stone
Yeah. So we'll put the link in the show notes then. So it's join an action group first.

10:17
Lorraine Cox
Yes.

10:18
Sarah Stone
Get involved, contribute help, and then you can apply to join the task force.

10:21
Lorraine Cox
Yes.

10:22
Sarah Stone
Brilliant. And just thinking about social value, you know, a lot of people, when they say to me, when they think of what social value is, they think of it. It's 10% of the marks in public sector procurement. It's doing things extra for free. What do you think social value is? And also connected to that, how important do you think it is in terms of the buying decisions and what the public sector buys and the role it plays in determining who they're buying it from.

10:49
Lorraine Cox
It's a very deep question that you've posed, Sarah, and I'll try and respond in a succinct way. I think, like yourself, I think we could probably go on mastermind and have this as our specialist subject, something. How much fun would that be?

11:00
Sarah Stone
Hey?

11:01
Lorraine Cox
Yeah. Should we go on as a person and do that? I think to try and answer that for me, the way that I think we should be moving social value forwards, because, you know, I've learned a lot over the last few years, we need to be thinking about what the purpose is of what we're trying to achieve. And I think as a public sector organisation, you know, and that could be NHS, it could be council, it could be housing. We need to think about the purpose of the organisation, because we are a public organisation that is funded by the public, we have members of the public that work in our organisation and we have recipients of services from our organisation. So for me, we have an absolute purpose based role within our organisations to deliver good for our communities.

11:41
Lorraine Cox
And I think what we need to do is realise that social value isn't a game, it's not an add on, it's, oh yeah, there you go, 10%, score some points, offer us something and everybody's happy. And I think what we should be doing is moving and aligning that. We actually practice social value by actually challenging our bidders to say, do you actually align with our values and our purposes? Do you consider yourself to be a socially responsible organisation? Are you ethical, do you have good employment methods? Are you committed to net zero? And actually the way I want to transform this, and I might be jumping ahead here, but the way I certainly lie in bed at night and do all my best thinking about three in the morning, is to say what should this be?

12:21
Lorraine Cox
And what it should be is that our social value is meaningful and we shouldn't be spending any pennies with anybody that doesn't actually align with public purpose. And I think that's where I want to move to. I would say that, you know, from my own experiences, that social value has become a little bit systemised, a little bit processised, if that's a word. It's probably my fault because I'm a bit of a structured thinker, but actually what I want to do now is to say, right, let's halt the bus and let's think about what we are trying to achieve here, because ultimately this is about outcomes. It's not just about an add on, and actually it's about how do we spend public money in the best way to create value that truly impacts on lives?

13:00
Lorraine Cox
And that's my exam question, I think, is to say how can social value truly prove we are changing lives? Now that is a big ask and a big exam question, but it's a mission that we're certainly looking at in my two city regions to say, let's take social value even further and even better than we've done so far.

13:17
Sarah Stone
Yeah, I think you're spot on. There's nothing else that I could add to that. When people say, what is social value? And I say, well, it's the public sector's way of differentiating between suppliers based on how they deliver a product and service if the public sector is paying private sector companies to deliver public services, which is effectively what happens. It wants to make sure that the companies that do that operate exactly as you've said, in a way that aligns with their values. And I don't know whether you share this, but I'm often really surprised by how suppliers don't get that. You say it to them and you think it's just obvious and they look at you and then the penny drops and they're like, oh, you know, and I often will use, like, the NHS, for example.

14:00
Sarah Stone
So if the NHS is buying syringes or drugs or whatever the nurse it's buying, and it buys an awful lot of stuff, it's going to scope that it requirements, right, and it's going to be really specific about what it wants to buy. And so all the companies that are bidding for that contract will be providing the thing that's in the specification, right? Because that's what they wouldn't bother bidding if they weren't able to do that. And so from the NHS's point of view, it's going to get its syringes in the quantities it wants and the boxes it wants and delivered in the time it wants.

14:27
Sarah Stone
But if one company works their staff to the bone and doesn't give them any time off for stress and doesn't care about their well being and their mental health, and another company looks after its workforce, wouldn't you rather have NHS services delivered by the company that looks after its workforce than the company that doesn't? And this is why I always say to people, it's always about going over and above the legal minimum requirements, right? And this is the other thing I think people fail to understand, isn't it, that there's so much that you can do as a company that is above the legal minimum? And that's the space, I think, where social value sits. You know, it's not rocket science, but if you think about workforce stress and what that cost is, one of the biggest costs of the economy, isn't it?

15:06
Sarah Stone
And to the NHS, it just doesn't make any sense for the NHS to spend money with a supplier that doesn't look after its people. And so when you look at it like that, it's like a light bulb moment, isn't it?

15:15
Lorraine Cox
You're like, oh, it is. And to be fair, I think, you know, certainly I hate the word journey, but over the last five years, we've worked incredibly hard to try and say to our business communities, you know, we need social value and this is what it is. And I think the Toms themes, outcomes and measures list, you know, it's a very long list, has been incredibly helpful, I think, to educate the business communities and indeed, you know, officers within my organisations as to what social value could be and should be. But I think what we need to understand is the core and the basics here about what are we trying to achieve?

15:45
Lorraine Cox
And I was talking to a friend recently, and he's worked in the food industry with businesses for years, and he waved his grocer of the month magazine that he still has delivered, which is really bizarre because he is semi retired, but there you go. And I look at me. Oh, do you? He just said. He said, have you ever read this? I said, funnily or not? No, I haven't. And he was flicking through the pages and he said, look, ESG, ESG. And what he was saying was, in the food industry, we can't supply without being ethical. There's demand on buying british, there's demand on how food is produced and sourced. And obviously we've got the issue of beef, just to name one. This isn't my area of expertise, by the way.

16:24
Lorraine Cox
But he was saying, look, we have to do this, otherwise we won't get a contract to deliver food to any outlet, not just the big supermarkets, but the mediums and the smalls. And he said, so what social value is? He said, he's almost the ESG for the public sector. And the way we talked about it, I thought, yeah, that makes sense. Actually steal that. And actually, that's what this is. This is about the public sector demanding social, economic and environmental added value from how we spend our money. And if people can try and get their head around that, you know, we shouldn't actually be contracting with people who don't practice good employment. And I know in Greater Manchester we have Greater Manchester good employment charter.

17:02
Lorraine Cox
Again, I would commend people to Google that and have a look at it, because it gives you some principles of what you should be doing in terms of your ethics and your behaviour. And what I'm seeing through bids now, businesses are actually telling me about how they offer flexible entry to employment, how they take account of people's needs, who may be carers, they may be parents with young children. And actually, we can't do nine to five, clock in, clock out. We need to get the children to school, we need to come to work maybe late morning, we might need to work flexibly and do a roving set of hours over a seven day week. So actually, being responsible to our citizens and their needs means that we get good employers, therefore we have a good business.

17:41
Lorraine Cox
So I think looking at it from employment point of view, looking at it from contribution to net zero point of view, you know, we need to see businesses practice and preach this in order that they're helping us, the public sector, to achieve these national pressures and also responsibilities, particularly with the planet.

17:58
Sarah Stone
Yeah, I think also it's, it just makes good business sense as well. I mean, this is what moved me into social value. I remember sitting in 2015 and looking around and thinking, why don't companies just do this stuff? Like, why didn't they just do it voluntarily? I mean, why are they fighting politicians? And it doesn't matter what party you come from, most of the time, these things are pretty sensible and the business risk of not doing it is huge, you know, and I came to the conclusion that the reason that companies don't do it is because they don't know how, it's not because they don't want to, it's just they're not set up and structured in that way. And that's where it gets super exciting. But just moving on.

18:33
Sarah Stone
I mean, I'm kind of guessing the answer to this one as well, but have you seen social value make the difference between two companies and who won a contract?

18:41
Lorraine Cox
It's definitely the deal breaker. I remember a senior office in one of my councils came to me and she gave me three or four examples of contracts, and she said, look, social value is skewing the outcome, I think was the phrase. And she said, if we remove social value from the evaluation, she said the winner would be different and actually the contract would be slightly cheaper. So her argument was, we're paying for social value. So I thought, right, okay, head scratch moment. So I said, well, I tell you what, let's look at all 16 contracts that we've let in your department in the last twelve months, rather than just cherry pick the four that you've, you know. So I actually took the 16 away and sat doing a spreadsheet thinking, what is the impact? Is she right or is she wrong?

19:19
Lorraine Cox
And actually, when we look at the value of the social value that was offered, it way outweighed any slight increases of price if we'd only actually evaluated on quality and price. And, you know, I said, I think you're missing the point here, because what that added value is, that's coming from social value. If you look at what people are actually offering in their bid in terms of committing to employing local people, evidencing that they are actually employing new people, we can wait and target and actually demand that people are offering gentle employment to people who've perhaps been long term unemployed, ex offenders, ex military. And actually what we're doing now is educating the market to say we actually need so much more and so much more targeted employment as well.

19:58
Lorraine Cox
So what were seeing is, whilst there was one or two examples where potentially the price would have been slightly cheaper and the outcome possibly would have been different in terms of the winner, for me, the winner is the winner and we absolutely are committed to evaluating on quality, price and social value. So I would say get over yourselves, you know, figure out what the game is, play the game and actually come and participate and understand the importance of why we need social value in public procurement.

20:24
Sarah Stone
I mean, we could talk about this for days.

20:27
Lorraine Cox
Yes.

20:27
Sarah Stone
I'm deliberately not asking you questions about valuing social value and economic value versus social value, because in that you have touched on it. I'm deliberately not asking you because it's a whole other topic. Right. It's a whole other. And there are better qualified people than me to ask you those questions. A big thing for me as well is that I would challenge economic proxy values, you know, but there's the place for them. But I think they can be challenged, although I don't want to do it now. But I also think, you know, I'm so excited that was your response to that lady, because that's so important. But also the cheapest isn't always the best, is it? You know, and I think this is where matt versus meat comes in, isn't it?

21:05
Sarah Stone
You know, yes, we've had this, you know, for a long time, we thought cheapest was best and we. That's what procurement was judged on was how much money it saved. And I think that mindset is in a lot of procurement professionals, isn't it? Because it's just ingrained in them, you know, that their job is to get the best product and until we can start measuring their success by other indicators. And I suppose this is where the economic proxy values for social come into it, because a lot of the time, some of the savings or some of the cost, it never happens, so you don't see it. So you didn't choose the cheapest supplier that doesn't look after their staff, you chose the more expensive one that does. So the product was delivered on time and to budget and there weren't cost overruns.

21:45
Sarah Stone
But you can't capture that because it's not. It's not happened. You can't value it's nebulous. And I think, for me, that's just one of those things that you either get or you don't. You know, there are some people who think that the cheapest is best and it's. And then there are other people that think, you know, it's all about quality. What would your response be to that?

22:02
Lorraine Cox
I think obviously the signals coming from the new procurement act in terms of obviously, is moving from meat to mat and actually focusing on advantageous tender rather than economic advantageous tender with using those awful words. But for me is there are many ways of procuring. I know a good friend of mine, Sandra Hamilton, who's researcher at Manchester University, has done some work and written a paper on priceless procurement. If you hear us, is it public?

22:26
Sarah Stone
Can you read it?

22:26
Lorraine Cox
It's public, yeah, Google, Sandra.

22:28
Sarah Stone
I'll find it. We'll put a link in the chat.

22:30
Lorraine Cox
Some amazing ideas that she's been exploring, both in Canada, in the UK, and done a lot of research work in Manchester as well. What she talks about is, if you fix the price is the price. And why are we making people compete on price? Because we know what the budget is, we know what we've got to spend and actually we should let the market be innovative and creative and design how they're going to deliver to the price, but actually building social value as a heavier weighting in order that we're getting socially committed and responsible organisations bidding. So there are methods that hopefully we're going to be testing along those lines and actually to say, how do we do procurement differently? Because this isn't about the cheapest, you know, we all know.

23:09
Lorraine Cox
You go and buy a cheap pair of shoes and the heel falls off, you go and buy a slightly more expensive pair of shoes and the chances are you've got a bit more longevity. And it's about investment. And actually, I think I did a debate with a finance director many years ago who basically were talking about, I think it was photocopy and paper and something really simple. And he was saying, well, you know, why should I pay, you know, naught point, naught, naught Pence more for a ream. My budget can't afford that, Lorraine. I said, well, the planet won't be here in a few years, so, you know, what do we want here? Do we want ethically sourced, you know, paper that's recycled and pay a couple of pence more because, hey, guess what? That saves the planet.

23:45
Lorraine Cox
Or do we want to buy cheap just because we're balancing the budget, so you've always got to look at it through a different lens. A finance director will always be pounds and Pence and, you know, I'm an accountant by trade, so I get his thought process. But actually, we've got to think about our responsibility to planet, to people and to place. And I think this is the education that we're still on, even. What are we eleven years on now since the act? But I think there's still a big education piece that people are just not understanding what value means in terms of social value. I mean, you've touched on proxy values, Sarah, so let's get that one on the table. We do currently use toms, we use social value portal, and we use the proxy values.

24:23
Lorraine Cox
It was massively helpful for me five years ago to sell this concept to chief officers and members because we could say, hey, we've secured x million. But firstly, there was people saying, oh, is that cash? No, it's not cash, it's added value. And, you know, you can imagine where that conversation went.

24:39
Sarah Stone
That's a super interesting conversation with councillors.

24:42
Lorraine Cox
It definitely is. Oh, great. Good. We've just saved the budget because Lorraine's brought in 10 million of social value, so we've obviously had to work on that. And for me, whilst it was incredibly helpful to move us forwards where we are in star, now, we're actually saying, how do we prove impact? And how do we show that there is actually an end result here in terms of a life changing, a life improving, an opportunity to our residents, our people, our communities? How can we show that we're actually investing in our local businesses? Because ultimately, SME's voluntary communities, social enterprise sectors, are the lifeblood of everything we do. So actually, for me, we are going through a transition to say, does the proxy value actually prove impact? Is it impactful? And I'm not sure that it does.

25:26
Lorraine Cox
And I could probably be challenged by lots of people listening to this, but my view at the moment is I'm not sure that's the right way anymore. For Star, I think we will probably always use the proxy because it's useful to have that pound note value. But for me, I think we need to look upstream to say, how do we use data to actually define what the needs are for our communities and truly understand data and actually make sure that how we broke a procurement is through a way that actually targets need in order that we can then evidence that the needs are being met. Therefore, we are seeing impactful social value that is making a difference because otherwise why are we doing it?

26:01
Sarah Stone
Yeah, I mean, super excited by this. Will you keep me updated and let me know where you get too? Well, because it's just brilliant to hear that. I mean it's like music to my ears. Often people talk about KPI's and they count outputs and outputs are really important but you need to think about outcomes as well. So do you think in terms of the future, is this where you see social value going? It's definitely where I'd love to see it going. But in terms of trends, what do you think is going to happen over the next five years in social value in terms of its progression?

26:31
Lorraine Cox
Gosh. Well there's lots of Lorraine's out there that are championing this and obviously there's a coalition that's rippling now that people are starting to say come on, let's do the even better if now and let's learn and let's move this on at pace. And I am somebody that's very passionate and I'm very much somebody that gets the sleeves rolled up and has a go. I'm not a policy person, I'm not very good at writing, I'm very much let's try and test and learn and see how we can sort of incubate something and grow and make it really effective. And I think where we are nationally, obviously we've just gone through a general election and we now obviously have the Labour Party. What I will say, obviously my role is always to be completely politically neutral because that is absolutely the right thing to do.

27:15
Lorraine Cox
When Starr was formed ten years ago under three counts of one was Labour, one was conservative, one was Lib Dem. So social value is not a political football in my view, because all three formed Star, they formed the collaboration of procurement and they absolutely pushed Starr and me when I came in nearly eight years ago on building social value in and that was being driven by all three of those. The main parties where we are now, obviously we've got the new Procurement act and hopefully as we cross the 28 October this year and this all becomes live, we will start to transition in to some considerably new ways of working.

27:52
Lorraine Cox
For me as a procurement person, it's exciting and I think I said at an event recently, some of us are old enough to remember compulsory competitive tendering, which was really exciting in the eighties and actually this is the next exciting thing in our world. But actually what the act does and possibly a change of government is I think there's going to be more emphasis on the importance of social value. I think as I say, it's not a political football, but I just think I'm already seeing commitment out there. I've seen Sakiya meet with, you know, the regional mayorse. That, to me, is fantastic, because I can see that devolution is going to play a big feature here.

28:27
Lorraine Cox
And I know if you look at the manifesto, if we can talk about Greater Manchester again, look at Andy Burnham's manifesto and his reference in there around local spend SME's, I can see a really strong commitment coming. And I'm sure that the Labour government will be reviewing the national procurement policy statement as well at some point, because the whole reason of having a policy is it can be adapted and adjusted without having to go through the rigmarole of obviously changing an act.

28:51
Sarah Stone
Well, they are. They are doing it now before it gets republished.

28:56
Lorraine Cox
We need more teeth. I think that's an expression one of my colleagues used recently, and I think the act has brought more teeth. And if you think. If you look at the detail of the change, there is a big spotlight on how we reduce and remove barriers to SME's through public procurement. There is a big spotlight on making sure that we encourage and help access to public procurement from SME's. So I think there's a big clue in what is written there in statute, in terms of what we need to do. And what that does for people like me is it gives me, dare I say, a bit more of a stick, where I've tried to use carrot for many years, and it also means that others need to step up and get on with it as well.

29:32
Lorraine Cox
Because I don't know whether you thought of asking me this, Sarah, but there are, I'm going to say some councils out there and I can talk about councils, because I work with many that actually don't even do social value. There are some that don't even have a policy even to say, we're committed to this. And I find that incredible, you know, seeing where. I mean, I just go in and say, are you serious? You know, and then you can imagine I've been invited.

29:56
Sarah Stone
What do they say when you ask them that? What's their answer for why they don't do it?

29:59
Lorraine Cox
I think, to be fair, they've just got other issues within their councils. I won't name council names, but we know who is out there and who is publicly struggling. But actually there are councils who, with budget cuts and budget pressures in particular, are in a very difficult position. And what they would say is they've got other fish to fry. At the moment and social value isn't important. Now, my view would be, no, social value is an enabler. If you get social value right, it can help with prevention, it can help with upstream planning. I mean, I'm talking quite radical transformation here. And to be fair, some of these councils really are wondering how they're going to balance the budget next year. But for me, this is a massive enabler and it's an opportunity and we should be responsible and embrace it.

30:41
Lorraine Cox
So I don't know whether anybody audits where everybody's up to. I know the LGA do a lot of work in terms of their procurement strategy, but actually, I think we should actually be auditing social value as well in terms of where are people at in terms of committing to this, embedding it into their practices, securing it and more importantly, delivering it. And actually, how can we evidence outcomes and impact? Because that is where people will start to say, I want some of that. I want that in my council so.

31:08
Sarah Stone
Much, we could go for hours. One last question is just about communities and people, because the social value principles, socially international principles, are involving the people who are affected. I think they're often a piece of the puzzle that gets missed in those meeting rooms where people are sitting around going, what's our social value offer going to be? You know, it's the one thing I very rarely hear people say, oh, let's go and ask and we'll talk to the people that were trying to have that positive impact on. Yeah, what's your kind of thoughts on that? And what sort of role do you think procurement officials or suppliers can play in terms of bringing in those people who are most affected by some of these issues and having them more involved in changing the outcome?

31:50
Lorraine Cox
It's a good question, Sarah, and again, it's something I've been sort of grappling with in recent months, is I was in a situation recently where somebody wanted to do some consultation with the third sector and I have to say I was a little bit annoyed because I thought, well, to be fair, I can pull off a number of consultation documents of consultations that have happened in my city region. Hey, here's one from ten GM and here's one from sector three. And I'm thinking, why do you want to keep consulting with the third sector? With all due respect, actually, what we need to do is now take action and get on with the findings of the consultation.

32:22
Lorraine Cox
So whilst I understand what you're saying in terms of asking the audience, and I think it's incredibly important, but let's not be tokenistic and let's not keep asking and asking and doing nothing. Action speaks louder than words. That's my principle in life. So as you can see, my voice is raised now. I feel really passionate about this, that actually what we need to do is take action. And I think what we need to do very passionately now is value. Particularly our volunteer, community, faith, social enterprise sectors, because these are the organisations that through the core of what most of them do, it's about purpose and value and these are the organisations that we should be investing in. They have the knowledge, they work on the ground, they understand our communities, they're already supporting and wrapping around our communities.

33:11
Lorraine Cox
So why aren't they a number one player in this social value journey? So all I will say is watch this space, because this is a mission of mine for great to Manchester and Liverpool City region to say, how can I truly bring in the third sector to participate as an equal partner with the public sector and the private sector? Because for me, they already eat, drink and sleep, I think is my phrase, with the communities that we want to target and support and improve. So why aren't they at the table?

33:40
Sarah Stone
Yeah, they know what that action is. You know that. You're absolutely right. There's so much engagement, it's ridiculous. You just need to go and read it. Like you have to actually go and speak to them. Although it's quite useful, but, you know, to sense check, I think you go and read the engagement that's already been done, find out what they think the action is, work out how you can do it if you're a business and you're a supplier and then go and test it with them and ring them up and say, I'm thinking of doing this. You said you'd like it. Would this be helpful? I think it's that, yeah, I couldn't agree with you more. This is, for me, is why social value is so transformational.

34:10
Sarah Stone
It's joining and connecting the private, the third and the public sector in a way that's never really been done before.

34:16
Lorraine Cox
We need to be radical and we need to be transformational. And, you know, I've set myself a task to really go for this. So I would say keep an eye on star everybody and my two city regions, because, you know, when I say things out loud, I do it and I stand by my word. One final point on this subject, Sarah, is social value is everybody's business and I want everybody to have that tattooed down their arm, so to speak, because actually we are all responsible. This isn't a procurement thing. When you work in an organisation, it's everybody's responsibility, and that's whether you're public, private or third sector. And I want people to go away and really think about that and think about actually how, what's my responsibility?

34:54
Lorraine Cox
You know, I've got lots of concern, but where's my area of influence and what can I do? So it is a procurement's duty. We are enablers because we happen to run the procurement processes, but actually we need to do more pre engagement. You know, that is another feature of the act and the mpps. We need to actually help and support our commissioners. We need to work with our data teams, we need to work with our outreach terms, we need to work with adults and children's sectors and commissioners in order that we're the all in this together, because this thing, social value, will benefit all of what we do in the public arena. So actually, let's just remember, it's everybody's business, everybody's responsibility.

35:31
Lorraine Cox
And, you know, don't wait for procurement to do it for you or with you, because actually we need to do it together.

35:36
Sarah Stone
What a brilliant way to end. You know, it's true. We all have a role to play to create the kind of world we want to live in. You can't just sit back and let policy makers or politicians or other people do it for you, can you?

35:47
Lorraine Cox
No.

35:47
Sarah Stone
That's amazing. Oh, thank you so much, Lorraine. It's been absolutely brilliant talking to you. I got loads out of this I could have carried on for hours. But we'll put all the notes to everything that you've talked about, all the links in the show notes. I'm really interested in reading Sandra Hamilton's work. That sounds fantastic and thank you very much for your time.

36:03
Lorraine Cox
Thank you, Sarah. It's been a pleasure.

36:06
Sarah Stone
I'm Sarah Stone and you've been listening to let's talk social value. If you enjoyed that episode, you can find previous episodes from our other seasons on our website, www.samtaler.co.uk. Or just search. Let's talk social value. Wherever you get your podcast, a new episode drops at the end of every month. Samtaler is a social value creation agency. We've been described by our clients as the social value secret weapon. We work with suppliers to strengthen and improve the way that public services are delivered by integrating social value into solution design and developing and delivering even innovative, impactful activities which create real benefits for both businesses and stakeholders alike. For more insights and tips to help you deliver good social value, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter, the social value files. You can subscribe for free at our website.

36:58
Sarah Stone
Once again, that address is www.samtaler.co.uk. Thanks for listening.