Louise is our first Trainee Social Value Consultant at Samtaler, and we are delighted to have her onboard. Louise shares what brought her to Samtaler and what she wants to achieve in the next 12 months, professionally and personally.

When it comes to social value, it can be challenging to know where to start. Are you doing the right things? What more could you do as a business? Don’t worry; we have got you covered. We have free resources that give practical ideas to create social value and help you understand what ‘good’ looks like.

To score full marks, you need to show not only what you will do to achieve the outcomes they’re looking for but also that you understand the challenges (i.e. what the outcomes mean). This is a critical step that a lot of suppliers miss.

A decade on, we spoke to the three key people behind the Act: Chris White, the MP who proposed the Bill and shepherded it through Parliament; Andrew O’Brien, his then Parliamentary Aide who played a key role behind the scenes and suggested social value as a potential topic for the Bill in the first place; and Mark Cook, a leading expert in sustainable procurement and the lawyer who helped to draft the legislation and negotiate its path through the Cabinet Office.

Here are our top red flags that social value isn’t working for your business. You may want to rethink your approach if you recognise any of these.

Rebuilding trust amongst consumers about the construction sector’s ability to deliver on its promises is a wider and ongoing challenge, and until its addressed, it won’t matter how much social value construction projects create. Having said that, the problem isn’t that construction firms don’t want to do the right thing; they often don’t know what to do or how to do it well.

Here are ten practical ways that construction companies can create genuine value for society as well as build economic value for their company:

Towards the end of 2020, the Ministry of Justice changed legislation to remove some ex-offenders employment barriers. Yet there is still a massive stigma around employing people with a criminal record; just 17% of ex-offenders manage to get a job within a year of release. If real change is going to happen, it needs to occur in the boardroom, not the courtroom.

If done correctly, it can enhance the commercial value of your company. But, on the other hand, it can be a costly, damaging exercise that can blow up in your face. So how do you do it properly?

It can be hard to move from talking about something to doing it, especially when you work for a large or complex organisation. Depending on your workplace culture and hierarchy, your passion and drive to create more social value might lead to frustration than action. But there are things that you can be doing, however small, that could influence genuine change.

From 1st January 2021, Social Value becomes mandatory in all Central Government procurement. This article will explore why the new model is so important and why private sector organisations should embrace it.

Design a house that could be sold for less than £180,000 but still makes you a profit. Get innovative and imaginative with construction methods to keep costs down. Make it spacious, light, beautiful, high quality, sustainable and energy efficient. Make it a home people want to live in. Make affordability a selling point.