Following the successful second reading of the Public Services (Social Value) Bill, Chris White MP unpacks the central principles that will bring about transformative public service reform
On Friday, my Private Member’s – Public Services (Social
Value) – Bill received cross-party support in the House of Lords and will now
proceed to its Committee Stage.
This marks another important step forward, and I hope that
within the next month, providing we can continue to maintain a spirit of
consensus behind the Bill, it could now be passed into law.
ResPublica was founded to develop practical solutions to
some of our biggest socio-economic challenges with a radical civic philosophy.
My Bill has very much been in that spirit – small but significant practical
change that could empower our communities.
My Bill would ensure that commissioners properly consider
“social value” when they are commissioning public services. Social value is the
additional benefit from a commissioning process over and above the direct
purchasing of the service in question. This widening of the concept of value
for money could significantly benefit social enterprises, voluntary
organisations and community groups that are trying to deliver public services.
I believe that these groups are often best placed to provide
those services – whether that is because of their expertise, their dedication
or their wider understanding of the locality. We need a system that appreciates
all the extra benefits that these organisations can bring to our public
services and includes these benefits when making procurement decisions.
Across the country, some local authorities and public bodies
are already adopting this approach, and it is generally considered to be the
“gold” standard. This Bill will simply make this standard practice and will
ensure that we level the playing field.
The Bill is also an important opportunity to leverage
investment into these organisations during a critical time. We need to do more
to empower our communities and the best way to do that is to give them more
control over the services that they use and a greater voice in the local
economy.
Social enterprises, voluntary organisations and community
groups are the best way to achieve that and by enabling them to access public
service contracts we can provide investment for them to get through this
difficult economic period and potentially expand in the future.
We need to be using every penny of public money in the most
effective way possible. We also need to think of the long term outcomes that we
want to achieve for our society. Not only in terms of results that our public
services deliver but also the kind of public services that we want and how we
want to deliver them.
Social value is about considering all aspects of value and
that we focus on the long term success of a service rather than just squeezing
small savings in the short term. This is important if we are to keep on top of
the cost of our public services in the decades to come.
I believe that it is time for a change, and Government has
an important role to play in catalysing this change. We need to ensure that we
remove barriers that are in the way of these organisations and allow for a
civic space for local people to get involved.
I hope that my Bill can mark a step forward in achieving a
more diverse chapter in our public services – partnering the ethos of the
public sector with the innovative and dedication of the voluntary, community
and social enterprise sectors – and modernise how we deliver the services that
we all use.
ResPublica will be hosting a private conference in the Spring on furthering the importance of social value in the commissioning of public services. On Friday, we announced a call for partners on this venture. For further information, please contact caroline.julian@respublica.
org.uk.