Shropshire Council launches Social Value Charter with partners
Shropshire Council and its partners on the Shropshire Social Value Group are delighted to have launched the Social Value Charter for Shropshire.
L-R Back – Matt Akers (Severnside Housing), Clive Wright (Shropshire Council), Lindsay Barton (Shropshire Providers Consortium), Chris Child (Shropshire Voluntary & Community Sector Assembly), Neil Evans (Shropshire Council)
L-R Front – Michael Whitworth (Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group), Tereza Hayek (Citizens Advice Shropshire), Andy Chandler (NHS Midlands & Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit)
The Charter is a set of guiding principles and simple commitments that organisations operating in Shropshire are invited to adopt, whether they are public sector commissioners, service providers, voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations or businesses.
Organisations signing up to the Charter are making a commitment to:
- Support the Shropshire economy
- Promote well-being in Shropshire
- Make Shropshire a great place to live.
Organisations will be able to sign up to the Charter by completing a simple online registration process and show their customers, suppliers, commissioners and funders that they are supporting social value in Shropshire through displaying the Social Value Charter branding.
Neil Evans, Shropshire Council’s commissioning development manager, said:
“During a climate of cuts to local government funding, social value is a way of demonstrating that public money is being spent well and on the things that matter most to our communities. It requires organisations such as Shropshire Council, the Clinical Commissioning Group and housing associations to consider how they can maximise social, economic or environmental benefits through the way they buy services for Shropshire residents.
“We hope that organisations, large or small, operating in Shropshire will join us in seeing the benefits of signing up to the Charter to help us achieve our aim of improving the social, economic and environmental well-being of Shropshire.”
To date, the Social Value Group is comprised of representatives from Shropshire Council, Shropshire Clinical Commissioning Group, local housing associations, West Mercia Police & Crime Commissioner, and NHS Midlands & Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit, as well as voluntary sector and provider representation.
Michael Whitworth, Interim Director Planning & Contracts for Shropshire CCG, said:
“The CCG has made a valuable contribution to this work and the charter will act as a toolkit to support commissioners, providers and procurers.
“As a commissioner for local health services, we have a duty to ensure that the services we buy deliver excellent standards of care whilst also providing value for money and wider benefits to our communities. We have also been working with colleagues in the NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit to embed the social value criteria into our tender processes.”
Andy Chandler, Service Director, (Shropshire & Telford) NHS Midlands and Lancashire Commissioning Support Unit, said:
“The principles of social value are enshrined in our commissioning and procurement activities. The Shropshire Social Value Charter reinforces our joint commitment to achieving improved social value for our patients and the wider Shropshire community.”
Further details about the Social Value Charter in Shropshire can be found on the website.
Further information
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 (the ‘Act’) places a statutory duty on the council to consider:
- how what we procure might improve social, economic and environmental wellbeing of the ‘relevant area’ (for the council this is the Shropshire Council area); and
- through procurement, how we might go about securing those improvements.
‘Social Value’ means social, economic and environmental benefits or outcomes that have been created. The Act does not set out in detail the nature of the social, economic and environmental improvements to be secured, which means that there is flexibility for local areas to define the nature of such improvements based on local needs and requirements.
During the time of implementation of the Act we recognised that, as the principles of the Act apply to all public commissioning organisations, there was benefit in setting up a Social Value Group in order to develop a common approach to securing social value.
The Social Value Group has developed the Social Value Charter for Shropshire. Adopting the Social Value Charter is not a requirement of the Act, but it does serve to demonstrate a commitment to three key, locally defined, principles to support improvements in social, economic and environmental wellbeing for Shropshire. These three key principles are:
- Supporting the Shropshire economy
- Promoting well-being in Shropshire
- Shropshire is a great place to live.
Examples of how social value can be defined include:
- New jobs created for Shropshire residents
- The amount of money or percentage of turnover that businesses or organisations spend in the local supply chain
- Inward investment to Shropshire
- Volunteering opportunities
- Contributions to or support for local community-based initiatives, for example environmental cleanliness schemes or tackling crime and anti-social behaviour
- Supporting community groups.
