What we learned from our social value webinar with BidCraft

Last week we sat down with our partners at BidCraft for a joint webinar, Where Bids Fall Short on Social Value, and How to Close the Gap. It was a practitioner conversation rather than a slide deck: Grace Manson, one of our social value experts, and Jon Darby, bid specialist and Managing Director of BidCraft, working through where social value responses lose marks in public sector tenders, why it keeps happening, and what turns a compliant answer into a winning one.

We covered a lot of ground across the session. This is a look back at the themes that came up, with a few of the more useful points pulled out. The full conversation is worth watching if social value is anything more than a footnote in your bids.

The pattern we keep seeing

The premise for the session is something we run into on live bids again and again. Organisations rarely lack the underlying commitment. They have real community programmes, real employment and skills activity, real supply chain practices. What they lose marks on is how that work is shaped, timed and written into the response.

Social value is the additional economic, social and environmental benefit an organisation delivers alongside a core contract. Put more simply, it is the answer to one question: what extra good will happen because this contract exists? The trouble is that the good work and the scored answer are two different things, and the gap between them is where the points quietly disappear.

Social value is not one response you can reuse

One theme ran through the whole conversation: if you could copy and paste your social value answer across every bid, that is a red flag. The Social Value Model and the award criteria may look recognisable from tender to tender, but the commitments underneath them have to be specific to the contract, the sector, the buyer and the community the work will serve.

Jon and Grace talked through why a local authority contract, an NHS procurement and an IT outsourcing bid should read very differently, and why buyers such as the NHS publish their own priorities (the NHS Social Value Playbook being one example) on top of the central government model. The short version: the more you genuinely understand the buyer and the community, the more relevant, and more credible, your response becomes. We get into what that research actually looks like in the recording.

What separates a good response from an exceptional one

This was the heart of the session, and the word that kept coming back was confidence. A strong social value response gives the evaluator confidence that you will do what you say, because the plan behind it is clear, specific and measurable.

That means contract-specific, measurable commitments rather than a list of corporate values. It means a delivery plan that sets out what you will do, who will do it, when it will happen, and how you will measure and report on it. And it means evidencing that you understand the local picture, from indices of multiple deprivation to the buyer's own social value strategy, and weaving that understanding through the whole answer.

One small but telling tip from the conversation: watch your language. Phrases like "we aim to" and "we hope to" quietly undermine an otherwise strong response. Evaluators read them as "we'll give it a go," and once they spot one loose thread, they start pulling. Grace and Jon had more to say on the difference between confident, specific writing and what Jon calls "bid speak," and it is one of the more practical takeaways in the full recording.

Where social value is heading

Both speakers agreed the bar is rising. The shift they described is from promises to proof: buyers are increasingly focused not just on what you commit to, but on how likely those commitments are to actually be delivered. That comes down to delivery risk, and it is something the Procurement Act 2023 and the current Social Value Model (PPN 002) put real weight behind, with a sharper emphasis on measurable outcomes and contract management.

There was also a genuinely interesting exchange on AI. As written responses get quicker to produce, both speakers expect buyers to look beyond the page, visiting past projects, talking to the community groups and local partners named in your case studies, and checking that the conversation matches the proposal. Or, as it was neatly put in the session, AI may end up forcing bids to become more human. The broader trajectory is that social value is becoming a business capability rather than a paragraph written the night before a deadline.

Consortium bids and the rest of the story

We also touched on consortium and subcontractor-heavy bids, which is where social value most often unravels into a patchwork of duplicated or dropped commitments, and on how to embed social value across the whole submission rather than treating it as a bolt-on. And we closed on what the best bidders do differently, which comes back to treating social value as a strategic differentiator rather than a compliance requirement. We have left the detail of those for the recording, because they are best heard as a conversation.

Watch the full conversation

If any of this sounds familiar, the full webinar recording is the best place to hear Grace and Jon talk it through, including their answers to audience questions on delivery support and how much to commit relative to contract value.

This session came out of a wider collaboration between transformacy and BidCraft, bringing bidwriting and social value depth together as one engagement rather than two parallel ones. You can read more about why we're working together and where social value points get left on the table, and how to win them back.

And if you are preparing for a tender where social value carries real weight, our Social Value Strategy and Tender Support team helps organisations win more UK tenders, from strategy and contract-specific bid responses through to measurement and reporting using the Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMs) framework. We would always rather have the conversation too early than too late.

Frequently asked questions

What is social value in a public sector bid?

Social value is the additional economic, social and environmental benefit delivered alongside the core contract being procured. In tenders it is scored and weighted, often at ten percent or more of the quality marks, so it can be decisive when bids are close.

Why do good organisations still lose marks on social value?

Most organisations lose marks not because the underlying work is weak, but because of how that work is shaped, timed and written into the bid. Social value brought in late, written generically, or sitting apart from the wider bid story consistently scores below the work it describes.

Is the social value response the same for every bid?

No. The Social Value Model and award criteria are recognisable from tender to tender, but the commitments have to be tailored to the specific contract, sector, buyer and community. A response that could be copied and pasted across bids is a red flag to evaluators.

What makes a strong social value response?

A strong response sets out contract-specific, measurable commitments backed by a clear delivery plan: what you will do, who will do it, when, and how you will measure and report on it. It also evidences a genuine understanding of local need and sets out proper governance and accountability.

What language should you avoid in a social value response?

Avoid tentative phrasing such as "we aim to" or "we hope to," which evaluators read as a lack of commitment. Confident, specific language ("we will hire five apprentices on this contract") builds the credibility that scores well.

How much social value should you commit relative to the contract value?

There is no fixed industry rule. It comes down to proportionality and relevance, and quality matters more than quantity: a smaller, well-evidenced, deliverable commitment will usually outscore a larger one with no credible delivery detail, which is why SMEs can still write top-scoring responses.

How is social value in bids changing under the Procurement Act 2023?

The emphasis is shifting from promises to proof. The Procurement Act 2023 and the current Social Value Model (PPN 002) place greater weight on measurable outcomes and contract management, so evaluators increasingly assess how likely your commitments are to actually be delivered, not just what you have committed to.