This year the National Social Value Conference will have as its central theme ‘Inspiring Leadership’ and builds on the great success of the 2017 Conference when we hosted over 250 people and a number of eminent speakers including Andy Street, the Mayor of West Midlands Combined Authority and launched the National TOMs Framework for social value measurement that has been downloaded by over 1500 organisations as far afield as Australia and New Zealand.

This year our speakers include the Mayor of Greater Manchester Combined Authority, Andy Burnham, the Rt. Honourable Hazel Blears, Claire Dove OBE, the Crown Representative for VCSEs and the Head of Policy from the Federation of Small Businesses, Martin McTague.

The conference will also see the launch of the FSB Toolkit for Engaging SMEs aimed at getting more small businesses working with the public sector, updates to the National TOMs including Sector plug ins for Real Estate and Health, the launch of the LGA Good Practice Guide for SV Performance and Contract Management, as well as a review of how the National TOMs map onto the UN’s Global Goals for Sustainable Development.

We will also have a range of deep dive sessions including sessions on cross-sector collaboration chaired by Scape Procure, a detailed examination of  how social value can be integrated into the planning system to unlock over £15bn worth of additional value, a look at how social value can be successfully integrated into the commissioning and planning process as well as a session on how Manchester has developed a leading solution to social value including the launch of their new Social Value Policy.

The day will be closed by Rod Schwartz, the CEO of ClearlySo and Impact Investor who will speak about the way that Social Value in the guise of the Global Goals is changing the world on investment.

Following the end of the conference, we will be hosting drinks and a buffet dinner alongside short presentations by each of our award winners.

There will, of course, be a few additional surprises along the way including a range of stands from our sponsors and of course networking throughout.

Do you share our vision for a world where people’s lives are put at the heart of decision making? Join our movement to change the way the world understands, accounts for and creates value. It is time for social value to be integrated with financial value. The movement is picking up pace, but we need your involvement.

Social Value UK members are invited to host a round table or workshop on Day 2. If you would like to submit a suggestion, please complete the form here.

This is our annual Members Exchange, the opportunity for people from all sectors who believe that a better future must include increased accountability, to assemble in one room. It’s time for companies to put changes to people’s lives and their environmental impact on an equal footing with their financial profit.

Be part of an exciting participatory day of discussions, learning and sharing of best practice. Take this opportunity to shape the movement and join the sessions on how you can get involved, no matter where you are on your social value journey.

• Hear from our new CEO Ben Carpenter, as hesets out his ambition for our community, at an exciting moment when the profile of social value has never been higher as it is recognised on the agenda of government. You can join our movement to help move social value up the political agenda.
• Social Value UK are led and governed by our members. Whether you work for a corporate, a not-for-profit, in procurement or for a local council, do not miss this opportunity to learn practical new skills to embed the social value principles in your work. You will be able to share your experiences and learn from the leading practitioners.
• You will be able to set the agenda and include what is most important to you.As a membership body owned and led by our members we will be offering the chance to participate in the day by hosting solutions focused roundtables and workshops to address the challenges you are facing. Learn from your peers and co-create solutions under the themes of ‘data and techniques’, ‘responsiveness and design’, ‘transparency and verification’.

The full programme will be announced soon.

Anne Lythgoe has nearly thirty years’ experience in the VCSE and public sectors, predominately focussing on community regeneration and wellbeing, and including having worked as a social accountant in a small social enterprise. Anne is currently the Manager of Policy and Partnerships for Salford City Council and is supporting a partnership between the public and VCSE sectors in the City to achieve holistic social value commissioning which will achieve meaningful social, environmental and economic wellbeing benefits and make a real difference for the people of Salford. She has recently started a part time secondment as Policy and Strategy Lead for the VCSE Sector in Salford. In 2015, Anne was Highly Commended in the Social Enterprise UK Social Value Awards for her outstanding leadership in the field. Previous roles have included employment in Finance, Audit and Operations Management. Anne is Vice Chair and Treasurer of the Social Audit Network.

Salford City Council

Rodney Schwartz is CEO and Founder of ClearlySo, with a background in equity research, management, investment banking and venture capital. Joining Wall Street in 1980, he rose to become the number one ranked financial services analyst at PaineWebber and then held senior management posts at Lehman Brothers and Paribas, before leaving the sector in 1997 to found the fintech-oriented VC firm Catalyst. A pioneer in the impact investment marketplace, he transformed Catalyst into a social business consultancy, which in 2008 morphed into ClearlySo, a business designed, “to help create 100 Justgivings”. This seemed an exciting new style of company, which achieves significant impact as well as great financial returns. Rodney also teaches Impact investing at the Said Business School (Oxford) and the ESMT (Berlin), and is Former Chair of Shelter, The Green Thing, Spacehive and Justgiving, in addition to having served on many fintech boards. He holds an MBA and BA from the University of Rochester and has four adult children

ClearlySo

Hazel worked as a lawyer in private practice and local government for 20 years. She was also a councillor on Salford City Council for 8 years and was elected as Member of Parliament for Salford in 1997.

She held ministerial roles in Health, Police and Counter Terrorism and was Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government. She led the change Programme to establish community policing, was the author of the Preventing Violent Extremism programme and was responsible for housing, planning and community regeneration. Later as a member of the Intelligence and Security Committee she led the report on the role of Women within the UK Intelligence Community.

Hazel worked with all Parties to take the Social Value Act through Parliament and is a Member of the National Social Value Taskforce.

 Hazel is now a Non-Executive Director of the Co-op Group, Chair of the Social Investment Business, a Member of the National Advisory Board on Global Impact Investing, Chair of Salford University Institute for Dementia and  a Non- Executive Director with Land & lakes Ltd in Cumbria where she now lives. Hazel is also a Trustee of the Social Mobility Foundation and an Alzheimers Society Ambassador.

Claire has been a key player in the Social Enterprise movement since the 1980’s and recently was appointed as the Crown Representative for the Voluntary and Social Enterprise Sector with the remit of supporting the sector to access government contracts. Claire nationally and internationally is known for her work in the sector and for ten years chaired Social Enterprise UK. She worked with government and leaders from the sector to create the first strategy for the Social Enterprise movement. She has ensured that we had a voice within Westminster and Whitehall, this included working with the teams to introduce the Social Value Act which is now embedded into many local government frameworks and in the national Crown Commercial procurement service. After stepping down as chair of SEUK Claire was asked and accepted to become a patron to the organisation. Claire still continues to lead the highly successful Blackburne House Group which apart from its outstanding educational offer to women and it’s award winning School for Social Entrepreneurship, run a number of successful social enterprises. Claire has received many awards for her role within the sector which includes an OBE and also the Queens Lifetime achievement award for Enterprise promotion.

Sophia Cox works on the Cities Programme at UKGBC, an industry-led body with a mission to radically improve the sustainability of the built environment. Her recent work includes a project to communicate the sustainability of the UK built environment, a resource to help built environment organisations think about how the future will affect their businesses and a guide to social value in new development.

Katherine is Research Director for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance. She has over eight years’ experience in various roles with Oxfam GB – as a Senior Researcher for the Global Research Team, UK Policy Manager, and Research and Policy Advisor for Oxfam Scotland. Katherine, with Lorenzo Fioramonti, instigated the group of Wellbeing Economy Governments; developed Oxfam’s Humankind Index; and led Oxfam’s work on a ‘human economy’. She was Rapporteur for Club de Madrid’s Working Group on Shared Societies and Sustainability and is on the advisory board for the Centre for Understanding Sustainable Prosperity (University of Surrey); the Living Well Within Limits project (University of Leeds); A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries (University of Leeds); and the Economic Democracy Index project (University of Glasgow). Katherine has a PhD in Political Science from the Australian National University and is Honorary Professor at the University of the West of Scotland and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Strathclyde (based at the Fraser of Allander Institute). Her forthcoming book The Economics of Arrival: Ideas for a Grown Up Economy (co-authored with Jeremy Williams and published by Policy Press) is due out in early 2019.

Wellbeing Economy Alliance

Matthew recently set up his own policy advice business after 13 years at the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES). Matthew led on CLES’ work around social value and procurement, particularly in Manchester and Preston. He continues to undertake work across Europe and is currently a network expert for the URBACT programme and an advisor to the EU Urban Agenda Partnership on Innovative and Responsible Public Procurement. Matthew is also Chair of the Greater Manchester Social Value Network.

Ben is CEO of Social Value UK. Since joining in 2013 Ben has developed a range of training, assurance and membership services for Social Value UK. He has also been instrumental in embedding the principles for accounting for social value into international projects such as the Impact Management Project, OECD ‘Working group on data standards for social investment’, World Economic Forum ‘Building the evidence base’ and World Business Council for Sustainable Development ‘Re-defining Assurance’. Ben’s background in homelessness, social housing and the built environment, affords him experience that spans sectors and an in-depth knowledge of Social Value accounting.

Martin is the Chairman, Advocacy & Policy for the Federation of Small Businesses. He has been a member of the FSB for over 20 years, promoting the interests of our local members through the Darlington Branch Committee, as Vice Chairman of the Regional Committee, as Chairman of the Local Government Policy Unit. He currently owns and manages three businesses offering public policy, engineering and IT consultancy services. Martin leads the policy team to make sure small business issues are understood and represented in Westminster, Whitehall and Brussels.

Steve Murrells became Co-op Group CEO in March 2017 having previously led the Co-op’s Food business since 2012. Steve now has overall responsibility for Co-op Food, Co-op Funeral & Life Planning, and Co-op Insurance. The Co-op is the UK’s largest mutual business with more than 4.5 million members, 64,000 colleagues and a presence in every postcode area of the country. As a senior executive at the Co-op Steve has been a key part of the team which has rebuilt the Co-op, relaunched its membership proposition and returned its iconic blue clover-leaf logo to the high street. As CEO of Co-op Food, Steve was responsible for the Co-op’s £7bn-turnover food retail arm with its 2,800 strong network of stores and logistics operations which span the whole of the UK. He introduced the Co-op’s new retail strategy which focuses on convenience and turned around the business to grow its market share. Previous to joining the Co-op Steve has held senior leadership roles in European and UK based food retail businesses, including at One Stop, Sainsbury’s and Tesco. Steve spent three years as CEO of Danish meat company, Tulip, before joining the Co-op.

For the last 6 years, Peter has managed the collaborative procurement programme for the Greater Manchester Authorities which involves achievement of value for money solutions through joint working whilst also maximising the social, economic and environmental implications of procurement decisions. Peter has worked in Local Government for over 30 years. Initially as a Chartered Civil Engineer, then as Head of Service with responsibility for technical and front line services before becoming involved in procurement and efficiency related programmes. Peter has extensive experience of collaborative procurement programmes, originally engaged by the North East Centre of Excellence in 2004 to support and develop procurement and efficiency capability, then for the NE RIEP delivering the Construction & Asset Management, Waste & Environment and Climate Change Programmes. The AGMA Procurement Hub has facilitated a common approach to Social Value across the GM footprint which is embodied in the GMCA’s Social Value Policy. This approach was recognised by SOPO (the Society of Procurement Officers) who awarded their Excellence in Delivering Social Value Award to the AGMA Procurement Hub in 2015 and the iNetwork who awarded it the Public Service Innovation Award in 2016. The GM Social Value Policy is under review and Peter is co-ordinating a refresh which will be launched at the November conference. Peter is a key contributor to the work of the LGA’s National Advisory Group on Procurement, and recently took on a role as a Director of SOPO. In 2017, Peter was invited to contribute to the National Advisory Board’s report on how procurement can contribute towards ensuring that measurable impact is regularly embraced as a deliberate driver of investment and business decisions.

GMCA

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