What is social value?
Social value is the view beyond price that looks at the additional value organisations can bring to our communities. We want to work our suppliers to produce wider benefits for Essex.
Social value can come in many forms. For example, an organisation could:
- create employment opportunities for care leavers
- support local employment
- introduce apprenticeships
- give careers advice and employment support for the long term unemployed
- create work experience opportunities
- upskill the workforce
- give career advice to school leavers via visits to schools
- donate time or money to local community schemes
- organise workshops for new business start ups
- reduce the use of plastic
- pay Essex staff the real living wage
Our social value approach
We use an adapted version of the National Social Value Measurement Framework method - or National TOMs, for short - for reporting and measuring social value. We refer to the set of measures used by Essex County Council as the ECC TOMs.
To help bidders and partners to understand our approach and learn more about social value, we created the Social Value Catalogue on the Essex Provider Hub.
In this catalogue of guidance and resources, you can find:
- an introduction to social value
- how we approach social value and what you need to know before preparing your bid
- examples of existing schemes that suppliers can use
- about our Social Value events and how to take part
- our social value policy, (PDF, 221.46 KB)
Our social value priorities
Our main social value priorities are centred around the support of entry level employment, local employment, employment of disadvantaged groups and environmental measures.
The four main targets under employability are:
- local employment focussing on Essex
- entry level employment
- employment opportunities for care leavers
- employment opportunities for people with disabilities
This is also accompanied by the increased awareness and implementation of environmentally friendly measures, such as introduction of cycle to work schemes, car-pooling and the use of low or no emission vehicles in your organisations fleet.
Introducing social value to your business
A good starting point when implementing social value into your organisation is to ask yourself these questions:
Making a difference in Essex
- Do you do things that could bring employment to Essex?
- How could you reshape your business to create opportunities for different groups of people?
- What do you that benefits the environment?
Supply chains
- How much of your supply chain is in Essex?
- Could you engage with your supplier to encourage them to make a difference?
- What do you do to support local SMEs?
If you have any questions about our social value approach, contact social.value@essex.gov.uk