Social value examples by sector

Construction tenders typically score social value heavily on local employment and supply chain spend — themes that align naturally with the sector's geography and its reliance on subcontractors and trades. A contractor working on a council-commissioned housing development is expected to demonstrate how local people will benefit not just from the completed homes, but from the economic activity the build itself generates: apprenticeships started, local firms engaged, supply chain spend kept within the procurement area.

The most credible construction social value commitments are anchored to the specific contract's geography. Committing to prioritise subcontractors registered within twenty miles of the site is more specific — and more scoreable — than a general preference for local supply chains. Apprenticeship commitments are strongest when they reference a named training provider or college, a specific trade pathway, and a start date tied to the contract programme.

Under the National TOMs framework, construction commitments frequently draw on employment and training measures. A worked example for a £2.5 million refurbishment contract:

Facilities management contracts present a distinctive social value opportunity because they tend to run for multiple years across large, mixed workforces — creating sustained scope for employment, training, and environmental commitments in a way that shorter construction projects cannot. A cleaning, security, or hard services contract might employ twenty to two hundred people across a site for five to ten years, giving a credible basis for long-term social value delivery.

The most scored themes in FM tenders are typically employment from disadvantaged backgrounds, living wage commitments, and environmental impact — particularly CO₂ reduction through fleet electrification or energy management. Buyers commissioning FM services are often acutely aware of the low-wage, high-turnover characteristics of the workforce, and social value responses that address pay, progression, and stability tend to resonate with evaluators who know the sector.

Environmental commitments carry real proxy values: the HM Treasury Green Book values a tonne of CO₂ avoided at £69. On a large FM contract with a vehicle fleet or significant energy footprint, the carbon reduction opportunity can generate meaningful proxy value even before employment commitments are counted. A worked example for a five-year, multi-site soft FM contract:

Health and care commissioning weights equal opportunity and wellbeing themes more heavily than most other sectors. NHS trusts and local authority adult social care teams regularly treat workforce quality, staff mental health support, and employment of priority groups — including care leavers and people with disabilities — as core social value criteria, not peripheral ones. The reasoning is direct: the workforce delivering a care contract is itself part of the social outcome the buyer is commissioning.

Care leavers are a distinctive priority group for this sector. Care organisations are among the most credible employers of care leavers — the sector's tolerance for non-linear employment histories, its empathy-led culture, and its need for staff with lived experience of difficult circumstances make the commitment plausible in a way it might not be for a construction contractor. Under National TOMs, care leaver employment is typically valued against the long-term unemployed or deprived-background proxy at £12,654 per person — a figure that reflects the systemic barriers this group faces.

A worked example for a three-year domiciliary care contract with a sixty-person workforce:

The examples in this page share a common set of characteristics that distinguish them from the generic social value statements that populate losing bid responses. Understanding the difference is as important as knowing what figures to use.

A credible commitment is specific, sourced, proportionate, and deliverable. Specific means it names a number, a target group, a timeframe, and a mechanism. Sourced means every proxy value is traceable to a published dataset — National TOMs, HACT Social Value Bank, or HM Treasury Green Book — that an evaluator can verify independently. Proportionate means the commitments are scaled to the contract: a two-person micro-contract that claims twenty apprenticeships is not credible. Deliverable means a reader familiar with the sector and contract type could believe, without additional information, that this organisation could actually honour the commitment.

A generic commitment fails on one or more of these tests. "We will support local employment" fails on specificity. "We will deliver £1 million of social value" fails on sourcing if no calculation methodology is shown. "We will create fifty green jobs" on a catering contract fails on proportionality. "We will partner with charities across the country" fails on deliverability for a site-based contract.

The bid writing guide covers the specificity and quantification principles in more detail, including the six most common mistakes that cause social value responses to score poorly. The social value calculator lets you build a commitment schedule using the same published proxy values shown in the sector examples above — so every figure in your response has a citable source before you submit.