We have recently taken on the role of a Facilities Manager for one of our clients in the West Midlands and as part of that due diligence I was interested to read that some Facilities Managers are now having to pick up the responsibility of tracking and collating data for their Social Value targets. This can be either for their clients or if they are in-house and part of a larger organisation that must track to be able to bid for the larger public sector contracts.

I have to be brutally honest and share that I was really not aware of the complexities of tracking Social Value and the context of how important it is for any company wishing to bid for larger government contracts. Apparently, some contracts can allocate a score of up to 10%, which for many businesses could be the difference between winning and losing that business, which may be in the billions of pounds.

So what is Social Value?

As far as I can work out, it’s the measurement of what is important beyond profit, creating a net positive impact on our society now to benefit a more sustainable future. Facilities Management are often using the NOMS methodology to gather evidence (National Outcomes and Measurement) and collating this evidence can be challenging as it is encouraged not to be a ‘tick box exercise, but about calculating the non-financial impact a business is having on the community that works within it, supports it or is within its locality.

Why does it matter in Facilities Management?

I think Covid gave us all a huge wake-up call, about how important our working environment is, that connection to place, to a group of people and to the local community around where we work. It was a stark reminder for many businesses that the facility management team are not just responsible for the building but also for our wellbeing and the wider sustainability issues that comes with getting to and from our place of work, but also the impact we have if we are working from home.

A Facilities Manager can now be responsible for outreach into the local community, recruitment for contractors, cleaning staff, and the supply chain, and most importantly the decarbonisation impact, and this all has to be collated and reported on.

Long gone are the days of just managing a building and some cleaning staff.

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