As organisations grow, their impact on society will increase and can often have both positive and negative effects. To ensure that all businesses are doing their part in creating positive impact for society and not just taking what they need; governments are introducing new measures for companies around Social Value.
Social Value is the positive contribution to society that an organisation delivers; this can be measured through things such as job creation, environmental work, diversity and inclusion programmes, charitable work and more. Many organisations will already undertake programmes in these areas, but the new policies are designed to ensure that is part of an organisation’s culture from day one and that larger organisations ensure social value can be delivered right through their supply chains.
Other industries have seen regulations like these brought forward over the past decade, but from 1st January 2021, UK Central Government will take account of Social Value when awarding contracts that are subject to the Public Contracts Regulations of 2015. The implementation will be phased for procurements subject to the Defence and Security Public Contracts Regulations 2011, over six months, with 1st June seeing it fully embedded. The goal of the new measures is to ensure that all government procurement contributes to the support government priorities, to boost growth and productivity, help our communities recover from the COVID-19 pandemic, and tackle climate change.
So how should the defence and security industries prepare for this new requirement in government policy? What does Social Value mean to organisations in our sector and what can we learn from other sectors that have similar initiatives in place?
Our industry-led panel webinar took place on Tuesday 26th January 2021 and discussed the upcoming regulations and how the industry can work together to support a brighter future for our society.