The Social Value Model is one of the parts of a central government tender most exposed to inconsistent scoring, challenge and post-award drift. It is also the part that changed most recently. PPN 002 replaced the 2020 social value guidance that many procurement teams still have saved in their template folders, and its use became mandatory for procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025.
If your question sets still carry the five PPN 06/20 themes, you are working from superseded guidance.
This guide sets out what social value means in law, what changed between PPN 06/20 and PPN 002, how the current model is structured across five government missions and eight policy outcomes, where the National TOMs framework fits (and where it does not), and a four-step process for applying, scoring and monitoring social value on a live procurement.
Delta eSourcing gives contracting authorities one place to build, score and evidence social value criteria with a full audit trail. Request a free demo.
Why does the Social Value Model now shape every public sector award?
Because social value is no longer a tie-breaker. Under PPN 002, in-scope organisations “must apply a minimum 10% weighting (or an equivalent measurement) of the total score, for social value” — and every commitment a winning supplier makes has to be written into the contract as a term, a key performance indicator or a performance indicator.
That combination is what changed the stakes. A criterion worth at least a tenth of the total score is a criterion that decides awards, and a commitment carried into the contract is a commitment that gets audited.
The volume of decisions this touches is substantial. Delta recorded £299.3bn awarded across 16,952 UK public sector contracts between 1 May and 30 June 2026, with a further £78.1bn across 21,561 contracts expiring between July 2026 and January 2027. Every in-scope central government contract in that pipeline will need a social value approach that stands up to scrutiny.
What is social value, and what does the law actually require?
Social value is the additional economic, social and environmental benefit generated through the delivery of a public contract, over and above the goods, works or services being bought. It is the wider return the public gets from money it was going to spend anyway — jobs created, skills developed, carbon reduced, local supply chains strengthened.
Social value in plain English
Two suppliers bid for the same office cleaning contract at the same price and the same specification. One staffs it with an existing workforce moved across from another site. The other recruits four people locally who were long-term unemployed, puts two of them through a supervisory qualification, and switches the contract to refillable, low-carbon products.
The cleaning is identical. The social value is not. That difference is what the model is designed to capture, score and hold suppliers to.
What does the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 require?
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 is the statutory starting point. Its long title describes it as “An Act to require public authorities to have regard to economic, social and environmental well-being in connection with public services contracts; and for connected purposes.” Section 1(3) states that “the authority must consider — (a) how what is proposed to be procured might improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area.”
The important word is consider. The Act created a duty to think about social value before going to market. It did not set a weighting, prescribe outcomes, or require anyone to score it. That is the gap the procurement policy notes filled: the Act made social value a consideration, and PPN 06/20 — now PPN 002 — made it a mandatory, weighted award criterion for central government.
How is social value different from ESG, CSR and sustainability?
These four terms get used interchangeably and mean different things:
| Term | What it describes | Scope |
|---|---|---|
| Social value | Additional benefit delivered through a specific contract | Contract-specific, procurement-driven, scored at tender |
| ESG | Environmental, social and governance performance of an organisation | Organisation-wide, investor and regulator-facing |
| CSR | Voluntary corporate social responsibility activity | Organisation-wide, often philanthropic and discretionary |
| Sustainability | Long-term environmental and resource impact | Can be either, usually environmental in emphasis |
A supplier can have an excellent ESG rating and still score poorly on social value, because the model asks what will be delivered through this contract, in this area, for these beneficiaries — not what the organisation does in general.
Where does social value sit under the Procurement Act 2023?
The Procurement Act 2023 sets the framework the current model operates inside. Contracting authorities assess bids against the most advantageous tender test, and social value award criteria sit within that assessment alongside price and the rest of quality. PPN 002 applies specifically to procurements commenced under the Act. The Act’s transparency regime matters here too: more of the procurement lifecycle is published than under the previous regime, which makes social value commitments and the contracts carrying them more visible to competitors, auditors and the market.
What replaced PPN 06/20, and what changed under PPN 002?
PPN 002 replaced PPN 06/20. Published on 13 February 2025 and updated on 5 March 2025, PPN 002 is issued as Action Note 002, “Updated: February 2025, Previously issued: September 2020” — carrying forward the September 2020 social value PPN it replaces. In-scope organisations had a transition period starting 24 February 2025, and its use became mandatory for procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025. For procurements commenced before that date, organisations could choose to apply PPN 002 or continue with PPN 06/20.
There is no remaining transition. If an in-scope organisation commenced a procurement under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025, PPN 002 applies.
What did PPN 06/20 introduce?
PPN 06/20, issued in September 2020, was the point at which social value stopped being optional in central government. It required departments to explicitly evaluate social value rather than merely consider it, introduced a minimum weighting, and gave buyers a standard set of themes, policy outcomes and model award criteria to select from. Its five themes were COVID-19 Recovery, Tackling Economic Inequality, Fighting Climate Change, Equal Opportunity and Wellbeing.
Why was PPN 06/20 replaced?
Two reasons. First, alignment: PPN 06/20 predated the Procurement Act 2023 and was built around a different regime. Second, relevance: a model anchored to COVID-19 recovery had aged out, and its themes no longer mapped to the government’s stated missions.
What changed under PPN 002?
| PPN 06/20 | PPN 002 | |
|---|---|---|
| Issued | September 2020 | February 2025 (updated 5 March 2025) |
| Status | Superseded | Mandatory for procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025 |
| Structure | Five themes, policy outcomes, model award criteria | Five government missions, eight policy outcomes, model award criteria and sub-criteria |
| Anchored to | Covid-19 recovery and the 2020 policy agenda | The government’s missions |
| Regime | Pre-Procurement Act 2023 | Procurement Act 2023 |
| Minimum weighting | A minimum weighting applied | Minimum 10% of the total score, with a narrow market-maturity exception |
| Reporting | Model award criteria and metrics | Standard Reporting Metrics (SRMs) tied to each sub-criterion |
| Selection approach | Select relevant themes and outcomes | Focus on relevant outcomes; omit sub-criteria that are not proportionate |
The most practical change is the emphasis on focus. The PPN 002 guidance encourages users to “focus and select one outcome from the model” and its associated criteria, rather than applying everything available.
Who does PPN 002 apply to — and who is exempt?
PPN 002 “applies to all central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies,” referred to throughout the guidance as “in-scope organisations.”
It explicitly does not apply to private utilities contracts, or to the Ministry of Defence in relation to defence and security contracts as defined by section 7 of the Procurement Act 2023.
Local authorities and NHS bodies are not bound by PPN 002. Many adopt it or align to it voluntarily; many others run their own social value frameworks, and a large number use TOMs-based measurement instead. That divergence is precisely why both approaches persist side by side — and why suppliers bidding across central and local government routinely face two different social value languages in the same week.
What’s inside the Social Value Model: missions, policy outcomes and award criteria?
The Social Value Model has five layers. Government missions sit at the top. Beneath each mission are policy outcomes. Each outcome carries a model question and model award criteria (MACs) with sub-criteria, and each sub-criterion has Standard Reporting Metrics (SRMs) used to report delivery.
The five missions and eight policy outcomes
| Mission | Policy outcome | Model award criteria and sub-criteria |
|---|---|---|
| Kick start economic growth | 1. Fair work — fair wages and good working conditions | 1a Create and retain high quality jobs · 1b Fair working conditions · 1c Fair pay practices · 1d In-work progression · 1e Identifying and managing risks of modern slavery |
| 2. Skills for growth — supporting growth sectors and addressing skills gaps | 2a Learning and skills development opportunities addressing skills gaps | |
| 3. Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains | 3a Create a diverse supply chain including new businesses and SMEs · 3b Collaborate in co-design and delivery with communities | |
| Make Britain a clean energy superpower | 4. Sustainable procurement practices — reducing carbon footprints, minimising waste, promoting clean energy | 4a Deliver additional environmental benefits toward net zero emissions · 4b Influence staff, suppliers, customers and communities |
| Take back our streets | 5. Support the reduction in crime — through community cohesion, awareness raising and action | 5a Influence staff, suppliers, customers and communities supporting domestic abuse reduction |
| Break down barriers to opportunity | 6. Employment and training for those facing barriers | 6a Create employment and training opportunities for those facing barriers · 6b Increase disabled people’s representation · 6c Tackle inequality in employment, skills and pay |
| 7. Creating a pipeline of opportunities — reducing barriers to entry for under-represented groups | 7a Remove barriers to entry for young people and under-represented groups · 7b Create a pipeline of opportunities for the future contract workforce | |
| Build an NHS fit for the future | 8. Increasing productivity through physical and mental wellbeing — in the supply chain and communities | 8a Support health and wellbeing in the contract workforce, including physical and mental health |
Note the count: five missions and eight policy outcomes, not four missions with an NHS extra bolted on. The NHS mission is a mission in its own right, and Outcome 8 sits beneath it.
How do the model question, award criteria and sub-criteria work?
The model provides a standardised question for each outcome, which buyers adapt by inserting a word limit and the award criteria and sub-criteria they have selected. Bidders respond with a method statement and implementation plan setting out what they will deliver and how.
Evaluation is qualitative. The guidance is explicit that the assessment scores “how the method statement and implementation plan meet the award criteria and sub-criteria (only) — volumes are not evaluated.” A bidder promising 200 apprenticeships does not automatically beat one promising 20; what is scored is the quality, credibility and relevance of the plan.
Standard Reporting Metrics sit underneath — for example, “employment opportunities created by UK region” under sub-criterion 1a, or “annual carbon emissions reduction (MTCDE)” under 4a. SRMs are reporting instruments, not scoring instruments.
How do you choose which outcomes to apply?
Two tests, both from the guidance: whether the model question, MACs and sub-criteria “are related to the subject matter of the contract,” and whether they “are proportionate to the contract” — proportionate meaning “framed specifically having regard to the nature, complexity and cost of the contract.”
The guidance encourages buyers to “focus and select one outcome from the model” and its associated criteria. Applying all eight outcomes to a modest services contract is a common way authorities get this wrong: it inflates bid cost, produces generic responses, and gives evaluators nothing meaningful to discriminate between.
Document why each outcome was selected and why others were omitted. That record is the defence if the selection is later questioned.
How should you weight and score social value?
The floor is a minimum 10% weighting of the total score, or an equivalent measurement. Where a Price Per Quality Point methodology is used, social value is applied as a 10% minimum weighting of the quality score.
There is one permissible exception. Where preliminary market engagement demonstrates that the standard approach “would significantly reduce competition due to a lack of market maturity in delivering social value,” the in-scope organisation may set the social value weighting at 10% of the quality score instead. Where market maturity is higher, a weighting above 10% of the total can be applied.
On scoring itself, the guidance offers three routes: continuous scoring across bands; a minimum standard threshold that bids must meet; or pass/fail — with the warning that pass/fail can exclude a tender outright. Marks must be awarded against objective, non-discriminatory scoring criteria set out for each band, tender by tender, and moderated using standard techniques.
Standardise your social value questions, weightings and evaluation records in one system. Request a free Delta eSourcing demo.
What are TOMs, and how do they relate to the Social Value Model?
TOMs stands for Themes, Outcomes and Measures. It is a third-party social value measurement framework that assigns proxy financial values to social value commitments so they can be quantified in pounds and compared. TOMs is not part of the government Social Value Model and is not referenced in PPN 002. It is widely used by local authorities and across the construction sector, which is why buyers and suppliers encounter both.
Conflating the two is a frequent source of confusion on this topic. They are different instruments, published by different bodies, doing different jobs.
What does TOMs stand for and how is it structured?
Three tiers. Themes are the broad priority areas, such as local employment or environmental sustainability. Outcomes sit beneath each theme and describe the change sought — for example, more local people in work. Measures are the reportable data points that evidence the outcome, such as the number of local people employed on the contract, each with a defined unit and a proxy value.
How do proxy values turn commitments into pounds?
A proxy value is an estimate of the economic value of a unit of social benefit — what one year of employment for a long-term unemployed person is worth to the public purse in reduced benefits, increased tax receipts and improved health outcomes, for instance. Multiply the units committed by the proxy and you get a headline social value figure in pounds.
The appeal is a single comparable number. The limitations are equally well known: proxy values are estimates and vary between frameworks and versions; volume-based scoring invites inflated commitments that are never delivered; and benefits can be double-counted across contracts or claimed as additional when they would have happened anyway. A £2m social value figure means very little without knowing which proxies produced it.
TOMs vs the Social Value Model — a direct comparison
| Social Value Model (PPN 002) | TOMs | |
|---|---|---|
| Published by | UK government (Cabinet Office) | Third-party organisations, outside government |
| Status | Mandatory for in-scope central government organisations | Voluntary; adopted by choice |
| Typically used by | Central government departments, executive agencies, NDPBs | Local authorities, construction, housing, some NHS bodies |
| Structure | Missions → policy outcomes → model award criteria → sub-criteria → SRMs | Themes → outcomes → measures |
| What it produces | A qualitative score against award criteria | A monetised social value figure |
| How it’s evaluated | Qualitative assessment of method statement and plan; volumes not evaluated | Quantified units multiplied by proxy financial values |
| Reporting | Standard Reporting Metrics, tracked as contract KPIs or PIs | Measures reported against committed units and values |
Can you use both?
Yes, and many organisations have to. An authority that reports corporately in TOMs but procures under PPN 002 needs a mapping between the two: model sub-criteria and their SRMs on one side, TOMs measures on the other, with a documented view of which SRMs feed which measures.
The practical warning is the reporting burden. Running both without a mapping means suppliers report the same delivery twice in two formats, and the numbers drift apart. Agree the mapping before the tender is issued, not after the contract is signed.
How do you apply the Social Value Model step by step?
Step 1 — Select relevant outcomes and set proportionate weightings
Start from the contract, not the model. Identify what this contract could plausibly deliver beyond the specification, then select the outcome — usually one — that fits. Apply the two tests: related to the subject matter, proportionate to the nature, complexity and cost. Set the weighting at a minimum of 10% of the total score. Record the reasoning for both what you selected and what you left out.
Step 2 — Write the social value question and evaluation guidance
Adapt the model question, insert a realistic word limit, and state the award criteria and sub-criteria being assessed. Then write the evaluation guidance before bids arrive: what a strong, adequate and weak response looks like against each sub-criterion, in concrete terms. Brief evaluators on the qualitative basis of assessment — that they are scoring the method statement and plan, not the size of the numbers.
Step 3 — Evaluate and moderate consistently
Score against the published bands, tender by tender, using objective and non-discriminatory criteria. Moderate as you would any other quality criterion. The specific risk to guard against is the credible-sounding commitment with no delivery mechanism behind it — test deliverability, named accountability and whether the resource actually exists. Record the reasoning behind every score, not just the score.
Step 4 — Contract, monitor and report on delivery
Every social value commitment made during the procurement must be reflected in the contract as a contract term, a key performance indicator or a performance indicator. Where a commitment relates to a Standard Reporting Metric, the SRM should be used to draft it, where appropriate and proportionate. Performance is then rated across four levels: good, approaching target, requires improvement, and inadequate.
One specific obligation is easy to miss: local employment opportunities arising from the contract must be advertised in local job centres using the government’s Find a Job website.
Common mistakes to avoid
· Applying every outcome regardless of relevance, instead of focusing on what the contract can actually deliver
· Reusing PPN 06/20 question sets and theme names that no longer exist in the current model
· Scoring volumes rather than the quality of the method statement and plan
· Weighting social value so heavily that it distorts the award away from the core requirement
· Letting commitments lapse after signature — a common failure mode, and one auditors look for
Where are social value measurement and reporting heading?
From commitments to verified delivery
The scrutiny is moving downstream. It is no longer enough to show that social value was evaluated at tender; the question is whether what was promised was delivered. PPN 002’s requirement that commitments become contract terms, KPIs or PIs, with performance rated on a four-point scale, is the mechanism that makes that question answerable.
Standardisation and comparability
Standard Reporting Metrics are a deliberate push towards comparable data. When every department reports “employment opportunities created by UK region” the same way, benchmarking becomes possible. The pull towards common measures will only strengthen as the data accumulates.
Overlap with net zero and wider policy conditions
Outcome 4 sits under the clean energy mission, and environmental commitments increasingly run alongside separately assured carbon requirements. Social value is also no longer the only non-price policy condition in play: PPN 024, published in June 2026, introduces a public interest test requiring structured consideration of in-house delivery before going to market for planned services over £1m from April 2027, and PPN 025 reclassifies shipbuilding, steel, artificial intelligence and energy infrastructure as national security sectors. Social value criteria now sit in a fuller field of policy tests.
Keeping social value accessible to SMEs and VCSEs
Heavy social value requirements can exclude exactly the suppliers best placed to deliver local benefit. Delta data shows around 70% of UK public sector opportunities are open, non-framework competitions — a genuinely accessible market, provided the bid burden stays proportionate, and suppliers are supported by tools to respond to public sector contracts and opportunities. Proportionality is the safeguard: a focused single-outcome question with a realistic word limit costs a small supplier a fraction of what an eight-outcome question set does, and produces better responses.
How does Delta eSourcing support social value in public procurement?
The model is now clear. The problem for most authorities is process: social value questions live in one template, weightings in a spreadsheet, evaluator scores in an inbox, and delivery data nowhere. That is what makes consistency hard and audit defensibility harder.
Delta eSourcing is an end-to-end e-sourcing platform built for UK public sector procurement, covering the full lifecycle from notice through tender, evaluation, award and contract management in one eSourcing and tender management system.
One governed question library, not a folder of old templates
The PPN 06/20 copy-paste problem is a version control problem. Delta eSourcing’s reusable question and criteria libraries let a procurement team maintain one current, governed social value question set — aligned to the outcomes and sub-criteria actually in force — and reuse it across every tender, so the superseded theme names stop reappearing, while its eProcurement software solutions ensure the rest of the process remains consistent and auditable.
Structured evaluation, moderation and scoring records
Evaluation in Delta eSourcing is structured: evaluators score against the published criteria and bands inside the system, with moderation handled in the same place, supported by a specialist eSourcing team with UK-wide expertise. Because scores and comments are captured against each criterion rather than in email, the reasoning behind a social value score is recorded as it is made — which is exactly what the guidance’s tender-by-tender, objective scoring expectation requires.
A complete audit trail from tender to contract end
Under the Procurement Act 2023 transparency regime, and in any legal challenge, the evidence chain is the defence. Delta eSourcing holds tender documents, supplier responses, evaluator scores, moderation records and award decisions in a single system of record, timestamped and retrievable — so the answer to “how did you arrive at that social value score?” is a report, not an archaeology exercise, and procurement teams can focus on developing their skills through specialist procurement events and training.
Tracking delivered social value after award
Because Delta eSourcing carries the procurement through into contract management, the commitments a supplier made at tender can be tracked as contract KPIs and performance indicators against the SRMs they map to. That closes the loop PPN 002 requires: reporting reflects what was delivered, not what was promised, and illustrates how a comprehensive public sector eSourcing platform can underpin social value reporting end to end.
Social Value Model FAQs
Is PPN 06/20 still in force?
Not for new procurements. PPN 002 replaced it for anything commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025, following a transition period that began on 24 February 2025. Procurements commenced before that date may still be running under PPN 06/20, but no new in-scope procurement can use it.
How do you measure social value?
Two broad routes. Under the Social Value Model, you evaluate qualitatively against the model award criteria and sub-criteria, then track delivery through Standard Reporting Metrics as contract KPIs or performance indicators. Under a proxy-value framework such as TOMs, you quantify committed units and multiply them by financial proxies to produce a monetised figure. The first is better for award decisions; the second is better for portfolio-level reporting.
What are some examples of social value in a contract?
Typical commitments include: creating apprenticeships for local residents; employing people who face barriers to work, such as prison leavers or long-term unemployed people; paying the real living wage across the contract workforce; spending a defined share of contract value with SMEs and VCSEs; reducing contract carbon emissions and waste to landfill; delivering staff health and wellbeing programmes; and running skills or outreach activity with local schools and colleges.
What is social value in construction?
Construction is among the most mature sectors for social value, because contracts are large, long, place-based and labour-intensive — which makes local employment, apprenticeships, supply chain spend and carbon reduction genuinely deliverable. It is also where TOMs is most prevalent, since much construction procurement runs through local authorities and housing providers that report in monetised social value rather than under PPN 002.
What does a good social value tender answer look like?
From the evaluator’s side: specific, deliverable and relevant to this contract. It names the beneficiaries and the local area, sets out how the commitment will actually be resourced and by whom, links each element to the stated sub-criteria, and offers evidence that the bidder has delivered something comparable before. It is a method statement and plan, not a list of numbers — volumes are not what is scored.
Do local authorities and the NHS have to use the PPN 002 Social Value Model?
No. PPN 002 applies to central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Local authorities and NHS bodies are outside its scope. Many align to it voluntarily, some use TOMs-based frameworks, and others operate their own local social value policies reflecting local priorities.
Applying the Social Value Model with confidence
The through-line is short. Know which model applies — PPN 002 for central government procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 on or after 1 October 2025. Apply only the outcomes genuinely related and proportionate to the contract. Weight social value at 10% of the total score as a minimum and score it qualitatively against published bands. Then carry the winning commitments into the contract as terms, KPIs or PIs and actually monitor them.
Three things to do next:
1. Audit your existing question sets for PPN 06/20 hangover — superseded theme names, old outcome numbering, COVID-19 recovery language.
2. Agree a proportionality approach so teams stop applying eight outcomes to every contract.
3. Move social value evaluation and monitoring into one auditable system, so scoring rationale and delivery data live together rather than across templates, spreadsheets and inboxes.
Ready to apply the Social Value Model consistently across every tender? Request a free Delta eSourcing demo.