Question to the Cabinet Office:

To ask the Minister for the Cabinet Office, what steps his Department takes across Government to calculate social value in the award of central government contracts.

We have developed a light touch model for calculating social value in government procurement, representing the minimum standard on social value that we expect departments to consider in their procurement activity. The model comprises a set of high level themes, a set of priority policy outcomes grouped under each theme, standard award criteria and a menu of specific metrics for departments to use in contract management and reporting.

Each policy outcome will have standard award criteria and a suggested set of evaluation questions for departments to consider, and a corresponding set of proposed metrics that should be used by departments to performance manage the delivery of the contract. Bidders will need to submit questions based on these metrics where they have been selected.

In March 2019, we launched a public consultation on the final measures that will form part of the overall social value framework. The consultation will encompass the proposed questions and reporting metrics that will be used to compare the relative social value of bids for central government contracts. The consultation closes on 10 June 2019.

We are also developing proposals for government’s biggest suppliers to provide data and action plans for how they plan to address key issue such as ethnic minority representation in their workforce, the gender pay gap throughout the company and what they are doing to tackle the scourge of modern slavery.