David Shields Announced as Non-Executive Director at Social Value UK

Value Match are pleased to announce our Director, David Shields, has been appointed to the board of Social Value UK in a position as Non-Executive Director.

About Social Value UK

Social Value UK was founded in 2007 by Jeremy Nicholls and is the national network for social impact and social value in the UK.  Social Value UK is the national network for social impact and social value and is also a member of the global network Social Value International.  Social Value UK’s mission is to change the way society accounts for value through principles, practice, people and power! For more information on Social Value UK please visit: http://www.socialvalueuk.org/

About Social Value & Procurement

As climate change becomes a global concern and the gap between rich and poor increases, the work of Social Value UK becomes increasingly important.  Members share a common goal: to ensure decision making, allocation of resource and ways of working are based on the principles of accounting for value leading to increased equality.
 Social value has gained prominence in public contracting in recent years and moves are now underway to further prioritise and standardise these requirements.

The Public Services (Social Value) Act came into force on 31 January 2013.  It requires the organisations who commission public services to think about how they can also secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits.  Central government departments will now take account of social impact in award criteria for high value contracts with a minimum weighting of 10%.

Before the procurement process is started, commissioners should think about whether the services they are going to buy, or the way they are going to buy them, could secure these benefits for their area or stakeholders.  There will be a standard set of questions and evaluation criteria for each of the policy areas, along with a scoring methodology similar to that already used to gauge quality in tender submissions.

A number of policy outcomes are outlined in the new model but purchasing organisations will retain freedom over how and when to apply them based on the subject matter of any given procurement and their own commissioning priorities.

David Shield’s Appointment

In joining the Social Value UK Board, David will be working with its Board and members to embed core principles for social value measurement and analysis, building a powerful movement of like-minded people to influence policy.

“Delivering improved outcomes for organisations and improving the quality and amount of social value created through procurement can benefit all stakeholders and society in general.  I am looking forward to working with the team at Social Value UK to develop the positive role procurement can have in this critical area.” David Shields, Value Match Director. Check out David’s Social Value UK profile here: http://www.socialvalueuk.org/staff/david-shields/