Oxford City Council and Oxfordshire County Council have introduced Social Value Procurement Policies, which require potential suppliers to demonstrate ways they will add Social Value through contracts if they are successful. Increasingly, companies are seeking ways in which they can include local suppliers, including social enterprises and voluntary sector organisations within their supply chains to satisfy this.

OSEP (www.osep.org.uk), recently delivered a very successful series around “Getting Social Procurement Ready”, under the ERDF funded OxLEP eScalate programme. OSEP is working with key stakeholders to build on this and provide more support in this increasingly important area.

In the meantime, this series of Government funded webinars is being delivered nationally. https://www.the-sse.org/vcse-contract-readiness-programme