The Voluntary, Community, Faith and Social Enterprises (VCFSEs) sector’s experience tackling local needs gives it unique potential to deliver positive impact. So, when VCFSEs across the area told Cheshire and Merseyside NHS Integrated Care System (ICS) that local Social Value initiatives weren’t leveraging their capabilities effectively, the team was determined to act.
The outcome was the ‘Roadmap to maximise VCFSE Social Value outcomes in Cheshire and Merseyside’ - written in collaboration with Social Value Portal, the Cheshire and Merseyside VCFSE Health and Care Leaders Group, VSNW, and various public and private sector leaders. It’s a comprehensive plan to make partnerships with VCFSEs a pillar of local Social Value creation.
This ground-breaking Social Value strategy offers essential learnings for any organisation looking to drive community impact.
Creating a local Social Value economy
Many of Cheshire and Merseyside’s residents face significant challenges, with a third living in the most deprived 20% of England’s neighbourhoods, 15% of children in absolute poverty, and 18% in relative poverty.
Cheshire and Merseyside ICS is tackling this by building a local ‘Social Value Economy’, where all organisations maximise their positive impact on people, places, and planet in the ways that best suit their operations and localities.
This might involve hiring local people, targeting employment opportunities toward people struggling to access jobs, skills-sharing with VCFSEs and small businesses, and reducing emissions.
Tapping into opportunities like these will improve local quality of life and health outcomes – and directly relieve pressure on strained public and NHS services.
Cheshire and Merseyside’s VCFSE opportunity
A thriving Social Value Economy should work with VCFSEs for:
- Direct Social Value delivery: Joint programmes of work between local authorities and VCFSEs, or incorporating VCFSE organisations into supply chains.
- Indirect Social Value delivery: Businesses donating resources to VCFSEs – for example, financial donations, paid volunteering or expert volunteering.
But while Cheshire and Merseyside is home to almost 20,000 VCFSE organisations, they are not optimally integrated into local supply chains or the Social Value initiatives being delivered through public contracts.
Thinking about collaboration with the private sector, the possibilities are huge – how do we tap into it on a more consistent basis?
VCFSE interviewee
So, how will Cheshire and Merseyside ICS bridge this gap?
Kickstarting VCFSE collaboration for Social Value
At the core of Cheshire and Merseyside ICS’s roadmap is a simple but powerful request: for all stakeholders to commit to partnering with VCFSEs – from public commissioners, to private businesses, to VCFSEs themselves.
In practice, this means committing to baseline levels of supply chain spend and in-kind support with the sector, and setting targets to increase this year-on-year.
The Roadmap then identifies six key transitions which the public, private and third sectors will drive in the system to fully harness the power of VCFSEs:
#1. A purpose-driven approach
Every organisation in the ICS must understand why Social Value matters to them and the wider community – and the unique contribution VCFSEs can make.
#2. Consistent implementation
To maximise VCFSE contributions, Social Value requirements in public contracts must be:
- Clear and unambiguous
- Relevant to underlying business activity and local need
- Proportionate to bidder capabilities
#3. Focus on quality over quantity
Bid evaluations should centre not on quantity of initiatives promised, but on the quality of the change to people’s lives – as well as the strength of the action plans and bidders’ track records.
#4. Collaborative design and delivery
Buyers and bidders should co-design Social Value initiatives to integrate VCFSEs – with private suppliers working with VCFSEs, and buyers giving VCFSEs exposure and maximising the accessibility of tenders.
#5. Accountable management
Commissioners and suppliers must treat Social Value requirements rigorously, embedding qualitative and quantitative measurement and reporting into contract management.
#6. Supported capability building
Finally, the ICS asks all stakeholders to commit to developing their Social Value expertise:
- Public sector: Learning to embed Social Value in commissioning and procurement.
- Private sector: Tailoring initiatives to local need and grasping VCFSE collaboration opportunities.
- VCFSEs: Working with larger non-local organisations and leveraging procurement frameworks.
Measuring and optimising Social Value
Cheshire and Merseyside ICS has so far brought nine of its member organisations onto Social Value Portal Workspace, enabling them to measure, report and optimise Social Value activity in a single place.
We went to Social Value Portal with a challenge around implementing a system-wide approach to Social Value that met our needs as an NHS organisation, and they have supported us brilliantly. The team have always been willing to listen, learn, and try new things – it’s been a very positive experience.
Becky Jones, Social Value and Sustainability Advisor to NHS Cheshire and Merseyside
The ICS tracks and reports the positive impact being created in the community with the Social Value TOM System™ – the standard for Social Value measurement. Green Book compliant and aligned to the Social Value Model, the TOM System uses official government data sources to attribute a robust financial value to Social Value initiative.
Credible and consistent measurement is essential to developing a consistent and effective approach to Social Value. A team member from a VCFSE interviewed by the ICS commented:
If there was a shared understanding – if local authorities and health all did the same thing and asked for Social Value in the same language – it would really help.
VCFSE interviewee
The ICS and Social Value Portal have answered this need by creating a set of Measures (activities) to meet Cheshire and Merseyside’s needs and the ICS’s strategic goals – here’s a small sample:
Work:
- Hiring and retaining local people
- Hiring people not in employment, education or training
- Hiring people with disabilities full time
Economy:
- Equipment or resources donated to VCFSEs
- Giving employees access to multidimensional wellbeing programmes
- Paying the real living wage
Community:
- Initiatives aimed at reducing crime
- Initiatives to tackle homelessness
- Supporting older, disabled and vulnerable people develop stronger community networks
Planet:
- Reducing CO2 emissions
- Saving car miles
- Dedicating resources to creating green spaces, improving biodiversity and helping ecosystems
The Social Value TOM System™ ensures that everyone is working towards the same goal and can demonstrate progress. With so many pressures facing the NHS, this is crucial in helping us create conditions in the community that will lead to better health outcomes for local people.
Becky Jones, Social Value and Sustainability Advisor to NHS Cheshire and Merseyside
Social Value successes in Cheshire and Merseyside
Cheshire and Merseyside ICS has made major strides in its mission to optimise the involvement of VCFSEs in local Social Value initiatives.
VCFSEs now play critical roles in system-wide governance and are winning more public contracts, with many services co-hosted by VCFSEs and local authorities. There has also been a marked increase in public commissioners tracking VCFSE funding commitments – as well as making their own.
Now, with the new Roadmap in place and a strategy governing Social Value across the System, the future is more exciting still.
Cheshire and Merseyside ICS’s Roadmap is a nuanced and ambitious piece of work, one which will have a wide-reaching impact and serve as an example of true co-creation and partnership.
James Jenkins, Senior Consultant at Social Value Portal
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