The ISV Review

Additionality in social value is due a rethink

Updated on Sep 30, 2026

Contributed by Rob Wolfe, Managing Director, CHY Consultancy

Social value scoring has its roots in procurement culture, where it's helpful to ask "what can you bring that we don't already have?" But if you only ever count the "extra" good, you're missing so much, including the incentive to embed good work as a core part of business, rather than something that’s only switched on project by project. You're discounting the sustained effort of organisations that do good every day, because it's simply what they do.

An organisation already employing 10 ex-offenders scores zero additionality for continuing to do so. Meanwhile, an organisation that currently employs none, but pledges to employ five, scores highly. Honest disclosure of good current practice becomes a strategic liability. How useful is a framework that values growth more highly than proof of sustained impact? Shouldn't we be encouraging organisations to make social value a permanent part of business as usual, rather than a performance that’s rolled out at bid o’clock?

How do we make the change?

Procuring bodies need a consistent, navigable framework. But we also need it to recognise everyone’s good work, beyond a simple “+1” metric. Can we create a more holistic, "net social value" approach, while still keeping it user-friendly? Industry-specific benchmarks could be part of the answer.

Instead of measuring every organisation against baseline zero, what if we measured them against what good looks like in their sector? We know RIBA recommends 35 hours of CPD per year for chartered members. Are the architecture firms you’re hiring matching this, or exceeding it, already? That should be rewarded. This would shift the tone from “what are you adding, beyond zero?” to “how do you compare to professional industry standards?”

It's harder to perform compliance with a published sector benchmark than it is to invent a pledge that sounds impressive, and it gives commissioners something meaningful to evaluate, not just a vague promise.

Benchmarks alone won't solve everything

Like everything in social value blanket measures won’t work for everyone all the time. They'd need to be developed with sector expertise, updated regularly, and applied with enough local flexibility to reflect different organisational sizes and geographies (possibly a good job for AI – if guided by an expert hand?). None of this matters if we’re not looking at outcomes as well.

A reformed framework needs to give equal weight to what you have done (new thinking), not just what you might do (additionality, old thinking). Contract monitoring and consistent reporting need to be part of the strategy, not just bid commitments with no follow-up.

It’s time for a change

A social value framework that recognises sustained good practice would send a clear signal to the market: doing the right thing every day counts, not just when there's a contract on the table.

We’re almost 15 years on from the Social Value Act and, yes, there is still a lot of learning to do. But there are now plenty of organisations out there that have outgrown the “baby’s first social value response” approach. It’s time to give them some recognition for leading the way

Rob has spent almost three decades working in social and physical regeneration, starting out working with young people and offenders to connect them with skills and opportunities. Rob went on to work for charities and local government in client-facing, developmental and strategic roles before co-founding social value consultancy, CHY Consultancy, in 2006.

Rob is passionate about working together to make lives better – and innovating to use what we already have to do more.

Participation in Planning

Updated on Sep 30, 2026

Contributed by Nikki Davies, CEO, Meeting Place

The challenge

Social value is often discussed in terms of what development delivers - new homes, jobs, skills, community investment and better places. But there is another important part of the equation: whether people have a fair opportunity to influence the decisions that shape their communities in the first place.

To mark Meeting Place’s 20th anniversary, we launched Building on fair foundations, examining how people participate in the planning system across England. We found a fragmented picture, with significant differences between local authorities in how communities can comment on planning applications.

The research found that 78% of planning portals require contributors to publish their name and/or address for their representation to be considered valid, while 67% require users to register before commenting online. 16% of authorities do not accept representations by email and there are more than ten different naming conventions to describe planning committees.

These may sound like procedural details. In practice, they influence who feels able and willing to participate, and whose voices ultimately reach decision-makers.

The response

We looked beyond individual consultation exercises and considered the infrastructure for participation itself. Our research examined accessibility, transparency and the balance between support and objection across local authority planning processes.

We also drew on our experience working with communities, councils and developers. That revealed some striking examples: supporters being unable to speak at committee unless an objection has been registered, and more than 50 individual letters of support being recorded as a single petition.

Our conclusion was simple: local places should retain local choice, but the basic principles governing participation should be clearer and more consistent.

What changed

The research has helped us reframe the conversation about good engagement. Inclusion cannot begin and end with holding a consultation event or providing an online survey. If the wider system makes participation difficult, confusing or inadvertently favours one type of response over another, engagement cannot be genuinely representative.

We are therefore calling for practical changes, including a clear option to support applications, minimum accessibility standards, removing unnecessary registration requirements, equal committee speaking opportunities for supporters, and reconsidering requirements to publicly disclose personal details.

The objective is not to make development easier to approve. It is to make participation fairer and the evidence available to decision-makers more representative.

What the experience shows

For organisations serious about social value, there is a wider lesson. Social value is not only about the benefits created by a project. It is also about how decisions are made, who gets to participate and whether communities can engage on equal terms.

A planning system that hears disproportionately from those best equipped to navigate it risks overlooking quieter voices - including people who need new homes, younger residents, working families and others who may experience the consequences of decisions for decades.

Better participation will not remove disagreement, nor should it. But more accessible, balanced and transparent processes can strengthen trust, improve decision-making and ultimately help create places that better reflect the communities they serve. That, in itself, is social value.

Nikki Davies is CEO of Meeting Place, a PR and communications consultancy specialising in the built environment. With over 15 years’ experience, she is passionate about delivering insight-led engagement and compelling messaging to build trust, uncover support and make progress possible.