The law that tells every council, NHS trust and government department to 'consider' social value also says, in the same breath, that ignoring it changes nothing. Thirteen years on, only central government departments were ever given a version of the rule that actually bites.
Estimated reading time: 7 minutes
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In short. Since 31 January 2013, the Public Services (Social Value) Act has told public bodies to consider the wider good their contracts could do, and told them in the same section that not doing so changes nothing. The government's own 2015 review found take-up "relatively low" and recommended a further review within two years; no such review appears in Cabinet Office's own published record. The one real upgrade that followed, a mandatory minimum-weighted score, binds only central government departments; everyone else the founding Act covers is still working from 2012's wording. Three documented mistakes: four stars.
Since 31 January 2013, every council, NHS trust, police force and government department procuring a public services contract in England and Wales has been bound by a three-page law that tells them to think about the wider good their spending could do. The same law, in the same section, tells them that if they do not, nothing happens.
A duty with its own escape clause
The Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 requires a "relevant authority" that is about to procure services to consider, before starting the process, "how what is proposed to be procured might improve the economic, social and environmental well-being of the relevant area, and how, in conducting the process of procurement, it might act with a view to securing that improvement" [1] (section 1(3)). "Relevant authority" is defined broadly: any person or body that is a contracting authority within the meaning of the Procurement Act 2023 [2] (section 1(15), revised), which covers essentially the whole of the public sector procuring above threshold, not a subset of Whitehall departments.
Four subsections later, the same section supplies its own answer to what happens if an authority does not comply: "Failure to comply with subsection (1), (3), (6) or (7) does not affect the validity of anything done in order to comply with the Regulations" [1] (section 1(10)). A duty to think about something, paired in the same section with a clause confirming that not thinking about it has no legal consequence, is not a gap in the Act. It is how the Act was written.
The review that said so, and the recommendation nobody answered
Two years after the Act took effect, the Cabinet Office commissioned a review of how it was working, led by the government's then-enterprise adviser, Lord Young. Its foreword did not soften the finding: "despite its growing awareness amongst public bodies, the incorporation of social value in actual procurements appears to be relatively low when considered against the number and value of procurements across the whole public sector" (p.4) [3]. The review also found "inconsistent practice both in commissioning social value and bidding for social value contracts" (p.5) [3], and its executive summary named three specific barriers: patchy awareness and take-up, varying understanding of how to apply the Act, and immature measurement of the social outcomes it was meant to secure (p.7) [3].
Lord Young did not leave that finding open-ended. His conclusion set a deadline for checking whether it had been fixed: "I would therefore recommend that a further review is undertaken within the next two years, to evaluate how much progress has been made against each recommendation, and what more should be done" (p.5) [3]. That review was due by early 2017. Cabinet Office's own current guidance page on the Act cites Lord Young's 2015 review for case studies, then moves straight to "In June 2018, central government announced it would go further and explicitly evaluate social value when awarding most major contracts" [4]. Nothing in the department's own published record, on the page built to summarise the Act's history, sits between those two dates and answers Lord Young's own recommendation for a further government review of progress.
The fix that skipped almost everyone the Act was written for
What did follow from 2018 applied to only part of the public sector the founding Act covers. Cabinet Office built a "Social Value Model" for central government, formalised as Procurement Policy Note 06/20 in September 2020 and made mandatory for central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies from 1 January 2021, requiring a minimum 10% of the evaluation score in scope contracts to go on social value [4] [5]. That is a different kind of duty from "must consider": bidders are scored on delivering it, not merely invited to think about it.
But the note that replaced PPN 06/20 when the Procurement Act 2023 came into force is explicit about who the upgrade covers. Procurement Policy Note 002, updated February 2025, states: "This Procurement Policy Note (PPN) applies to all central government departments (departments), executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies... Other contracting authorities may wish to apply the approach set out in this PPN" (p.1) [6]. In-scope organisations must apply it to procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 from 1 October 2025, a date that has now passed [6]. Everyone else who counts as a "relevant authority" under the 2012 Act, councils, NHS trusts, police forces, the universe the Act was written to reach, was left an option, not a rule.
The government's National Procurement Policy Statement, published the same week as PPN 002, sets the tone for that wider group. It restates the same soft formula: a contracting authority carrying out a procurement covered by the Procurement Act 2023 "must have regard to the importance of maximising public benefit" (p.4) [7], and authorities generally "must have regard to this Statement in the exercise of their procurement functions as required by section 13 of the Procurement Act 2023" (p.2) [7]. "Have regard to" is not "must achieve," and the Statement sets no minimum weighting or measurement standard of the kind Lord Young said was missing in 2015.
The founding Act itself confirms how little has moved. The only amendment made to its operative section since 2012 landed on 24 February 2025, and it does not touch the duty or the no-penalty clause: it updates the section's definitions so that terms like "relevant authority" and "public services contract" point to the equivalent sections of the Procurement Act 2023 instead of the regulations it replaced [2] (section 1(15)-(16), revised). Subsection (3)'s duty to consider and subsection (10)'s clause that failing to do so changes nothing read, word for word, exactly as they did when the Act was passed [1].
The claims, tested
| The document's own words | What the evidence actually shows | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| A relevant authority "must consider" the social, economic and environmental well-being its procurement could secure (s.1(3)) [1] | The same section says failure to comply "does not affect the validity of anything done" (s.1(10)) [1] | A duty with no legal remedy for breach, by the Act's own design |
| Lord Young's 2015 review: "I would therefore recommend that a further review is undertaken within the next two years" (p.5) [3] | Cabinet Office's own guidance page moves from citing that 2015 review straight to a 2018 policy announcement, with no review in between [4] | Recommendation not shown to have been acted on |
| PPN 002 requires scored, minimum-weighted social value evaluation "for all central government departments... executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies" (p.1) [6] | "Other contracting authorities may wish to apply" it (p.1) [6]; the founding Act's own "relevant authority" definition covers far more than that list [2] | The enforceable version reaches a fraction of the bodies the Act was written for |
The mistakes, counted
The Act pairs its central duty with a clause voiding the consequences of ignoring it, and that pairing has not changed in thirteen years (1). Section 1(3)'s duty to consider social value and section 1(10)'s statement that non-compliance "does not affect the validity of anything done" [1] have stood, word for word, since the Act was passed in 2012.
The government's own 2015 review recommended a further review of progress within two years, and Cabinet Office's published record shows no such review (2). Lord Young's report set the deadline himself (p.5) [3]; the department's own current guidance on the Act cites that review, then jumps to a 2018 announcement with nothing published in between [4].
The one enforceable fix produced since binds only central government, not the wider public sector the Act covers (3). PPN 002's mandatory minimum-weighted scoring applies to central government departments, executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies alone; every other "relevant authority" under the 2012 Act, the councils, NHS trusts and police forces that make up most of its intended reach, is invited rather than required to apply it [6], and the 2025 National Procurement Policy Statement restates the same unenforceable "have regard to" wording for everyone else [7].
Credit where due
Lord Young's review was not written to flatter the Act it was reviewing. It said plainly that take-up was "relatively low" against the scale of public spending and set out specific, named barriers rather than a vague call for more awareness (pp.4-7) [3]. Where the tighter model does apply, it is a genuine step up from "consider": a scored, minimum-weighted requirement, mandatory since 1 October 2025, not a paperwork exercise [6]. And when procurement law was rewritten wholesale for the Procurement Act 2023, the government kept social value as a named, explicit priority in the National Procurement Policy Statement rather than letting it quietly drop out of the new regime [7].
Verdict
Four stars, from three documented mistakes. The Public Services (Social Value) Act was never a covert failure; its own text has always said, in plain subsections anyone could read, that the duty it creates carries no penalty for being ignored. The government's own review found that gap mattering in practice within two years, recommended a check on progress, and that check does not appear to have happened. The one upgrade that did follow was real, but it was built for the part of the public sector easiest for Whitehall to instruct directly, not the wider set of councils, NHS trusts and police forces the founding Act was written to reach. Thirteen years and one wholesale rewrite of procurement law later, most of the bodies bound by the Social Value Act are still bound by exactly the version of it that its own author flagged as under-used.
Sources
- Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, as enacted, legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, 8 March 2012
- Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, revised version, legislation.gov.uk, The National Archives, showing amendments to 24 February 2025
- Social Value Act review: report to Government, Cabinet Office, Lord Young of Graffham, 12 February 2015
- Social Value Act: information and resources, Cabinet Office, GOV.UK, first published 5 September 2016, last updated 29 March 2021
- Procurement Policy Note 06/20: taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts, Cabinet Office, GOV.UK, 24 September 2020
- Procurement Policy Note 002: taking account of social value in the award of central government contracts, Cabinet Office, updated February 2025
- National Procurement Policy Statement, Cabinet Office, 13 February 2025