COMMENT It is very clear to most that social value should sit at the heart of our planning system in the UK. Yet an estimated £30bn remains “locked up” due to a lack of understanding of where the opportunities lie.
The Social Value Act, which was passed by parliament a decade ago this year, has transformed the relationship between the public and private sectors by influencing procurement in a positive way. The public sector has really driven the normalisation of social value in commercial activities and this has led to a positive response from the supply market.
However, opportunities are often missed – sometimes on a colossal scale. I have experience of working with the planning community and while procurement teams deliver amazingly well, those in planning departments seem to be struggling to understand why and how they should engage.
Wider picture
This is understandable as most planning teams know very little about the act (which is procurement focused) and generally do not recognise the relevance of the act to their work.
But the National Planning Policy Framework and planners in the UK are in place to protect the communities they serve, reducing negative impacts and delivering more benefits. I think work needs to be done to bring the procurement and planning teams together to enable them to see the wider picture as a whole and to help them refocus on the purpose of their departments.
By calculating the different elements of social value that could be incorporated into a planning application – but are currently overlooked – we can see that communities are missing out on billions of pounds worth of investment. Just to be clear, this could be in the form of setting up local apprenticeships and training, requiring contractors to pay a living wage, employing target groups such as the young and unemployed, agreeing contracts with local businesses or agreeing to invest in community groups and other social enterprises. It’s not hard or difficult to set up, it just isn’t being considered enough.
Public trust
With this in mind, it is not a huge surprise that a survey by Grosvenor Group found that only 7% of respondents thought local authorities have their best interests in mind when it comes to planning. This is pretty damning but something that can be addressed fairly easily – we just need to find a way to engage with planning departments and help them to understand how they can support the delivery of social value through the planning process.
However, there are “beacons of hope”. Some councils in the UK truly understand the importance of social value and are leading the way, putting it into their local plans and reporting to their residents, holding themselves accountable and making sure that new developments deliver as much value to their communities as possible. Three councils in particular are worth looking to for examples of best practice: Salford, Islington and Bristol.
Of course, developers will understandably be concerned with their own bottom line first and foremost but the majority of responsible developers will embrace the opportunity to put community first and be proud of the end result.
With budgets extremely tight in the public sector – and likely to continue for the foreseeable future – now is the time to add social value considerations early in the planning process. This will guarantee that we build better, greener and fairer, leaving a positive legacy for generations to come.
Guy Battle is chief executive of Social Value Portal
