Build social value into your bid – that’s the message being given to local companies and organisations which want to do business with Salford City Council.
The council has contracts worth £58 million that are due to expire in the next three to four years and will be looking to local suppliers to meet those needs.
Councillor Jack Youd, lead member for finance and support services, said there were huge opportunities for Salford or Greater Manchester based companies and organisations – but social value must play a key role.
“Social value is about getting the maximum benefits for the city from our spend. That’s everything from using local suppliers to keep money in our city or city region economy to making sure companies are paying the Real Living Wage to uplift local wages,” he said.
“It’s about creating jobs, apprenticeships and opportunities for local people, employers working with our schools to offer careers advice and support, giving back to the local community with volunteering and supporting their own staff to get training and development opportunities.
“In the last year alone public sector spending has brought £864,000 into the local economy and social value worth an estimated £73,000.”
Councillor Youd said Salford City Council had a huge range of needs for products and services to support its many services, projects and day to day running.
“From foster care to school meals, from maintaining the city and our buildings, to collecting recycling or council tax to managing cost of living support schemes, the scope of what we do and what we need to support that is immense,” he said.
“We spend millions annually on buying goods and services and 54 per cent of that spend is with Salford suppliers.
“We want to increase that proportion particularly with local small and medium sized enterprises, voluntary and community organisations and social enterprises and keep even more money in Salford.”
Councillor Youd said payment of the Real Living Wage – a rate calculated by an independent panel to reflect the true cost of living – was crucial to lifting local people out of poverty pay. Salford City Council became England’s first Living Wage City in 2019, working to encourage more local organisations not only to pay the rate but to accredit with the Living Wage Foundation so they are committed to the annual increase and encouraging their supply chain to pay the Real Living Wage.
“Over 100 Salford organisations are now accredited Living Wage employers – a 33 per cent increase since December 2021. That has already boosted the pay of thousands of local people and we’re working to get more employers to follow suit to carry on tackling poverty and inequality and growing our local economy.
“We are also mindful of the environment and climate change so we will be asking companies what they can do to protect and mitigate impact in those areas. But, in all of this we won’t sacrifice value for money or quality.”
The council’s new procurement strategy which sets out its purchasing plans until 2027 has just been published on our supplying the council page.
As well as applying a minimum social value weighting of 15 per cent for all new tenders, the council will apply higher weightings for specific contracts where bidders have greater capacity to deliver social value.