2.3 - Procuring public engagement | Chartered Institute for Archaeologists

Resources – understanding value and scale

As discussed in 1.1 - Archaeology and public engagement, engagement with archaeology delivers public benefit and can also result in social value. Social value is already an established component in government procurement processes, so it follows that more focus on this within procurement for archaeological services is both possible as well as a crucial way forward for the sector to realise its full potential.

Since 2012 there has been a statutory obligation to consider how procurements can improve economic, social and environmental wellbeing through the Public Services (Social Value) Act (PS(SV)A) in England. The adoption of the Social Value Model (based on the PS(SV)A) was made mandatory in 2021 for central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies; however, delivering social value is not restricted to those organisations.

In recent years, this has been further developed through Procurement Policy Note 06/20 (PPN 06/20), which deals with social value in the award of central government contracts, and the National Procurement Policy Statement (NPPS), set out in PPN 05/21, which requires the consideration of national priorities around social value in addition to any local priorities. Both PPN 06/20 and the NPPS require authorities to incorporate particular social value priorities into their procurements.

An obligation to consider social value and maximise the social, economic and environmental benefits through the public procurement process is not limited to England, and is visible in policy across the UK:

Scotland – https://www.gov.scot/publications/measuring-social-impact-in-public-procurement-sppn-10-2020/
Wales – https://www.gov.wales/procurement-guidance-on-social-value-clauses-community-benefits-html
Wales –
Northern Ireland – https://socialvalueni.org/

The Social Value Model in practice

Social value must be considered from the beginning of a project so that it can be dealt with comprehensively. In England, the PS(SV)A sets out the government's social value priorities for procurement as five themes (PDF), several of which intersect with other impact frameworks already active in the archaeological sector where archaeology is known to excel in creating positive benefits. Each outcome within the Model has been designed so that the social value offered and delivered will be measurable ie, it can be assessed and evaluated.

PS(SV)A - Five key themes and sample related outcomes:

COVID-19 recovery
- help local communities to manage and recover from COVID-19 impact
tackling economic inequality
- create new businesses, jobs and skills
- increase supply chain resilience and capacity
- promote innovation
fighting climate change
- effective stewardship of the environment
- habitat creation
- energy efficiency
equal opportunity
- reduce the disability employment gap
- tackle workforce inequality
- promote social inclusion
wellbeing
- improve health and wellbeing
- improve community integration

Across the UK, social value procurement processes are also required to be assessed. For England, the PPN 06/20 social value assessment uses the Social Value Model (PDF):

any benefit identified as social value in tenders or contracts should be over and above the core deliverable/s of the tender or the contract
social value is to be assessed on the quality of what suppliers can deliver and how they propose to deliver it, rather than the quantity of what they can provide
a minimum weighting of 10 per cent of the total score for social value is to be applied in in-scope procurements, so that it is capable of being a differentiating factor in a bid evaluation.

The current NPPS, set out in PPN 05/21 (which applies to all public procurement), requires the consideration and inclusion of national priorities around social value, in addition to any local considerations:

creating new businesses, new jobs and new skills
- increasing entrepreneurship, helping new/small businesses grow and creating more businesses
- increasing employment opportunities for those who face higher barriers or are located in disadvantaged areas
- extending training, particularly for skills shortages and in high-growth sectors
- tackling climate change and reducing waste
- to the government's target to achieving net zero by 2050
- reducing waste, improving resource efficiency and moving towards a circular economy
- identifying opportunities in sustainable procurement to deliver environmental benefits through contract delivery
improving supplier diversity, innovation and resilience
- creating supply chain diversity with more start-ups, SMEs and VCSEs
- increasing innovation and disruptive technologies to reduce cost and increase quality
- contributing to development of scalable and future-proofed new methods to modernise, deliver and increase productivity

Social value and proportionality

Obviously, a large government body is not going to have the same approach to social value as a local authority or large charitable trust. This factor, alongside the many different shapes and sizes of archaeological work conducted within the development-led sector, creates a challenge in understanding how to respond around public benefit and social value.

A key concept for building engagement with archaeology into the procurement process is understanding the scale of what is possible and reasonable. As highlighted in 2.2 - Commissioning public engagement, a small watching brief may not require the same level of engagement and evidence of impact as a large-scale infrastructure project, which is precisely why the PS(SV)A and other guidance is very clear about proportionality being fundamental to procuring social value:

An Authority must consider whether the Model questions, award criteria and reporting metrics associated with each policy outcome

are related to the subject matter of the contract
are proportionate to the contract
will ensure compliance with the principles of equal treatment and non-discrimination.

Proportionality is also relevant to the weighting applied to social value within the procurement process. For example, in designing briefs for tender, the weighting allocated to social value and evaluation criteria should be equal to the importance of achieving those outcomes, so that a decision matrix does not automatically favour the least-cost option.

Procurement – what are the tender/contract requirements?

Archaeology has an opportunity to create social value by delivering long-term impacts for individuals, communities and the historic environment. Additionally, the sector has a responsibility to maximise public benefit from its commercial activity.

Engagement with archaeology as part of development-led projects is a vector for delivering public benefit and social value, and should be comprehensively identified, included and evaluated in this way as part of procurement processes.

There are a few key considerations that affect the potential to build social value delivered by engagement with archaeology into a procurement process:

how, when and why to include it in a wider development project
designing an Invitation to Tender brief that enables social value derived from engagement with archaeology
ensuring the activity has a robust evaluation plan in place that will evidence the social value from the activities
scoring within a tender matrix taking into account the quality and relevance of the social value of the proposed activities (including team skillsets)

To be successful, consideration of social value must begin at the design stage and then carry on through the entire project. Given that national planning policies support this effort, it is the responsibility of the development design team to ensure that proper outcomes are built into their scheme.

It is then incumbent on everyone involved in the archaeological process from brief through to response, team selection and contract implementation to consistently make the case linking public engagement with archaeology to meeting these overall targets as part of the wider scheme efforts.

How the NPPF principles might be implemented at design/pre-procurement stage

ensuring that social value priorities form a clear strand in the development of strategies and business cases, through to procurement specifications and contract terms
- Note: this is often established well before the point of commissioning for archaeology. Therefore, a useful step for those involved in the archaeological process (project managers, consultants, councils, statutory officers, tendering organisations) is to make a point of understanding the scheme’s overall scope and requirements for social value, and positioning engagement with archaeology within that context, as well as demonstrating our bespoke outcomes
building in the right policies and procedures to manage key stages of procurement around enabling social value, for example how projects will be assessed across procurement pipelines, delivery model assessments, cost models, pilots, KPIs, risk, and financial assessments
- Note: ensuring that the public sector is getting every ounce of value that it can get from its procurements is the name of the game. Different ideas of value are now added to, and magnifying, traditional concerns of cost. Anyone involved in archaeology within this context must review how we demonstrate our value to catch up with more established practice, and exceed preconceived notions of what we are able to offer.

Designing a tender brief that enables engagement with archaeology

Government requirements for social value have yet to achieve widespread adoption in developments that fall outside their scope, which means that the procurement process is often the biggest barrier to enabling engagement with archaeology within developer-funded projects.

Survey responses for this toolkit provide many details (see Infosheet 1 - What do archaeologists think about public engagement?) on additional obstacles above and beyond the long-identified issue of lowest-cost competitiveness limiting any potential. But what can we do to change the situation?

following the Social Value Model/public sector’s example, apply a 10 per cent minimum weighting for social value in all tenders
look hard at the tender evaluation criteria beyond the minimum weighting for social value, around relative importance of price and quality. This is typically expressed as a percentage split, where ‘quality’ refers to all non-price factors. How is social value folded into this? If absent, can it be specified? Design in suitable weighting that doesn’t compel or advantage the least-cost option. Any model that prioritises low cost as a decision criterion will reduce its public benefit and social value potential
ensure social value is evaluated as distinct from core deliverables – eg, the long-held belief that public benefit is derived from the basic process of doing archaeology. To build in greater opportunity for social value, an example might be to examine and track areas outside the fulfilment of excavation works and post-excavation knowledge generation, such as the wellbeing benefit associated with recruitment, training and retention of volunteers engaging with the tenderer’s work
propose clear evaluation criteria for meaningful social value, separating the requirements to demonstrate impact from good intentions and marketing. Evidenced claims, demonstrable case studies with impact data, and clear methodology of how tenderer will achieve and measure impact are essential.
ask for clear details on how well-resourced the engagement activity will be; what is the team, what are their skills beyond fieldwork?

The social value element of a tender scoring matrix should be just as developed as the other areas, including objective, non-discriminatory scoring criteria to allow clear differentiation between tenderers’ responses. Under the Social Value Model, users assess and score the quality of the social value offered in the tender against the selected criteria using the PS(SV)A key themes, in the same way as they would do for any other evaluation criteria designed to assess quality. For example:

Evaluation Criteria	Weighting within SV element	Weighting within overall evaluation score
Effective measures with respect to health and wellbeing, including physical and mental health in the contract workforce	50%	5% (i.e. 50% of the 10% overall evaluation score allocated to SV)
Effective measures to deliver additional environmental benefits in performance of the contract, including working towards net zero greenhouse gas emissions.	25%	2.5%
Effective measures by the supply chain to collaborate with users and communities in the co-design and delivery of the contract to support strong integrated communities.	25%	2.5%
Source: Guide to Using the Social Value Model (PDF), 2020, 16

Awarding and managing contracts

At the contract award stage, the social value deliverables in the winning tenderer’s proposals should be included in all management plans for the contract lifespan. Criteria and reporting methodology, including metrics, should be set out in the procurement documentation and in tenderer’s proposals to establish social value key performance indicators (SV KPIs). Collecting, monitoring and reporting on SV KPIs should be an important consideration in determining whether the contract terms are being met.

Throughout the pre-procurement, procurement, award and contract management phases of the contract lifecycle, in-scope organisations should retain records to help create social value case studies. These case studies will help to draw out the benefits of the social value approach it has developed and will promote continuous improvement.

2.3 - Procuring public engagement