Delivering meaningful and impactful social value is key to sustainable construction.

Indeed, the industry has made great strides recently in ensuring thought and care has gone into social value strategies.

However, as the importance of delivering purposeful social value has grown, it has led to the ‘Christmas Tree’ effect. There have been so many different targets and measurements that the true purpose of delivering social value has been diluted.

The Procurement Act 2023 seeks to re-address this, and has brought with it a welcome shift in how the sector will be required to incorporate social value into projects.

With a range of procedures and policies in place to ensure the social value we deliver makes a real, lasting impact on the communities where we’re working – as set out through our five social value pillars – we welcomed the ratification of The Procurement Act 2023 earlier this year. It has the potential to really spur economic growth and benefit the whole of the UK.

Timing is everything

A critical change the 2023 Procurement Act has brought in is what stage social value is thought about in a scheme.

In many instances, it was not previously discussed until the tendering stage of procurement. However the legislation now means that social value has to be considered from the very beginning.

This will better help construction firms meet the needs of local areas and regions as social value frameworks will require more strategy and planning. In theory, it should lead to the delivery of more meaningful activities and initiatives.

This synergy simply wasn’t widespread enough before which is why we developed Communities Matter. By directly addressing the challenges communities experience where we’re working, we’re able to leave a lasting legacy and contribute to an area’s social, economic and environmental success.

Accountability and transparency

Elsewhere, the act promotes higher levels of accountability and transparency where social value reporting is concerned.

Indeed there’s now a requirement for data to publicly available, meaning there will be increased scrutiny on figures and outcomes.

The knock-on effect is that it will force companies to consider social value objectives from the start of a project. This should lead to more impactful activity being delivered.

Our in-house KPI monitoring, measurement and reporting system – which has over 250 data points – already enables us to build effective social value strategies into our schemes from the outset. However it’s great to see a more transparent reporting system being brought in across the sector.

Ultimately it should ensure communities get the maximum benefit from construction projects.

An economic boost

The act also lays the foundations for a more supportive and joined-up approach to enable companies to better utilise local SME’s and social enterprises – something we’ve been aligned with for many years through our Shared Prosperity commitment.

Creating jobs for people in an area around a site or development, or providing learning opportunities by engaging with schools and colleges, has the ability to boost the impact a project has on a community in both an economic and social sense.

By working closely with supply chain networks, establishing training programmes and supporting small businesses to become compliant with the complex legislative requirements on large-scale projects, we have a chance as an industry to spur economic growth.

There will also be a much greater emphasis on procuring locally to maximise the economic benefit to an area.

We consistently build this into our schemes, a great example of which is our partnership with a Scottish steel contractor. They provided 556 tonnes of steel and 7,000 square metres of cladding for construction of the UK’s future E-7 Wedgetail facilities at RAF Lossiemouth.

Ensuring projects are about so much more than bricks and mortar is key to our responsible business strategy. Adding value for communities and society is a key driver in our decision-making process and always will be.

The power to be transformational

The long-term impact of the Procurement Act 2023 won’t be truly felt just yet.

But by standardising how success is measured, making social aims a key focus, creating more openness, and improving procurement opportunities for smaller businesses, the act will help the entire sector deliver lasting social value to communities.