Tell us about Social Value Portal’s Consultancy team!  

Social Value Portal's Consultancy team is comprised of 14 experts with extensive experience building, refining and embedding Social Value solutions across different sectors and contexts.  

We enable organisations to embed Social Value as a strategic priority, while optimising how it is delivered and maximised day-to-day. The consultants work hand-in-hand with clients to go beyond one-off initiatives and make purpose core to the way they do business. 

And what services does the Consultancy team offer? 

We provide a huge range of services for all stakeholders involved in delivering Social Value, both in the public and private sector, and for UK-based and global organisations. Ultimately, however, we build our service around the needs of the client.  

Our core offerings include: 

• Strategy development: Engaging with clients to understand their Social Value gaps and opportunities then building comprehensive strategies and external-facing policies. Our expertise extends to both local and international contexts, spanning across public and private sectors. 
• Local needs analysis: Identifying area-specific Social Value needs by reviewing legislation, mapping deprivation data, and building community and stakeholder relationships. These studies can cover smaller geographic areas like districts and cities, or entire regions, as needed.  
• Planning advisory: Supporting local authorities to embed Social Value in planning policy, while helping developers, design teams and consultants to create Social Value strategies for new real estate developments. 
• Corporate reporting: Analysing existing corporate activities to set out a plan of how to collect, measure and report data and evidence going forward to build robust, comprehensive and compelling Social Value reports. 
• Strategic bid support and training: Guiding suppliers on the key principles to consider to make reasonable and achievable, yet impactful, Social Value commitments to win more public sector work. 
• Carbon assessments: Embodied and whole life carbon assessments of real estate developments to identify opportunities to reduce emissions. This provides an important role in building a holistic Social Value strategy that addresses social, economic and environmental needs.  

So does the team tailor its service for different levels of Social Value experience? 

Most definitely. Clients are at different stages of their Social Value journeys, so they work with our consultants to achieve different objectives.  

Some need support on a specific goal like winning a bid, while others want to create and embed an entire place-based Social Value strategy to drive long-term impact. Often, we start by using our in-house maturity diagnostic tool, which allows us to score the level of organisational maturity and subsequently build a more effective and holistic solution for the client.  

Regardless, we listen carefully to the client’s objectives and challenges so we can focus on creating and delivering the most impactful service.  

How would you describe the team’s approach? 

Our approach is distinguished by genuine curiosity about the client’s challenges and relentless focus on solutions. We explore how each client's existing operations, assets and levers can be leveraged in new ways to generate broader societal benefits.  

We focus on collaboration and spend time to encourage and empower our clients to take action and drive change in their organisations.  

Our work with Salford City Council is a great example of how we helped a local authority embed Social Value in planning policy. Meanwhile, our work on the County Durham Pound project shows how we can bring together different organisations to deliver impact at the regional level.  On the private sector side, we have enabled real estate developers like Landsec create a strategy to deliver Social Value throughout the development lifecycle.  

Our specialists are with you every step of the way, from getting you started on your Social Value journey to setting you up for long-term success — think of us as an extension of your team.