How to write a social value response that scores
Social value is where comparable bidders separate. Two firms with the same price and the same technical answer routinely finish several points apart because one wrote specific, local, measurable commitments and the other wrote a paragraph about being a responsible employer. It is also the section most often written last, at night, by whoever is free — which is exactly why it is winnable.
How much it is actually worth
Under PPN 002, in-scope central government organisations must apply a minimum 10% weighting of the total score to social value. Where an absolute methodology is used — Price per Quality Point, or a value-for-money index — that becomes 10% of the non-price criteria. Ten per cent is the floor, not the norm; plenty of buyers weight it higher.
The current Social Value Model was updated to align with the government's missions and applies to procurements commenced on or after 24 February 2025, when the Procurement Act took effect. Procurements begun before that ran on the previous PPN 06/20 model, with a transition window that closed on 1 October 2025.
The distinction most bidders miss: councils are not Whitehall
PPN 002 binds central government. A county council is not covered by it. Councils operate under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, which requires authorities to consider economic, social and environmental wellbeing when procuring services — and then each authority sets its own social value policy on top.
The practical consequence is important: there is no single national social value scheme to write to. A response tuned to the central government model can score poorly with a council whose policy prioritises something else entirely — local employment in specific wards, spend with local SMEs, care leavers, a particular carbon commitment. Read the buyer's own policy and the scoring scheme in the pack. Reusing last month's answer is the most common way to lose these marks.
What a scoring answer contains
- A number, a place and a date. "Two apprenticeships" is a commitment. "Two apprenticeships, recruited from within the borough, in place by month six" is a scoring commitment.
- Proportionality to this contract. Commitments should be plausibly linked to delivering this work at this value. A £120k contract promising fifty jobs reads as unserious and invites a low score for deliverability.
- A named owner and a measurement method. Who is accountable, what gets counted, how it is reported and how often.
- Evidence you have done it before. A comparable contract, what was delivered, what it produced.
- Local specificity. Name the town, the college, the charity, the ward. Generic national statistics score nothing.
Weak versus strong, in practice
| Weak — scores low | Strong — scores well | |
|---|---|---|
| Employment | "We are committed to creating local jobs." | "Three FTE roles recruited through the local jobcentre within 90 days of mobilisation, two ring-fenced for long-term unemployed residents." |
| Skills | "We support apprenticeships." | "One Level 3 apprentice per contract year, recruited with the named local college, with a named mentor and quarterly progress reporting." |
| Local spend | "We use local suppliers where possible." | "35% of subcontract value placed with SMEs based within 30 miles, reported quarterly against a baseline." |
| Environment | "We are committed to reducing carbon." | "Fleet serving this contract fully electric by month 12; emissions reported annually against a stated baseline." |
| Community | "We support local charities." | "120 staff volunteering hours per year to a named local organisation, agreed with the authority at mobilisation." |
The trap: what you promise, you have to deliver
Social value commitments do not evaporate at award. They typically become contractual, and under the Procurement Act delivery against key performance indicators is published — your record is visible to every future buyer assessing you. We wrote about that in your delivery record is now public.
So the optimisation is not "promise the most." It is promise the most you can evidence and deliver. Over-promising buys a few points once and costs you credibility on every subsequent bid to that authority — and increasingly, to others.
A practical sequence
- Find the weighting and the sub-criteria in the pack before writing anything, so you know whether this is 10% or 25% of the score.
- Read the buyer's own social value policy — for councils, this is usually published separately from the tender.
- Pick a small number of themes you can genuinely deliver, rather than covering every theme thinly.
- Convert each into number, place, date, owner, measurement.
- Sanity-check deliverability against the contract's size and margin. If you would wince at reporting it in year two, rewrite it.
Smaller suppliers often assume this section favours large firms. It usually does not. Local rootedness is exactly what these criteria reward, and a regional firm employing local people can write a more credible answer than a national contractor promising the same thing from two hundred miles away.
Bidvane extracts the published award criteria for each tender, including the social value weighting where the buyer states it, so you can see what the section is worth before deciding how much effort it deserves — and the buyer directory shows what each authority buys and who wins it, which is the context those commitments have to land in. Always verify the weighting and scoring scheme in the tender documents themselves.
Sources: GOV.UK — PPN 002: The Social Value Model · GOV.UK — Guide to using the Social Value Model · GOV.UK — National Procurement Policy Statement · Related: 30% to SMEs — what the new spend targets mean