2
Outcomes: Good Jobs and Skills
6
Model Award Criteria, three under each Outcome
20%
Minimum weighting on contracts of £5m or more (10% from £1m)
1 Jan 2027
Tender notices from this date fall under PPN 026
On 5 August 2026 the Government published Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 026, a new Social Value Model for central government procurement, and at the end of October 2026 the Cabinet Office, which issues Procurement Policy Notes, published guidance on using it. Together they double the minimum weighting to 20% on contracts of £5m or more and require publication of delivery against Social Value KPIs, meaning that weak responses cost more marks and weak delivery may hurt bidders' chances in future tenders.
What PPN 026 covers and when it applies
Must apply PPN 026
- Central government departments
- Executive agencies
- Non-departmental public bodies (public bodies that operate at arm's length from ministers)
On covered procurements worth £1m or more including VAT, awarded under the Procurement Act 2023. A change to a contract's value after award does not trigger PPN 026.
Not required to apply it
- Local government
- Schools and colleges
- Housing providers
They continue under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, the Procurement Act 2023 and the National Procurement Policy Statement. Private utilities are encouraged to apply PPN 026, and contracts whose main purpose is delivery overseas are outside it.
Which Model applies depends on when the procurement or framework began
1 January 2021
PPN 06/20 applies
Contracts and frameworks procured until 24 February 2025
24 February 2025
PPN 002 applies
Mandatory from 1 October 2025, until the end of 2026
1 January 2027
PPN 026 applies
Tender notices from this date, contracts of £1m or more
Contracts called off from a framework set up before 1 January 2027 may need to use the PPN in force when the framework was awarded. Buyers with earlier tender notices are encouraged to use PPN 026, and it replaces all earlier Social Value PPNs.
Thresholds and weightings: What's changed?
Whether PPN 026 applies, and at what weighting, depends on the size of the contract, with two key thresholds: £1m and £5m.
| Total contract value (inc VAT) |
Minimum Social Value weighting |
Social Value KPI |
| Below £1m |
Model does not apply |
Not applicable |
| £1m to under £5m |
10% |
Encouraged, not required |
| £5m and above |
20% |
At least one, published |
What this means for bidders. At a 20% weighting, Social Value is a fifth of the available score.
- The weighting is now banded by value. PPN 002 set a flat 10% minimum for every in-scope contract. The new minimums also apply where buyers compare bids using Price per Quality Point, which divides price by quality score, and buyers can set the weighting higher in capable markets.
- Many lower-value contracts are now out of scope. PPN 002 applied from the standard above-threshold level (currently £135,018 including VAT for central government goods and services), but PPN 026 starts at £1m. Works contracts are unaffected, because works only become covered at £5,193,000, so every in-scope works contract carries the 20% weighting.
The new Social Value Model: Two Outcomes and six Model Award Criteria
The Model informs the Social Value question that buyers write into each tender, so its Outcomes, Model Award Criteria and metrics are the building blocks of every response. The guidance for PPN 026 defines Social Value through procurement as "taking account of how a supplier will work for our communities to provide good British jobs, skills and opportunities in every postcode".
Although this signals big ambition, the scope of the Model is notably narrower than PPN 002. The "Five Missions" structure and the eight Policy Outcomes have been reduced to two Outcomes, "Good Jobs" and "Skills", each with three Model Award Criteria (MACs).
Good Jobs
Fair pay and good working conditions that help people get a job, stay in work and progress.
1a Create good jobs or apprenticeships
1b Fair working conditions
1c Fair pay
Skills
Tackling skills shortages, particularly for people who face barriers to employment.
2a Training and retraining
2b In-work progression
2c Talent pipeline
Sub-criteria. Each MAC has a menu of sub-criteria, which are the specific requirements a buyer can include in a tender. Buyers are told to select the minimum number needed, so it's likely that most tenders will cover only a few.
Standard reporting metrics (SRMs). The six MACs have 37 SRMs between them. An SRM is the standard unit for measuring an activity, such as the number of jobs created under the contract, by UK region. Bidders are asked to express their commitments in these units where one exists, and buyers use the same units to set and report contract KPIs. Below is a summary by MAC. The full list of 37 is in Annex B of the guidance:
| MAC |
SRMs |
What they measure |
| 1a. Create good jobs or apprenticeships |
1ai to 1avii (7) |
Jobs created under the contract by UK region (1ai), apprenticeships created or retained, jobs in high-growth sectors and critical manufacturing, new entrants in critical manufacturing, and SMEs and VCSEs in the supply chain |
| 1b. Fair working conditions |
1bi to 1bvi (6) |
People on permanent contracts, people with long-term health conditions supported into work and retained, workplace adjustments, participation in health and wellbeing initiatives, and flexible working |
| 1c. Fair pay |
1ci to 1civ (4) |
People paid above the National Minimum and Living Wage, and people entitled to day-one sick pay at 100% of earnings |
| 2a. Training and retraining |
2ai to 2avii (7) |
T-Level placements, training schemes and person hours of training (2aiii) for the current and future workforce, non-apprenticeship training, and training for critical manufacturing |
| 2b. In-work progression |
2bi to 2biii (3) |
Person hours of upskilling, hours of career support and volunteering hours |
| 2c. Talent pipeline |
2ci to 2cx (10) |
Apprenticeships, training places and work experience in high-growth industries, organisations engaged in the supply chain, people in deprived areas trained, actions on barriers, essential skills, and learner-owned skills passports |
Target cohorts
The Model refers to eight target cohorts, defined in the guidance. These are the groups that commitments are meant to help:
- Young people aged 16 to 24 not in education, employment or training (NEET)
- People moving from education into work
- People with a long-term health condition or disability
- People with special educational needs or neurodiversity
- Care leavers
- People on probation and prison leavers
- Victims of domestic abuse
- Veterans
Specialist support for these cohorts
Social Value Portal works with Knowledge Partners, organisations that provide expert guidance on delivering and measuring Social Value outcomes for specific cohorts.
Together we have published guides for practitioners, which you can download here: Offploy | ActionFunder
Wider changes in emphasis
A route for industrial policy. The Model is designed far more than PPN 002 was to serve as a delivery route for employment and industrial policy. The sub-criteria point buyers to the high-growth sectors in the Government's Industrial Strategy and to UK critical manufacturing, and the guidance gives clean energy talent pipelines as an example. Buyers are also asked to consider whether activities help people with poorer health outcomes or health-related barriers to work.
A change to retention. PPN 026 listed MAC 1a as "create and/or retain" high quality jobs, but the guidance titles it "create good jobs or apprenticeships". Retention can still count, because buyers can choose to score it (see the scoring section below) and are told to look at supplier policies that help employees stay.
What's changed from PPN 002
PPN 002 had 17 MACs across eight Policy Outcomes; PPN 026 has six across two. This table shows which PPN 002 priorities PPN 026 keeps, in full or in part, and which it drops.
Kept as a MAC
- Creating jobs
- Fair working conditions
- Fair pay
- Training and skills
- In-work progression
- A talent pipeline and barriers to entry (merged into MAC 2c)
Kept only in a narrower form
Scored only if the buyer selects the relevant sub-criterion
- Diverse supply chain
- Workforce health and wellbeing
- Domestic abuse
- Representation of disabled people
- Pay inequality
- Co-design with communities
Gone
- The four Outcomes on resilient supply chains, sustainable procurement, reducing crime, and wellbeing and productivity (although some feature in narrower form, as shown)
- Managing the risks of modern slavery
- Additional environmental benefits
- Influencing others to support climate and nature protection
Buyers can still weigh carbon and modern slavery separately, on top of the Model's weighting.
What a Social Value response must contain
Buyers are told to use a standard Social Value question in each tender:
"In no more than [number of words] please set out the specific, measurable and time bound commitment(s) your organisation will make to deliver [Social Value Model outcome] in [the relevant area]."
The buyer chooses the MACs and sub-criteria and sets the word limit. A response then has to follow one of two routes.
Route A: support a Community Programme
A Community Programme is an existing local or national scheme that a supplier can support instead of designing its own activity.
Bidders send the programme's contact a dated letter confirming that, if they win, they will support the programme, and that this is additional to anything they already offer. The buyer is told to include the letter in the contract, which makes the commitment binding.
The route is optional, and the List of Community Programmes that buyers will draw on has not yet been published.
Route B: describe your own approach
The response explains:
- how the commitment meets the MACs and sub-criteria
- the specific target cohort, or how you will define one
- how you will reach that cohort and tailor the offer
- how staff, suppliers, customers and communities will take part
Then, in every case, a method statement and implementation plan covering four things:
- Commitments and plan: specific, measurable and time bound commitments with quantities such as jobs created and key milestones, using the SRM where one exists.
- Participant support: how you will prepare and support the people taking part, for example with joining instructions and a named point of contact.
- Ending the activity: how you will end the activity in a way that helps people progress, such as signposting them to further training or jobs, or offering CV advice.
- Publication: how you will publish your commitments and your performance.
How responses will be scored
Evaluation is qualitative. Buyers are told to score how convincing the method statement and implementation plan are, not how large the quantities are. The quantities still go into the contract and are monitored, but by default they do not earn marks at evaluation. Annex C of the guidance suggests the example scale below as a template, with buyers required to publish whichever method they use in the tender documents.
Excellent confidence: every criterion met, with additional, relevant Social Value offered
Good confidence: every criterion fully addressed, with no concerns about capability
Acceptable confidence: every criterion addressed to some degree
Limited confidence: a chosen criterion is not addressed, or commitments are not specific, measurable and time bound
No response, or more than one chosen criterion not addressed
A bid that supports a Community Programme and meets every implementation criterion should receive at least 6.
What the scores are worth. Social Value is a fixed share of the overall tender score, with the score deciding how much of that share a bid wins.
Points won = (Social Value score ÷ 10) × weighting
The figures below assume a tender scored out of 100 points in total. The guidance does not set a total, and buyers use different ones.
| Social Value score |
Points won at 10% weighting |
Points won at 20% weighting |
| 0 |
0 |
0 |
| 1 |
1 |
2 |
| 3 |
3 |
6 |
| 6 |
6 |
12 |
| 10 |
10 |
20 |
Three exceptions to qualitative scoring. Annex A allows buyers to score numbers as well as the quality of the plan, but only after taking legal advice. All three exceptions are quantitative, because the buyer counts what the supplier delivers on the contract.
- Quantity. On contracts of £5m or more, buyers may score quantities under MAC 1a, such as the number of jobs for NEET young people, jobs in high-growth sectors and apprenticeships.
- Retained jobs and redeployed staff. Buyers can score the number of jobs or apprentices kept on the contract, or staff redeployed to it, instead of or as well as new jobs. The guidance warns that this can favour incumbent suppliers, let bidders leverage threatened job losses, overlook efficiencies from new technology and double-count the same small group of people.
- Inherent Social Value. Some organisations, such as VCSEs, deliver Social Value as standard practice. Buyers can take that into account in evaluation, but it must still be additional to the core contract specification. The guidance's example is a contract that provides employment support to care leavers: the benefit of the support itself does not count, but the number of care leavers employed on the contract can be scored, provided the supplier expands employment as a result of winning.
What cannot count
×Work that is the core purpose of the contract, so a training contract cannot claim its own training
×An existing activity, unless the expansion results directly from winning the contract
×Activity already offered for another public contract or as part of wider corporate work
×Financial donations, including to a Community Programme
Scoring can start early. Social Value is an award criterion, so buyers score it to decide who wins, and they cannot use it as a pass or fail test for taking part. In a competitive flexible procedure (a procedure that runs in stages), buyers can use the Social Value score to shortlist bidders, and they are encouraged to consider a short dialogue stage.
After award: KPIs, ratings and exclusion
Delivery now matters as much as the bid, because the commitments made in tender become published measures. PPN 026 changes how commitments are measured:
1
A published KPI
On contracts of £5m or more, buyers should set at least one Social Value key performance indicator (KPI) and publish it on the Central Digital Platform, the government's procurement notice service. Below £5m, buyers are encouraged to set one too.
2
A rating
The guidance suggests rating delivery on this scale, which buyers can adjust:
GoodApproaching targetRequires improvementInadequateOther
3
Regular reporting
Buyers publish a contract performance notice at least every 12 months on contracts of £5m or more; central government departments report KPI results to the Cabinet Office every quarter where the standard reporting metrics have been used. The KPI is in addition to the three KPIs the Procurement Act 2023 may require.
4
Exclusion risk
The Procurement Act 2023 already lets a buyer publish details of a supplier's failure to perform a contract, once the supplier has had a proper chance to improve, and then choose to exclude that supplier from future tenders. PPN 026 confirms that poor performance against Social Value KPIs can be used in the same way. Exclusion is at the buyer's discretion and is not automatic.
How to win tenders under PPN 026: A stage-by-stage guide
A strong response under PPN 026 needs research and planning before the tender opens, and it must then follow the structure of the standard question set out above. This guide follows a facilities management company bidding for a £6m contract with a central government department, where Social Value carries a minimum 20% weighting and at least one published KPI.
Stage 1: Understand the requirements before you write
The tender shows which MACs and sub-criteria the buyer has chosen. Buyers are told to choose the minimum number needed, so avoid spreading your response across the whole Model.
✓Read the tender for four things. The MACs and sub-criteria selected, the word or page limit, the published scoring method and any mention of Community Programmes.
✓Research place and local need. Shape commitments around where the contract is delivered, using sources such as local authority plans, Local Skills Improvement Plans (employer-led area skills plans), the Indices of Multiple Deprivation (which rank areas by deprivation) and Office for National Statistics area reports.
✓Understand the buyer's priorities. Read the buyer's published strategies before writing any commitment, and attend pre-market engagement sessions such as "Meet the Buyer" events.
✓Know the competition. Review competitors' impact reports, corporate social responsibility (CSR) statements and comparable award notices, then find commitments that are distinctive and credible.
✓Engage the right stakeholders. Involve delivery, HR, finance and partnerships teams before the tender opens.
✓Treat any early stage as a scored stage. In a competitive flexible procedure, a first-round response is scored like a final one.
Worked example. The department has chosen two MACs: 1a (new employment opportunities for target cohorts) and 2a (training and retraining). The bidder’s research shows that building services technicians are in short supply locally and that young people leaving care struggle to find work, and its HR and operations teams confirm it can support a small number of trainees.
Stage 2: Develop commitments you can deliver
Quantities are not scored, but they become contract commitments and a published KPI, so an unrealistic commitment costs you twice.
✓Choose a target cohort. Pick the group you can realistically support from the eight, or be ready to explain how you will define one.
✓Choose your route. Route A supports a Community Programme with a dated letter that goes into the contract, and Route B describes your own approach. The List of Community Programmes has not yet been published, so check that the tender offers Route A first.
✓Build commitments with SRMs. Where your activity matches an SRM, use it, and give each commitment a quantity, a timescale and a metric.
✓Start with the contract and your strengths. Build on genuine capability and existing local schemes, not a generic menu of commitments.
✓Test every commitment for additionality. It cannot be your core service, a financial donation or something you already do, unless this contract is why it grows.
✓Pressure-test the numbers with the people who will deliver them. Agree them with the relevant internal teams before they go into the bid.
Worked example. The bidder commits to four new roles for care leavers on the contract workforce, starting within three months of contract start (SRM 1ai), and to 400 hours of accredited training for them in the first 12 months with a named local college (SRM 2aiii).
Stage 3: Write the response so it is easy to score
An evaluator needs to find each part of the question quickly, so answer in the order the question asks and make the rationale easy to follow.
✓Answer the actual question. Prioritise the outcomes the buyer has referenced, not your general approach.
✓Make the rationale visible. Let the evaluator trace the line from local need to the commitment.
✓Explain how you will deliver. Name accountabilities, processes and delivery partners.
✓Explain measurement. Say what you will measure, how, and when you will report it.
✓Show your track record. Use specific, comparable evidence, ideally validated by a third party.
✓Replace statements of intent with measurable commitments. If the buyer has selected MAC 1b, “We will support employee wellbeing” becomes “We will give all contract staff access to a wellbeing programme from month one, with a target of 60% participation, reported quarterly against SRM 1bv (participation rates in health and wellbeing initiatives)."
Worked example. The response follows the order of the question. It commits to four new roles for care leavers from month three and 400 hours of accredited training (SRMs 1ai and 2aiii), designed with the local authority’s leaving care team and the partner college, who also refer candidates. It supports them with a named supervisor, mentoring, a pre-start induction and a travel allowance, gives each employee a progression plan, commits to publishing results every quarter, and backs up the approach with independently validated results from a similar scheme it has delivered before.
What to do before 1 January 2027
Stages 1 and 2 above cover choosing your cohorts and agreeing your numbers. Three further steps will put you in a stronger position when the first tenders appear:
- Build your evidence. Gather delivery evidence, ideally independently validated, to show you deliver what you commit to.
- Update your reusable answers. Rewrite the text your bid team reuses so that it follows the new question: commitments with numbers, support for participants, how they move on, and how you will publish results.
- Measure Social Value properly, from commitment to delivery. You will be in a stronger position if you can show what you have already delivered, which is far easier with a measurement framework in place. The Social Value TOM System™ was built to measure the full spectrum of Social Value activity while also mapping to the Social Value Model and other impact reporting standards. With Social Value performance becoming a published figure on the largest contracts, a third-party validated track record is a huge asset.
If you're looking for a Social Value measurement and reporting solution that meets compliance standards and flexes to your unique needs, speak to the team today.
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