The extra your work delivers for people, place and planet, over and above the thing you were paid for. In public procurement it is scored, and the rules changed again last month.
Social value is the wider economic, social and environmental benefit an organisation creates through what it does, beyond the core purpose of the contract. Two suppliers can deliver the same service at the same price and leave very different amounts behind them — in local jobs, in training, in what happened to the people who used the service.
It is not a synonym for doing good. It is a scored, evidenced quantity, and since 2012 the public sector has had a duty to think about it before it buys anything.
Three different models in under two years. If somebody quotes you a social value rule, the first question is which of these they mean.
Commissioners must consider wider wellbeing when procuring services. No score, no weighting, no model — a duty to think about it.
The first Social Value Model. Five themes, a menu of outcomes, and a minimum 10% of the score for social value in central government contracts.
A new model under the Procurement Act 2023, published February 2025 and mandatory from 1 October 2025. Keeps the minimum 10% weighting. This is the model in force today.
In force nowPublished 5 August 2026. Replaces the PPN 002 model for procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027, and narrows social value sharply. Guidance follows in autumn 2026.
PPN 026 is a significant narrowing, and worth understanding early if any part of your income comes from central government contracts.
From five themes to two outcomes.
Social value for central government is now defined as how a supplier will work for communities to provide good British jobs, skills and opportunities in every postcode. The model has two outcomes: Good jobs (creating and retaining quality jobs, fair working conditions, fair pay) and Skills (training and retraining that addresses shortages and reaches people facing barriers to work).
£1m and above, including VAT.
PPN 026 applies only to covered procurements valued at £1 million total contract value including VAT or above. PPN 002 had no such floor, so smaller central government contracts fall outside the model altogether.
10% under £5m, 20% at £5m and above.
For contracts from £1m up to £5m, a minimum 10% of the total score. At £5m and above, a minimum 20%. Where a Price per Quality Point method is used, that is 10% or 20% of the quality score.
At £5m, at least one social value KPI.
Commitments made during the procurement must be monitored through contractual mechanisms. For contracts of £5m or more, at least one social value KPI is set, on top of the KPIs the Procurement Act already requires.
The government model tells a central department what to ask. It does not tell anybody how to put a number on the answer. That is what the measurement frameworks do, and outside central government they are what most buyers actually use.
Themes, Outcomes and Measures, formerly the National TOMs, built by Social Value Portal and the most widely adopted social value framework in the UK. It works from a theory of change — inputs, outputs, outcomes, impact — and attaches proxy values so an outcome comes out as a Social Value £.
Its advantage over a bespoke measurement is comparability: the same measure means the same thing across contracts, departments and suppliers, which is exactly what a buyer scoring ten bids needs.
Not your values, and not your mission statement. Commitments that are: