Levelling the Playing Field: Social Value for SMEs and VCSEs

The Procurement Act 2023 (PA23) states that contracting authorities must “have regard to the importance of maximising public benefit” when awarding contracts, a stronger duty than under previous legislation and well-suited to small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSEs). And given that SMEs account for at least 99.7% of UK businesses, including many VCSEs, we should expect them to play a big role in delivering. Yet, they still face systemic barriers in bidding.

The SME and VCSE roundtable at the Social Value Roadshow in September debated the challenges and opportunities facing these organisations.

The capacity and capability challenge

The clue is in the name! Being small, SMEs and VCSEs are frequently underprepared and/or under-resourced to rise to the social value challenge. This lack of capacity may mean they struggle to learn and stay up to date with the fundamentals of social value, resulting in insufficient awareness or preparedness to handle social value bid requirements. They may also lack in-house bid resources, so the volume and complexity of public sector bids can be a strain and may lead them to qualify out from contracts for which they may be the ideal supplier.

The opportunities to address this challenge include:  

• Training: Getting a grounding in social value doesn’t take long or cost much. There are many excellent articles, webinars and educational resources available from, for example, the Institute for Social Value (ISV), APMP UK and commercial social value consultancies and software tool providers. The tools themselves can provide useful checklists of themes, outcomes, and measures to consider. 
• Social value asset library:  Whilst social value is bid-specific and ‘additional’, doing a self-audit of all the things you currently do that sit under the social value banner is a valuable exercise. Having these at your fingertips will make bid-specific work much easier. Identify in advance of any tenders what you can feasibly offer within the constraints of your organisation and think about partnerships that may help you to increase your bandwidth and reach.
• External bid support: There are many external consultancies and freelance bid professionals who have a strong understanding of social value and can provide affordable bid support. 

The tender requirements challenge

Although buyer guidelines state that they should provide context and clarity, and that their social value ‘ask’ should be relevant and proportionate, this doesn’t always happen in practice.  Tenders typically do not specify which social issues and local needs need to be addressed, so the social value questions can appear arbitrary.  Even when context is provided, the social value requirements can still open to interpretation.  This exacerbates the capacity and capability problem because more work is required to analyse and research, as well as respond to the bid itself. 

The opportunities to address this challenge include:  

• Understand your target market: Every business should know and understand its target market. Dedicate at least a little time to researching and discussing what problems they face that social value solutions could help with.    

• Use clarification questions: Never be afraid to ask probing clarification questions asking for context and guidance. Push back on irrelevant and disproportionate requirements. Query direct requests for donations – the playing field can’t be level if it’s down to whose pockets are the deepest. 
• Focus on your strengths: Don’t try to conjure up an aspirational social value story. Focus on what you are good at and what you can authentically offer.  And remember, the contract value is the same for everyone bidding, so a relevant and proportionate social value proposition should be similar for everyone. 

The locality challenge

Social value is often perceived as highly ‘place-based’, i.e., focused on improving the local area where the buying authority is based. In these situations, SMEs and VCSEs can excel if they are physically local and have a strong understanding of the area. However, a local business may have greater knowledge of local social issues, but not necessarily the resources to help. Equally, not all small businesses are local or locally focused. 

The opportunities to address this challenge include:  

• Developing local insight: Conduct local needs analyses by reading published strategies, reports and statistics – free AI tools such as CoPilot and ChatGPT are good tools to help with this – and they’re fast!
• Nurture local relationships: Collaborate with local community and faith groups. Make this a routine part of your business, not just when there’s a tender on the go. This will help you to be ‘tender ready.’
• Prove your impact: In your library of social value assets, include case studies, testimonials and data/statistics that reflect outcomes. Get familiar with the various measurement tools – some, like MeasureUp, are free to use.

The partnering challenge

If you can’t bid directly for a contract, remember that larger businesses partner with SMEs and VCSEs for their local knowledge and presence. The larger company can absorb the financial and resource burdens while creating financial and reputational value for the chosen SME or VCSE, as well as social value for local communities. But how do the smaller organisations get to know who’s who in the world of big business and vice versa? It’s a big pond to navigate.  

The opportunities to address this challenge include:  

• Encourage buyers to support collaboration: Take advantage of any Pre-tender Market Engagement (PTME) events that you spot and ask buyers if they can arrange specific sessions for SMEs and VCSEs to meet larger companies.  
• Prepare early: Larger companies often take time to identify and vet their supply chain through structured onboarding processes, so aim to find companies you think you could work with early and thrash out partnership terms – make them do the heavy-lifting and if they’re not prepared to understand your bandwidth constraints, consider if they are the right partner for you.
• Use collaboration platforms: free resources, such as the whatimpact VCSE Marketplace, can help connect VCSEs with private sector organisations.

The way ahead

The social value agenda is an opportunity to build more inclusive and resilient economies. But that vision will only be realised if all buyers and suppliers, regardless of size, are prepared to be open, transparent and collaborative. It would be a great achievement if we could shift the narrative from SMEs and VCSES being 'disadvantaged' to them being a significant contributor and differentiator. As bid professionals, we can help by having social value conversations with buyers, employers and suppliers to encourage them to champion the smaller organisations and to partner up.

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This blog is based on output from the SME and VCSE Roundtable team, hosted by Adrian Leer, Managing Director of Triad Group Plc (an SME), at the APMP UK Social Value Roadshow on 18^th September 2025. The ideas have been augmented with research and feedback from the Social Value Group Committee.

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