Time to Act: Delivering Social Value after COVID-19 - A North West Webinar

On the 22nd of July we broadcasted our second in a series of North West Social Value Portal events, as part of the 2020 ‘Time to Act’ agenda

Continuing from the National Social Value Conference in January, these localised North West events aim to put a spotlight on what is happening across the region, and the theme of this event was Delivering Social Value after COVID-19. Panellist included Jade Tonge from Manchester City Council, Andrea Holt from Balfour Beatty, our CEO Guy Battle and Joshua Meek from the Big Issue Invest.

While our speakers lead the discussion it was great to have so many of the attendees share their perspectives around the challenges and opportunities that have arisen due to COVID-19, with a focus was on how we React, Recover and Renew. We ran a few polls throughout the event, which brought up some interesting discussion points:

Despite 60% of the attendees being from the private sector, 58% agreed that business should delivering more social value vs 24% who think they are doing enough.

The majority of attendees said the best way for businesses to show they are delivering social value was to upskill and hire in social value experts who can access and showcase a businesses’ social value.

Attendees unanimously agreed that the pandemic has given an opportunity to learn lessons, reset and build back better.

Finally, all agreed that is more importing in a post-COVID world for councils to be embedding procurement. Interestingly with 81% of suppliers saying councils should have a higher standalone weighting of 10-20% in procurement, in comparison to the public sector where only 49% agreed.

The Social Value Portal will be running North West Time to Act events every 2 months, with the next due in September.

We hope to see you at the next event.