The Group considered a report of the City Treasurer which provided information on the key performance indicators for the delivery of social value, which included who decided what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, how was the Council ensuring consistency across the organisation and whether there was there central resource that co-ordinated this.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning referred to the main points and themes within the report which included:-

·                Central to the Council’s approach was ensuring that social value and its monitoring was explicitly covered at all stages of procurement, including the commissioning and pre-tender stages, tender, contract implementation, and contract monitoring;

·                The Integrated Commissioning team had taken stock of the use of Social Value KPIs in new and existing (including old) contracts, with particular focus on identifying good practice;

·                It was commissioners / contract managers who proposed what the KPIs should be for social value in any given contract, and the relevant Strategic Director (or delegated authority) who approved it;

·                The Council promoted consistency through governance and guidance in the shape of toolkits, templates and sharing best practice;

·                Individual departments were responsible for ensuring that there were robust KPIs in contracts;

·                Where contracts predated the introduction of social value there was mixed picture of suitable KPIs being in place; and

·                Currently there was no benchmarking across the Council as there was no common position on what appropriate level of social value should be based on contract value as each contract was done on a case by case basis, tailored to circumstance.

Some of the key points that arose from the Group’s discussion were:-

·                Had there been any work to develop informal best practice sharing across directorates;

·                How did the Council monitor contractors to ensure that they were adhering to the social value requirements of the contract;

·                Did the Council monitor how many of “Our Children” achieved employment opportunities across all Council contracts;

·                How was the Council monitoring the underlying structural change that the Council was looking to achieve from the delivery of social value;

·                Had any consideration been given to linking social value in kind received from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector; and

·                Why were there no KPI’s for the Housing and Residential Growth contract relating to Grove Village.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that work was being undertaken around developing the understanding and experience of deriving social value amongst teams and services. There were also proposals to set up a practitioner network to allow individuals to share information and collaborate on ideas.  The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources added that best practice that was being shared across departments was also challenged by senior officers that sat on the SMT Social Value Group, as this provided a better understanding of what worked and also provided for learning opportunities for where improvements could be made.  It was also reported that Officers were looking at how suppliers who were looking for a social value partners could be joined up with the voluntary and community sector in order to deliver social value.

The Group was advised that in terms of monitoring contractors, this was built into each contract management arrangement, the methods of which would vary amongst contracts as to exactly how this was monitored, but would usually take place on a monthly basis.  An example was given as to how the Capital Programmes team monitored and tracked apprentices being employed on Manchester City Council contracts through the North West Construction Hub.  In terms of monitoring the opportunities for ‘Our Children’, the Head of Integrated Commissioning commented that ‘Our Children’ were a priority category in terms employment opportunities and although she didn’t have figures available, she advised that it would be possible to undertake an exercise to analyse this across contracts.

In terms of monitoring the underlying structural change that social value was to bring about, it was explained that this would happen over time.  The Head of Corporate Procurement sited an example of how this was happening with Barclays bank, who were providing financial guidance to Manchester care leavers and also providing opportunities for 15 Manchester young people from hard-to-reach groups to gain meaningful employment with one of their partners.  It was also explained that suppliers needed to be informed of what was expected of them in terms of delivering social value prior to the submission of tenders.  Reassurance was given that the majority of new contracts being awarded now covered these requirements and Strategic Directors were taking a more active role in monitoring the social value element of contracts within their Directorates.

The Executive Member for Finance and Human Resources noted the suggestion of linking social value in kind from small value contracts into the Council’s Neighbourhood Investment Fund or Community and Voluntary Sector and agreed that this could be considered as there was a need to think imaginatively as to how social value could be delivered from small contracts.

The Head of Integrated Commissioning advised that there was a challenge in changing existing large contracts to deliver social value, with Grove Village being an example of this.  Officers with responsibility for monitoring this contract were aware of the need to improve the delivery of social value from this contract and would be looking at achieving this at each break point within the length of the contract.

Decision

The Group notes the report