Social value - benefits for your business
Social value is good for business. It creates more competitive and sustainable organisations. Social value is a great way of showcasing and raising the profile of your business and improving connections with local people and communities, potential customers or investors and developing partnerships with local schools; with the wider benefits of supporting local regeneration and the local economy.
Benefits for your business
- Increase awareness in the local area about your development/project.
- Increase local recruitment.
- Demonstrate local commitment.
- Sustainability of workforce and business – education/training.
- Eco-friendly travel.
- Increase connection with local partners.
- More attractive to local customers.
- Make a difference and leave a legacy.
Did you know?
The National TOMs framework [http://socialvalueportal.com/solutions/national-toms/] is a widely recognised standard for measuring and reporting on social value. There are lots of ways your business can integrate social value into working practices, for example employing local residents and offering apprenticeships to support youth employment.
Other ways your business can support social value are:
- Offering an Individual Placement and Support (IPS) placement making a real difference to people in recovery, ex-offenders, and those with long-term health conditions.
- Donating surplus food and resources to charities who need them; Coventry Food Bank [https://coventry.foodbank.org.uk/give-help/donate-money/], Coventry Food Network [https://localgiving.org/charity/feeding-coventry/], CovConnects [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/covconnects], CollectEco [https://collecteco.co.uk/], who will take office furniture that would otherwise go to waste and donate it to good causes.
Coventry City Council social value
Social value aims to make a big difference to people’s lives by helping to address environmental, economic, and social issues impacting our city. Coventry City Council’s Social Value and Sustainability Policy framework [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/strategies-plans-policies/social-value-1/4] aims to support real placed-based benefits that are meaningful, appropriate, and proportionate to the city for our communities and residents.
Coventry City Council applies social value to major development contracts. Through the planning process, developers are encouraged to develop a social value action plan and to commit to achieving several targets against the Themes, Outcomes, and Measures model (TOMs) so that the city and its residents and businesses receive benefit from the development such as:
- Employment opportunities
- Engagement with schools and colleges
- Training opportunities
- Apprenticeships
- Local supply chain
- Public health
- Community engagement
- Environmental
As a Marmot City, Coventry City Council do this to provide equal opportunities and tackle economic inequality, fight climate change, improve health and wellbeing, support local businesses and sustainable procurement, ensuring that the city receives maximum benefit. Social Value enables the Council to share the benefits of our goods/services and works with residents, local businesses, and communities to increase the economic prosperity of the city, improve outcomes and tackle inequalities within our communities.
To find out more contact business@coventry.gov.uk [mailto:business@coventry.gov.uk].
Case studies
Bowmer and Kirkland
Bowmer and Kirkland are a construction and engineering company that recently completed three major developments in Coventry city centre. The figures demonstrate the amount of social value the company has contributed to the city of Coventry's local economy, which has resulted in supporting local businesses, and created training opportunities, employment, and support to local communities and residents.
Total social value generated for the three major developments: VITA student accommodation, Two Friargate building and Hotel Indigo.
- Social local and environmental value £10.2million
- £22.4million local spend within a 20-mile radius
- 67 Apprentice and Trainees totalling 671 weeks
Case Study 1 - Two Friargate Social Value
Social and local economic value generated = £5.1M
- 27 apprentices created with a total 341 weeks of training; apprentices and training provided for local young people
- 72 jobs advertised locally; job opportunities created for local people
- £9.3m local spend, supporting 32 local companies from Coventry and Warwickshire area - procuring goods and services through the local supply chain
- 28 hours of educational and career support sessions; working with local primary/secondary schools
- 8 weeks of work experience; working with local secondary and further education
- 106 tonnes of carbon saved; supporting the local net zero ambitions
- Fifteen students and three tutors from Coventry University came to site to visit the slipform and watch a presentation on the project.
- Nine quantity surveying students from Coventry University came for a site visit and presentation.
- Eleven students from Kazakstan who had come over to Coventry to complete some upskilling with Coventry University.
- Bowmer and Kirkland attended a career fair held at Blue Coat School, promoting Bowmer and Kirkland careers in construction.
- Worked with Eden All Girl School through mock interviews in December 2022.
- Bowmer and Kirkland supported local food hubs "Send your love this Christmas campaign” by providing donations for local food hubs to provide families in need with Christmas food.
- Supporting Coventry Foodbank - The Halo Centre
- Support for Coventry Food Network - Christmas food donations
Oasis Community Cafe
The Bowmer and Kirkland Social Value Manager contacted the local community group at the Oasis Community Cafe to see if there was anything the company could help with. As part of their commitment to the local community, Bowmer and Kirkland donated materials required for decorating the venue after the renovation.
Rose Community Centre
Rose Community Centre, which is at the heart of Spon End has recently received support from construction company Bowmer and Kirkland and their subsidiary Peveril Decorators.
The Community Resilience Team has been working closely with Bowmer and Kirkland who are currently leading on major builds in the city such as Friargate Two, Hotel Indigo, Westgate Coventry Academy and VITA student accommodation to enable them to fulfil their social value commitment to the city.
The team put Bowmer and Kirkland in touch with the Rose Community Centre, as they were aware that the centre needed some refurbishment on its outside window frames. The Rose Community Centre offers some fantastic support to the local area such as a weekly social supermarket supporting families in need and a Men's Shed Group also runs from the building.
Bowmer and Kirkland kindly agreed to support the centre by supplying the materials needed such as paint and brushes and provided volunteers who helped to complete the painting over a couple of days.
Dave Roberts, Community Centre Manager from the Rose Community Centre shared "The Rose Centre would like to thank Bowmer and Kirkland and Peveril Decorators for their outstanding effort in painting our community centre windows and doors."
Bowmer and Kirkland have previously supported the centre with food donations for the social supermarket and have more recently started a regular drop of food donations from on-site staff to other social supermarkets in the city.
Case Study 2 - VITA Student Accommodation Social Value
- Social and local economic value generated = £1.03 million
- £2.9million local spend within a 20 mile radius, procuring goods & services through the local supply chain
- 29 Apprentices/Trainees supported with 291 weeks of training, apprentices and training provided for local young people
Bowmer and Kirkland hosted a workshop at The Job Shop in Coventry City Centre with people who were interested in construction followed by a site tour of Vita
Case Study 3 - Hotel Indigo Social Value
- Social and local economic value generated = £1.03m
- £931k local spend within a 20-mile radius - procuring goods and services through the local supply chain
- 11 apprentices and trainees supported with 39 weeks of training, apprentices and training provided for local young people
Additional case studies
- Kendrick Homes Ltd building new homes in Watery Lane in Coventry, and as part of their work, offered the city’s Food Hub Network a £3000 donation.
- Bericote Properties developed three industrial warehouses totalling 784,000 sqft at Coventry Logistics Park [http://www.bericoteproperties.com/esg/]. Working with Coventry City Council, Bericote achieved over £2.4 million in social value.
Information on social value
Places of support for your business
- National Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMs) [https://socialvalueportal.com/solutions/national-toms/]
- Coventry City Council social value page [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/socialvalue]
- Coventry City Council’s Social Value and Sustainability Policy [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/socialvaluepolicy]
- Share your employees skills and expertise with good causes – Make Good Grow [https://makegoodgrow.com/]
- Support your local schools – The Power of School Partnerships [https://www.bitc.org.uk/report/the-power-of-school-partnerships/]
- Thrive at Work [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/workplace-wellbeing-charter-awards] is a free toolkit for businesses with criteria and guidelines on creating a workplace that promotes employee health and wellbeing.
- Socialvaluecommissioning.com [https://socialvaluecommissioning.com/] is a free website created by Social Value UK and is a free-of-charge database where you can upload case studies explaining how social value has been increased through successful commissioning.
- Construction Industry Training Board [https://www.citb.co.uk/]
- Adult Education [https://www.coventry.gov.uk/adulted]