Agenda and minutes

Scrutiny Review Panel - STAR procurement and social value - Tuesday, 19th November, 2024 6.00 pm

Venue: Webcast - Remote Meeting. View directions

Contact: Jackie Kramer  0161 474 2978

Media

Items
No. Item

1.

Minutes pdf icon PDF 211 KB

To approve as a correct record the Minutes of the meeting held on 5 November 2024.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

The Minutes (copies of which had been circulated) of the meeting held on 5 November 2024 were approved as a correct record and signed by the Chair.

2.

Declarations of Interest

Councillors and officers to declare any interests which they have in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

Additional documents:

Minutes:

Councillors and officers were invited to declare any interests which they had in any of the items on the agenda for the meeting.

 

No declarations of interest were made.

3.

Presentation: To provide the context and describe how social value operates in Stockport pdf icon PDF 2 MB

To consider a presentation given by the Assistant Director of Finance.

 

The panel is recommended to comment on the presentation.

 

Officer contact: Laura Mercer on 0161 218 1799 or email

laura.mercer@stockport.gov.uk

 

Additional documents:

Minutes:

A representative of the Director of Finance gave a presentation about the context of social value and how it operated in Stockport.

 

The following comments were made/ issues raised:

 

·         Members expressed thanks for the detailed presentation and, in particular, the video on Match My Project.

·         The Match My Project requests were a mixture of requests for voluntary assistance and social value projects.

·         The risks associated with the costs of social value being added to an invoice had been mitigated by Match My Project which focussed on resources, equipment and volunteers.

·         In terms of the value offered by suppliers using Match My Project, the procurement documentation included a section on social value about the  quantitative and qualitative submissions. The engagement toolkit gave a proxy monetary value to projects. Where a supplier provided a community donation delivered through Match My Project at was then evidenced on the social value portal.

·         Consideration was being given to whether Match My Project should be mandated as part of the procurement process, although care must be taken to ensure the scales were not tipped in terms of the bidder/project balance.

·         Councils must be transparent about how the quality and quantity of supplier bids was scored.

·         It was planned that more outreach work would take place in 2025 to obtain volunteer projects.

·         It would be possible in the future to measure the success of Match My Project in terms of the percentage of contracts matched, but those figures cannot be obtained retrospectively. The first year of Match My Project would provide a baseline for future data capture.

·         Stockport usually obtained approximately a 38.8 per cent social value return on every pound spent.

·         Efforts were made in Stockport to talk to contractors about social value at the point of engagement for big projects. This ensured that when bidders submitted a tender they were already aware of the social value element.

·         Match My Project was a tool to make up any shortfall in social value delivery.

·         Members were keen for Match My Project or other forms of social value to be more ambitious in the future, linking it with large planning developments and Section 106 agreements.

·         Other local authorities had begun work on Section 106 orders; Salford Council for example had a policy on extracting social value from Section 106 orders.

·         Social value was not limited to procurement and planning was a good way to add social value.

·         Many of the groups requesting support through Match My Project had made financial requests. There had been communications with those groups to discuss ways of building relationships with suppliers and, as a result, the requests for money had reduced by approximately ten per cent.

·         There was work to be done to develop the relationship between Sector Three and Match My Project. It was planned to register Sector Three organisations with Match My Project so that projects could be routed to them.

·         Currently, where there were no suitable matches through Match My Project, suppliers were referred to Sector Three.

·         There was growing collaboration between Sector Three and organisations registering with Match My Project.

·         The bidding process involved a commercial approach and, in some circumstances, commercial bidders had bid alongside VCSFE organisations. The current process did not allow for the VCSFE organisations to capture their inherent social value.

·         STAR procurement had plans to address that imbalance.

·         VCFSE organisations had a good knowledge about the needs of communities and there was an opportunity to assess how the procurement process could be improved to treat VCFSE bids differently to commercial bids.

·         The funding for Match My Project was £23,000 over a three-years; this included a fee for a social value portal and a social value levy. Winning bidders were contracted to pay the portal.

·         The Match My Project team were in regular communication with STAR procurement for help, support and advice and to share ideas.

·         There was a strong history of collaboration across Greater Manchester  ...  view the full minutes text for item 3.