Report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer attached

The Executive considered a report of the Deputy Chief Executive and City Treasurer, which provided an update on the effects on the delivery of Social Value by the Council’s suppliers resulting from the pandemic and set out proposals to reprofile the Council’s priorities for the delivery of Social Value to more closely align the social value priorities to supporting the city’s economic recovery and introduce further measures that would ensure that the commitment to addressing the climate crisis was reflected by the Council’s suppliers.

Since 2015 the Council had applied a minimum 20% weighting to social value when evaluating tenders for council contracts. At the time, and to the present day this was the highest weighting for social value in the country.  The Council has also introduced a range of measures within our own organisation to promote social value and ethical employment and whilst the Council’s approach to including social value in tenders had been exemplary, there was an ongoing need to ensure that the delivery of social value took place throughout the contract.

It had been recognised that Social value has become even more of a priority in light of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic and social impacts it had had on Manchester and had a more important role than ever in supporting an inclusive, green economic recovery in Manchester.

In light of the developments over the last year, the Council’s zero carbon ambition and the Council’s ongoing experience in relation to delivery of social value, officers had drafted an updated social value policy. Specifically, the policy:-

·                Prioritised actions to support Manchester’s recovery

·                Expanded the priority groups for social value to reflect groups disproportionally impacted by the pandemic.

·                Added an additional dedicated social value weighting of 10% to support the zero carbon ambition in the evaluation of tenders.

The policy was also consistent with the recently refreshed Greater Manchester Combined Authority social value framework, which sets out high level principles focused around rebuilding our economy and society following the crisis caused by Covid-19 and as well as the policy document, new toolkits for suppliers and commissioners, contract staff and wider stakeholders were also being developed to reflect the updated policy.

Overall, it was felt that these changes would help to deliver more specific, measurable commitments from suppliers both in relation to the economic recovery and in relation to climate change and a strengthened focus on priority groups

Noting the comments that had been made by the Resources and Governance Scrutiny Committee in relation to the proposals, the following amendments to the Policy were proposed :-

·                The addition of the following to 'Why are we doing

·                Maximise use of local supply chains, retaining money in the Manchester economy – Support and strengthen organisations that make a positive?contribution to Manchester and retain money in the local?economy, including through use of local, Manchester-based supply chains.

·                The addition of the following Priority Actions:

·                Ensure ‘good employment’ is centre to?any?opportunities – We particularly encourage organisations to commit to the Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter (https://www.gmgoodemploymentcharter.co.uk/), including paying all staff at least the Real Living Wage. 

·                Build our understanding of the diversity of our supply chain –  particularly how black and Asian minority ethnic communities and women are represented both in the workforce and in company ownership.  

·                The council will undertake quarterly progress reviews of social value delivery, with a formal review of the policy once a year – taking account of different sources of data including: social value delivery (e.g. KPI performance) compared with commitments in bids; procurement data (e.g. how market interest has changed as a result of the policy, quality of social value submissions in bids); survey data of our supply chain.

Decisions

The Executive, subject to the above amendments:-

(1)      Agree to focus social value efforts on supporting a green, inclusive economic recovery.

(2)      Agree to expand the priority groups to include Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic populations, who have been disproportionately impacted economically by the pandemic.

(3)      Agree to move as quickly as practicable to a 30% social value weighting to all contracts as standard (i.e. 20% social value and 10% zero carbon).