On July 20th 2026, Andy Burnham became the new Prime Minister of the UK.
A lot of our clients and partners have been asking me what this will mean for Social Value. To put it simply, I'm optimistic. In fact, I think this could be the biggest opportunity our Movement has had since the Social Value Act 2012.
Burnham hasn't discussed Social Value in depth yet as Prime Minister and no doubt will currently be getting pulled in a dozen directions at once, from foreign policy to the Treasury.
But there's reason for real optimism, based on what he's already said, what he's already done, and what I watched him build in Greater Manchester. If those same instincts travel south with him, place-based Social Value will soon matter more to procurement than ever before.
A country that wants change
Burnham arrives at Number 10 at a moment when people have stopped waiting patiently for growth to trickle down to them. Trust in institutions is low, and nobody wants to hear about another five-year plan. They want to see and feel that public money is reaching them and their communities.
Social Value is one of the few tools built to answer exactly that demand: action, not promises. Burnham has been talking in these terms for longer than most people realise. Back in 2021, speaking at our National Social Value Conference, he described watching Greater Manchester's approach to homelessness go from "a lot of good intent" scattered across different organisations to a single aligned strategy, and a 10% drop in rough sleeping within a year, the first fall in eight years. His conclusion at the time: "we have to adopt the same strategy on a much bigger scale."
Everyone's a sceptic when it comes to political rhetoric these days, but that line came from someone who had already seen what coordinated Social Value delivery can do, and wanted to repeat it at scale. Five years on, he's been handed the platform to make that happen.
More recently, in his Manchester speech setting out his priorities before entering Number 10, he committed to "proper Social Value weighting" on all eligible public contracts, including the Defence Investment Plan. He's pledged to help every area establish its own Good Growth Fund, the place-level investment pot he already built in Greater Manchester. He's also talked about his admiration for the 'Preston Model': the approach where councils, hospitals and universities are encouraged to spend with local businesses, cooperatives and social enterprises, instead of letting that money leak out of the area.
This plainly is not a politician discovering Social Value for the first time. It's a Prime Minister who ran one of the UK's largest public bodies with Social Value built into how it spent money and now has the reach to do the same across Whitehall.
Why procurement is the key lever
Procurement moves enormous sums of money – hundreds of billions a year – and because the state is the customer, it comes with the ability to attach real conditions to how that money is spent by the organisations receiving it. Not just what they deliver, but how: who they employ, what they pay, where they source from, what they leave behind in a community once the contract ends.
No other economic lever combines that scale with that degree of specificity.
Social Value Portal's own benchmarking data across all the public contracts we have supported (around 20,000 public contracts and bids for those contracts) shows that when Social Value is integrated into procurement, it results in a median 16% value-add, with upper-quartile performers hitting 37%.
To put it in simpler terms: an extra 37p of value delivered for every pound spent, at no additional cost to the taxpayer.
For a government likely looking to drive growth while keeping borrowing and new taxes down, procurement represents one of the largest returns available from any lever currently sitting on the table.
Manchester: A Social Value success story
Authorities across Manchester and the North-West have shown what’s possible with a robust approach to Social Value.
Our client STAR Procurement has embedded Social Value across multiple councils in the region since 2014, generating over £183 million in validated Social Value to date, with nearly £600 million more committed through live contracts as measured by the Social Value TOM System™.
For us at STAR, Social Value is not an add‑on – it’s a fundamental part of how we use public money to deliver real, lasting benefit for our communities.
Nicola Cooke, Director, STAR
Since 2021, Social Value Portal has also worked with Greater Manchester Combined Authority to embed Social Value across its major programmes using the TOM System.
A great example of Social Value in action in Manchester is Europe's largest waste contract, where GMCA weighted Social Value at 15% and worked with SUEZ to build something amazing: the Renew Hub, which puts repaired bikes, furniture and electrical goods back into communities at prices families can actually afford, alongside a network of community repair cafes funded through the contract itself.
If we were asked by another authority about the value of Social Value, it would be an absolute yes. You should do it and you should go for the maximum wherever you can.
David Taylor, Executive Director of Waste, GMCA
Where Burnham can go further than the last Government
The outgoing administration didn't ignore Social Value. On the contrary, PPN 002 and the Procurement Act 2023 both helped make Social Value a trackable contractual obligation.
Where I'd want Burnham to go further is in how he actually defines Social Value and which components of it he prioritises. The previous Government tended to treat Social Value as a mechanism to deliver jobs and skills. That's understandable, given the challenging state of the UK's job market, with over a million young people Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET).
But jobs are one thread, not the whole cloth. Local supply chains, support for the third sector, better health outcomes, and net zero commitments all deserve to be on equal footing. Indeed, all these components of Social Value are deeply interconnected. Better local economies mean more jobs. Healthier, more resilient communities mean less strain on the NHS and the welfare system, freeing up public spending that a government could choose to direct toward the green transition, unlocking new opportunities for communities that have been left behind.
What next?
All the pieces are in place for the UK to take Social Value to the next level. The third sector is full of dedicated and passionate people, procurement teams know how to generate real Social Value from contracts, and businesses are building it into how they operate.
We now need our Prime Minster to double down on his passion for place. We need each of the Cabinet to put Social Value at the centre of what they are doing, set their targets, and be bold in ambition, especially around procurement. We need his trusted fixer, Louise Haigh, to set the targets and hold everyone accountable.
If Andy Burnham gets this right, Social Value won't just get a new lease of life. It'll finally get the mandate it's always deserved.
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