Our Social Values

The Realm Partners Social Value Policy

Policy Approved by Keith Mizon on 3rd of July 2023

The goal of this policy is to generate greater positive economic, environmental, and social outcomes for Realm Partners and the local community of Hertfordshire where its offices are based. It aims to achieve this by providing the principles that will allow social value considerations to be embedded in our purchase, supply chain and contracts, our everyday business and strategic decision making. Finally, it enshrines a firm commitment to place social value at the centre of our business.

What is Social Value?

The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 places an obligation upon businesses to consider how they can secure social, economic, and environmental benefits at all stages of its purchasing, supply chain and contract management processes. Realm want to go beyond that by asking that social value be demonstrated in all areas of our business, where relevant and proportional:

creating new businesses,
new jobs and new skills
tackling climate change and reducing waste
improving supplier diversity, innovation, and resilience

Social value outcomes will be considered at ALL-purchasing stages within our business. The Social value Act does not provide a clear definition of social value itself, so this policy will lay out Realm I.T. Partners definition and the approach we have chosen to take.

For Realm, social value is:

Maximising the wider benefit to be gained through meeting our needs for goods, services, works and utilities in a way that achieves value for money on a whole life basis in terms of generating benefits not only to ourselves within Realm, but also to all Public Sector and local organisations, whilst minimising the damage to the environment.

By adopting a social value policy, we recognise there is significant scope to do things differently and make positive changes by encouraging the creation of job opportunities for local people, supporting young people into apprenticeships, and ensuring that local suppliers (and in particular SME businesses) are represented in our supply chain.

Social Value Principles

This policy creates a link between the strategic priorities of Realm and our purchasing practices to ensure that our spending compliments those priorities and helps to deliver key outcomes for our business and local community.

We will realise social value in our business practises according to the following principles:

We shall consider our social value Policy in all purchasing, supply chain and Realm business operations.
We shall take a proportional and relevant approach to applying social value considerations across our business.
We shall apply social value in a way that generates positive outcomes without also creating barriers for SME and third sector suppliers.
We shall ensure transparency and equality in the application of the social value considerations.

Goals and Priorities

Our priorities and goals in the implementation of social value are set out below.

Supporting the reduction of social exclusion, isolation, and inequalities
Generating education, training and employment opportunities for disadvantaged groups excluded from the workplace.
Designing services which take account of different needs including disadvantaged groups.
Engaging the local voluntary and community sector.
Generating positive health outcomes for local people

The purpose of this policy is for all Realm purchases and contracts to, where possible, contribute towards the following key areas:

ECONOMIC

Supporting local micro, small and medium enterprises by increasing their opportunities to access our direct and indirect spend.
Partnering with local businesses and suppliers where possible
Supporting our clients in the work we do to understand more about social value and how they incorporate this into their businesses.

ENVIRONMENTAL

Reducing carbon emissions to help achieve carbon neutrality by 2030 and beyond.
Seeking to reduce air pollution or eliminate where possible.
Contributing to the protection, restoration, and enhancement of Hertfordshire natural environment.
Resource efficiency and up to date processes for re-use and recycling
Encouraging local innovation and skills to help tackle climate change in Hertfordshire.

COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

Partnering with and supporting a Hertfordshire charity to raise funds for our local community and providing pro-bono work where possible.
Encouraging our employees to live healthier and positive lives through wellbeing and giving back to the local community.
Partnering with a local school to provide curriculum support and strategic advice.

EMPLOYMENT AND SKILLS

Supporting our employees with training and development for skills for the future
Creating training and education opportunities for local people
Creating employment opportunities for local people
Signing up to the Armed Forces Covenant to encourage and support employment for those who serve or have served in our armed forces.

Implementing Social Value

The following steps should act as a guide for considering social value outcomes in all purchases within Realm:

Step 1: Identify

Identify Realm strategies relevant to all procurements, purchases, and contract awards.

Step 2: Outcomes

Identify relevant social value outcomes required.

Step 3: Fairness

Ensure fair and appropriate evaluation principles are considered.

Step 4: Monitoring

Ensure ongoing monitoring of outcomes and benefits of all Realm suppliers.

Reducing Barriers for SMEs or Micro Businesses

It is paramount that in implementing the Social Value Policy we do not make any process onerous for SMEs or, Micro businesses or third sector organisations. The following should be considered to support all small, micro and third sector suppliers:

All information requested to underpin a purchasing decision should be relevant and necessary, avoiding requesting onerous amounts of information if possible.
Social value evaluation questions should consider the size of the contract and not be written in a way that excludes smaller suppliers from providing effective answers.
Any pre-tender consultation and meet the buyer events should be held to give bidders a chance to understand all purchasing requirements of Realm.
Examples of best practice are to be shared with all bidders and suppliers to Realm.

Evaluating Social Value

Social value is ‘added value or ‘additionality’ that would not have occurred without the inclusion of social value as part of the tender evaluation criteria. This forms the basis of the evaluation criteria. Model evaluation questions are included below as guidance.

All purchase processes, where relevant and proportionate should incorporate social value evaluation criteria within the tender or procurement evaluation process.
It would usually be the case that social value will be attributed to up to 10% of the evaluation criteria in a tender process (if applicable). In exceptional circumstances a higher weighting may be used.
Where appropriate social value outcomes will be published in the tender documentation, included as contract KPI’s and be reviewed as part of the contract management process.

In Summary

Third parties (such as suppliers) will be monitored as part of ongoing contract management by service areas on the delivery of the social value commitments.

These commitments will be set out as key performance indicators. Any challenges forecast in the delivery of these commitments will initially be subject to discussion between Realm and the suppliers to see if there are any measures that can be put in place to aid the realisation of the agreed commitments. It may be necessary in some instances to review the social value agreed outcome and amend to a suitable alternative before moving to more formal processes such as action plans or default notices.

We will work closely with our partners to further build upon our social value agreed outcome and amend to a suitable alternative before moving to more formal processes such as action plans or default notices. We will work closely with our partners to further build upon our social value offer and refine the metrics used to measure outcomes. This is a learning process for all parties and the Realm IT Partners Social value Policy is a live document. We will regularly review our social value methodology continuing to involve our partners as it evolves.