Read: The importance of procurement for levelling up

Procurement may not be a term that usually ignites excitement but it can really make a difference in the fight to level up Britain. 

From the beginning of this year, all central government departments (and their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies, including NHS Trusts) have been required to include in their procurements a social value award criterion weighted at a minimum of 10 per cent of the overall score. 

While social value has been a feature of public procurement in the past, it’s fair to say that it has normally carried a low weighting, so this shift demonstrates a change in attitude towards the role that social value should play in determining public contracts. Social value is defined as the additional value created in the delivery of a contract through a wider community or public benefit, which extends beyond the monetary value of the contract itself.

The Government spends hundreds of billions of pounds each year on services delivered by external suppliers, so this is a change that could make a real difference. It also has the potential to develop a wider concept of social value through procurement, seeing it go well beyond the numbers of apprenticeships, to whether companies have a wider, high-impact strategy and approach in place to deliver concrete results on the ESG agenda.

This will have a knock on effect for businesses bidding for public contracts, who will now be expected to demonstrate more sophisticated and ambitious social value commitments in order to maximise their scores when bidding for public contracts over the coming months and years. It heralds a welcome race to the top that will be won by those companies that have really understood how to weave social purpose into their business models and those of their supply chains. 

Universities also outsource approximately £11 billion worth of services every year, which also presents a significant and largely untapped opportunity to widen the scope of the levelling up through procurement. 

The steady uplift in funding for universities, through widening access to universities for less privileged young people, has allowed them to invest in world class facilities around the country. And for some universities it has also given them a chance to invest in the community, providing significant opportunities for employment, training and business in the local area. 

The University of Northampton Waterside Campus

We’ve seen powerful examples of this, for example, at the University of Northampton which has developed a new model of social procurement. Under the leadership of Professor Nick Petford, the University of Northampton understands that the impact of its investments is not just what they provide for the University itself, but how and where that investment is procured and the effect that it can have on those partners involved. Its work at the new Waterside Campus has been driven by a genuine commitment to social value and to the delivery of real social impact through investment that can leave a lasting legacy on its local community. 

Similar other public-facing institutions that outsource can and should also adopt a more robust and sophisticated approach to requesting the delivery of social value from providers.

Levelling up requires partnership between government, business, universities, and communities - all have a role to play in what will need to be a national effort.

Last month a new set of ‘Levelling Up Goals’ were launched by Rt Hon Justine Greening to focus efforts on driving equality of opportunity at key life stages, from early years through to careers, alongside the barriers such as the digital divide, health and infrastructure adulthood and to provide a benchmark to track progress.

One of the Levelling Up Goals is Goal 9 - extending enterprise and entrepreneurship to all people and communities. How procurement is operated and whether it is carried out with a wider purpose can have a huge impact on levelling up, delivering on that Goal and as part of a broader push, ultimately playing a part in how we can level up the whole country. Making every procurement pound count for levelling up is crucial.