Alastair Clay, Sustainability & Social Value Manager, NHS NOE CPC

What is the NHS North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative (NOE CPC) and what does your role involve?   

The North of England Commercial Procurement Collaborative is a regional procurement hub based in the north of England, and we release frameworks for both the NHS and public sector to access. We provide a wealth of additional specialist support on procurement training and other value added things, we’re a department of Leeds and York Partnership Foundation Trust. 

We are wholly owned by the NHS, and we have 42 member trusts that are predominantly based in the North of England. In addition, we have a wealth of public organisations that also utilise our services and our offering. 

My role as the Sustainable and Social Value Manager was created predominantly to ensure that we are seeking quality, sustainability, and social value within our frameworks. I upskill internal staff on sustainability and social value on procurement policy notes, carbon literacy, and other requirements within the public sector.  It is also incredibly important that I seek to upskill our suppliers, both awarded and prospective as well, to bring them on this journey with us and make sure they understand it and what we are asking of them. 

How do you approach social value?  

It is really important to not think of social value as just a question at a tender stage. It has to be a golden thread that goes through the entire procurement process - right through to when it closes. 

Understanding from the very beginning of a project what you're trying to do with social value, I think is really important. And if you understand it from the beginning and you understand what it is you are seeking and why you are seeking it and its relevancy to the project, then it becomes a lot easier to understand the types of commitments you want and when you receive it, to score it. 

We, as a contracting authority, are the gatekeepers to the suppliers being able to provide the right commitments in the first place, suppliers shouldn't feel like they hold all the responsibility for social value. 

When we are supporting our category managers and designing our frameworks, it is important that we first think about relevancy and that social value isn't a barrier to suppliers either being able to bid or certain types or sizes of suppliers being able to bid because we know the whole point of it being qualitative is to encourage the quality of the bid rather than the quantities that are being submitted.  

We are so passionate about social value being a real mechanism for benefit either environmentally, socially or economically being delivered, so less is more.  When you write a really focused question it gets really focused responses, and then you are more likely to contract manage it well. 

What do you do about frameworks – how do you approach social value?   

We apply social value to frameworks. That's our core focus as an organisation; to let the frameworks out to the NHS and to public sector organisations and social value is not difficult to apply to frameworks, but you have to be mindful of how you're seeking it because a framework isn't a guarantee of business.  

As with NHS Supply Chain and other frameworks, user of the contracts might transact directly off the framework itself, whereas we set up frameworks in order for the NHS and public sector bodies to call off our frameworks.  So it is really important for ourselves as an organisation to word our questions in a way that the suppliers are able to answer, but be conscious of the fact that we don't guarantee business as part of their answer and we can't forecast the value of the call.   

Dependent on the type of industry you are in, you'll have an understanding of the value of the work that you are doing and undertaking but it is really important that suppliers are aware of that, and we word questions in a way that encourages suppliers to make commitments that during a call off we would consider.  Offering this additionality as part of the question that you're asking. 

What makes a good answer?   

There are four golden words that I would always focus on when talking about social value.  This could apply when you are developing the questions as well as answering them. 

 

Additionality 

You will hear that a lot in social value, and it's mentioned within PPN 06-20.  What we are looking for in social value is commitments that are outside the core deliverables of the contract. That's the premise of social value. 

When you are answering a question as a supplier, am I answering it in a way of providing additional commitments that are outside the core deliverables or outside of things I am already operating or performing as a company already. 

Relevancy  

A good answer from a supplier contains commitments or wording that is relevant to what is being asked. This sounds quite basic, but I often see as an evaluator, suppliers answering with what they can do rather than what's being asked, and obviously a part of that goes back to us, making sure we are asking the right question, but I do often see suppliers submit things that they can do rather than what they're being asked. 

Proportionality 

This goes back to the contracting authority when the question is being drafted, is what I am asking for proportionate? For a supplier, is it proportionate of me to commit this? Will I be able to deliver it? Less is more. We would rather the supplier commit to something they could realistically do, instead of saying we will change the world and do everything and then not being able to deliver it.  

Measurability 

Can a supplier effectively measure each commitment? Often contract management is where social value is likely to fall down.  

Focussing on these four words when you are writing your submission will go a long way to being able to shape it in a way that's that is easy to evaluate, easy to contract manage, and therefore is more likely to be delivered. 

 

 Useful Links:

NOECPC website  

CPC Events  

Connect with Alastair on LinkedIn 


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To find out how we can help, send an email to hello@samtaler.co.uk

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