Pillar Guide

Social Value in Care Tenders: The Complete Guide for 2026

If you've opened a tender document recently and found a section headed "social value" or "most advantageous tender criteria" — and weren't sure what commissioners actually want — this guide is for you. Since the Procurement Act 2023 came into force in February 2025, social value in care tenders is no longer a nice-to-have box to tick. It is a scored, weighted criterion that can win or lose a contract.

3,000 words Updated March 2026 Covers Procurement Act 2023 & PPN 002
SM
Sarah Mitchell · Care Procurement Specialist

NVQ Level 5 Health & Social Care Management · Former LA Commissioning Officer · 12 Years in Adult Social Care

Last updated:

In this guide
  1. 1. What is social value and why it matters for care tenders in 2026
  2. 2. How social value is scored in care contracts
  3. 3. The five categories of social value evidence commissioners expect
  4. 4. How to write a strong social value response
  5. 5. Common social value mistakes care providers make
  6. 6. TUPE — the social value dimension
  7. 7. How CareBids helps you build your social value evidence base
  8. 8. Social value FAQs for care providers
  9. 9. Key takeaways

What is social value and why it matters for care tenders in 2026

Social value, in the procurement context, refers to the broader social, economic, and environmental benefits that a contract generates beyond its direct service outputs. A care home that supports 40 residents isn't just delivering personal care — it is employing local people, developing their skills, reducing pressure on NHS acute services, and contributing to community life. Social value asks you to measure and evidence that contribution.

The legislative foundation is the Social Value Act 2012 , which required public authorities to consider social value when procuring services above certain thresholds. The Act mattered, but its wording ("have regard to") gave commissioners wide discretion about how seriously to take it. Many didn't.

The Procurement Act 2023 changed that. Enacted in February 2025, it replaced the word "consider" with a duty to "have regard to the importance of maximising public benefit" (Section 12). That shift is more than semantic. Commissioners who previously paid lip service to social value now face legal challenge if they don't embed it meaningfully in evaluation criteria.

The Act also introduced the Most Advantageous Tender (MAT) framework, replacing MEAT (Most Economically Advantageous Tender). Under MAT, price is no longer necessarily the dominant criterion. Commissioners can — and do — weight quality, workforce, and social impact more heavily than cost.

The PPN 002 update (October 2025)

PPN 06/20 — the Procurement Policy Note that introduced the Social Value Model — was superseded by PPN 002 from October 2025. The new note aligns with the Procurement Act 2023 and sets a minimum 10% social value weighting for all central government contracts. The five broad themes (employment, skills, wellbeing, climate, community) remain the working framework. For care providers bidding on NHS England or DHSC-commissioned contracts, PPN 002 is the operative standard. Many local authorities continue to reference PPN 06/20 categories in their quality schedules — so both remain relevant in day-to-day tendering.

For care providers, this legislative evolution has a direct practical consequence: if your social value section is currently a paragraph of vague commitments, you are leaving marks on the table. And in competitive frameworks — domiciliary care DPS agreements, residential care spot purchase arrangements, supported living contracts — marks translate directly to revenue.

We built CareBids partly because providers kept telling us the same thing: they knew they were good at social value in practice, but they had no way to demonstrate it on paper at short notice. The rest of this guide covers exactly how to fix that.

How social value is scored in care contracts (MAT explained)

The shift from MEAT to MAT is the single most important procurement development for care providers in a decade. This isn't a technicality. Under the old framework, a commissioner who wanted to weight social value at 20% faced potential legal challenge from any bidder who could argue that the scoring model was economically irrational. Under MAT, that constraint is gone.

In practice, social value weighting in UK care tenders typically falls between 10% and 20% of the total evaluation score. The minimum for central government contracts is 10% (under PPN 002). Local authorities set their own weightings, and some are considerably higher — councils in Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and London have published frameworks weighting social value at 20–30% for community care contracts.

Minimum weighting

10%

Central gov't contracts (PPN 002)

Typical LA weighting

10–20%

Local authority care contracts

High social value contracts

20–30%

Some metropolitan councils, NHS ICS contracts

Commissioners evaluate social value responses against three broad tests: credibility (is there evidence of past delivery, not just future intention?), proportionality (are the promises scaled realistically to the contract value and your organisation's size?), and measurability (can the commissioner hold you to them via contract KPIs?). The last one has become the sharpest edge since the Act introduced mandatory KPI reporting for contracts above £5 million.

Under the Procurement Act 2023, contracting authorities with contracts above £5 million must now identify at least three KPIs before contract award and report publicly on contractor performance against those KPIs annually. For care contracts, social value outcomes are increasingly being built into this KPI framework — which means the evidence you submit at tender stage will be checked against your actual delivery throughout the contract term.

What does a commissioner look for in a strong social value response? The pattern we see from feedback across numerous successful bids is consistent: specificity about place (this contract area, not "the region"), specificity about numbers (hours, people, percentage), and direct connection to the commissioner's own strategic priorities. An NHS Integrated Care System will have a published People Plan and workforce strategy. A local authority will have a Joint Strategic Needs Assessment. Referencing those documents — by name — signals that you have done your homework.

The MAT scoring reality

A provider scoring 70/100 on price and 18/20 on social value can outscore a provider pricing 5% cheaper who scores 9/20 on social value — depending on the weighting model. Providers tell us they didn't realise this until they started seeing detailed debrief letters from commissioners. Don't wait for a debrief to learn where you're losing marks.

The five categories of social value evidence commissioners expect

Both PPN 06/20 and its successor PPN 002 organise social value around five broad themes. Not every commissioner uses identical language, and some contract authority quality schedules map these themes to their own local priority frameworks — but the underlying structure is consistent. Here is how each theme applies specifically in a care sector context.

Theme 1

Employment & Workforce

Evidence commissioners typically ask for:

  • Local recruitment — proportion of staff living within the contract area
  • Jobs created for long-term unemployed or economically inactive residents
  • Apprenticeship starts and completions (NVQ Level 2/3 in care)
  • Supported employment for people with disabilities
  • Staff retention data (sector average is 28–35% annual turnover; beating that benchmark is itself a social value claim)

Care sector note: Skills for Care data shows the care sector employs around 1.7 million people in England. Commissioners know care is a local employer — they expect you to show exactly how local.

Theme 2

Skills & Training

Evidence commissioners typically ask for:

  • Hours of accredited training delivered to staff per year
  • CPD investment per head (£ per employee)
  • Registered manager development — Level 5 Diploma completions

Care sector note: CQC routinely flags workforce development as a key quality indicator. Connecting your training data to social value is smart — it does double duty in the quality schedule too. Mental health first aid training is increasingly expected; include it under wellbeing or here, depending on your strongest story.

Theme 3

Health & Wellbeing

Evidence commissioners typically ask for:

  • Outcomes achieved for service users (independence, hospital avoidance)
  • Staff wellbeing programme — EAP access, mental health support
  • Volunteer hours delivered to service users (befriending, activities)
  • Reductions in A&E attendance or unplanned hospital admissions

Care sector note: This is where care providers have a natural advantage. You are the social value. Quantify the wellbeing impact you deliver — commissioners want numbers, not narrative.

Theme 4

Climate & Environment

Evidence commissioners typically ask for:

  • Carbon reduction commitments and Net Zero pathway
  • EV fleet transition or low-emission vehicle policy
  • Energy efficiency improvements to care home premises
  • Sustainable procurement — local and ethical supplier spend
  • Waste reduction measures and recycling rates at the service level

Care sector note: Environmental criteria carry less weight in most care tenders than employment and wellbeing — but ignoring them entirely will cost you marks. A basic carbon reduction plan is enough to score here.

Theme 5

Community & Place

Evidence commissioners typically ask for:

  • Partnerships with local charities, faith groups, or community organisations
  • Spend with local small and medium enterprises (SMEs)
  • Open days, community activities, or intergenerational programmes
  • Volunteering hours contributed by staff to community projects

Care sector note: Commissioners from the LGA and NHS England increasingly expect providers to demonstrate rootedness in the local community — not just service delivery, but genuine civic participation.

Important: Most care tenders in 2026 ask you to select two or three of these themes and provide deep evidence in those areas, rather than attempting thin coverage of all five. Choose the themes where your organisation has the strongest existing evidence. Employment and wellbeing are almost always the most relevant choices for care providers.

Your social value evidence, ready when you need it

CareBids stores your social value evidence, employment data, and community impact metrics in one place — ready to drop into any tender response in seconds. Book a demo.

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How to write a strong social value response in a care tender

A social value response is not a values statement. It is an evidence submission with a commitment attached. The structure that consistently scores well — based on patterns across dozens of successful care contract bids we've supported — follows four steps.

01

Anchor to the commissioner's priorities

Before you write a single word about your organisation, read the commissioner's social value framework. Local authorities publish their own social value strategies. NHS Integrated Care Systems have People Plans and population health priorities. If the tender is from a London borough focused on reducing youth unemployment, your response should lead with apprenticeship data and school engagement partnerships — not Net Zero targets.

02

Lead with past performance, not future commitments

Structure your answer as: what we have already done (with numbers) → what we will do in this contract (specific, measurable commitments) → how we will evidence it (reporting mechanism). The past performance section carries the most weight. A commissioner who sees that 68% of your current workforce lives within the contract's postcode districts already trusts that your employment commitment is real.

Example response language

"In the 12 months to March 2026, we employed 34 people from [LA area], representing 71% of our care staff. Of these, 6 were previously unemployed, and 4 joined via our partnership with [local college] NVQ Level 2 programme."

03

Make your commitments specific and contract-bound

Vague promises about 'continuing to invest in our workforce' score nothing. A commitment has a number, a timeframe, and an accountability mechanism. Tie each commitment to the contract term and the contract geography. Show that you've thought about what's deliverable specifically within this contract — not a generic extract from your standard social value policy.

Example response language

"During the term of this contract, we commit to: (a) creating a minimum of 2 new apprenticeships (NVQ Level 2 in Care) in [LA area] per year of the contract; (b) maintaining a minimum of 65% local recruitment from within 5 miles of the service; (c) delivering 120 volunteer befriending hours annually in partnership with [local charity]."

04

Specify how you'll report and be accountable

Commissioners setting KPIs under the Procurement Act 2023 need to know how they'll verify your delivery. Offer a reporting structure: quarterly social value data submissions in a specified format, an annual review meeting, and a named social value lead within your organisation. The registered manager is the natural candidate for this role in most care organisations.

Care-specific social value commitments that score well

Providers tell us these four commitment areas consistently generate the strongest scores in care-sector social value sections:

Local employment pathways

Formalising a partnership with the local Jobcentre Plus or adult education provider. Even a letter of intent from the college carries weight — it shows the commitment is real and structured, not aspirational.

Apprenticeships and workforce progression

Apprenticeship starts (NVQ Level 2/3 in Health and Social Care) are a highly visible metric. If you have a registered manager working towards their Level 5 Diploma, that counts too. Skills for Care's Workforce Development Fund is worth referencing here.

Staff wellbeing programme

An Employee Assistance Programme (EAP) or mental health first aid programme — with the number of staff covered and hours of support available — is a concrete wellbeing commitment that requires little administrative burden to evidence.

Community partnerships

A named partnership with a local voluntary organisation — even 2 hours per month of activity — is more valuable in a social value response than a generic community engagement policy. Name the organisation, quantify the activity.

And a word on AI bid writing: the social value section is one area where AI tools help considerably with structure and language — but only if the underlying data is there. An AI tool that doesn't know your staff postcode breakdown, your apprenticeship starts, or your volunteer hours will produce generic language. The data has to come from you. That is precisely why evidence storage matters so much.

Common social value mistakes care providers make

After reviewing the social value sections of bids across a wide range of care contracts, the same failure patterns appear again and again. These are the four we see most often — and what to do instead.

Writing aspirations instead of evidence

The most common failure we see is a social value response that describes what a provider plans to do, with no evidence of what it has already done. Commissioners score past performance first. "We will recruit locally" scores less than "74% of our current staff live within 5 miles of the home — here is the breakdown by postcode district."

Treating social value as a separate section

Social value answers that feel disconnected from the rest of the bid raise flags. A strong response weaves workforce data, training investment, and community impact through the quality schedule, pricing narrative, and mobilisation plan — not just in the dedicated social value box.

Using generic language that fits any sector

Phrases like "we are committed to diversity and sustainability" tell a commissioner nothing. They are evaluating a care contract. Responses that reference the local authority's Joint Strategic Needs Assessment, name specific community partners in the area, and cite care-sector workforce statistics (from Skills for Care, for instance) score considerably higher.

Failing to quantify

Narrative without numbers is persuasion without proof. If your social value response does not include at least six specific metrics — staff numbers, training hours, volunteer hours, local spend percentage, apprenticeship starts, carbon data — you are not meeting the standard most commissioners expect in 2026.

One more: recycling responses across contracts

This is the mistake we see most often from multi-site operators. Taking a social value section written for a contract in Sunderland and resubmitting it for a contract in Surrey — with minimal changes — is immediately obvious to any experienced evaluator. Place-specific language, named local partners, and references to local strategic documents cannot simply be swapped.

The solution isn't to write from scratch every time. It's to maintain a social value evidence base — with consistent metrics — and localise quickly from that base. That's exactly what the CareBids platform is built to support. See how it works on the platform page.

Frameworks evaluators expect you to know

Two concepts underpin how commissioners assess social value commitments. Understanding them before you write a single word will significantly improve the quality and credibility of your response.

The Additionality principle

Social value must be over and above the core contract. You cannot claim "providing quality care" as social value when the contract is for providing care. Additionality means a benefit that would not have existed without this specific contract award.

Hiring 2 local apprentices who would not otherwise have been recruited is additionality. Stating that your staff deliver "person-centred care" is not — that is the baseline the commissioner is already paying for.

When drafting each commitment, ask: would this happen without this contract? If the answer is yes, it is not social value. If the answer is no — or only partially — explain why the contract makes it possible.

The National TOMs framework

Many local authorities and NHS commissioners evaluate social value using the National TOMs (Themes, Outcomes, Measures) framework, developed by the Local Government Association and Social Value Portal. The five themes are: Jobs, Growth, Social, Environment, and Innovation.

TOMs uses a Proxy Financial Value model: each social value commitment is assigned a specific pound value, allowing evaluators to compare bids quantitatively. For example, creating one full-time job for a long-term unemployed person carries a defined proxy value (currently £43,981 per person-year under TOMs 2021 measures). A care provider committing to two apprenticeships and 120 volunteer hours can calculate an approximate total social value figure and present it alongside their response.

If a tender references TOMs explicitly, use the framework's measure codes in your response (e.g. TOM C2, TOM E1). If it does not, you can still reference proxy values informally — it signals evaluator-level literacy and makes your commitments easier to score.

TUPE in care tenders — the social value dimension

TUPE — the Transfer of Undertakings (Protection of Employment) Regulations 2006 — applies whenever a care contract transfers from one provider to another and existing staff move with it. Most registered managers understand the legal basics: employees transfer on their existing terms, dismissals connected to the transfer are automatically unfair, and the incoming provider inherits any outstanding employment liabilities.

What fewer providers consider is that TUPE handling is increasingly treated as a social value indicator by commissioners. This catches people off guard. An incoming provider who signals a genuine commitment to workforce continuity (retaining experienced staff, maintaining pay terms, investing in their development) is demonstrating social value in one of its most tangible forms.

In practice, care contracts have exceptionally high staff turnover rates. Skills for Care's annual State of the Adult Social Care Sector reports consistently show turnover rates of 28–35% across the sector. A commissioner awarding a new contract knows that destabilising the existing workforce risks immediate quality deterioration. A provider who articulates a clear TUPE commitment — including a named mobilisation plan, a dedicated lead for staff communication, and a retention target for the first 90 days — is addressing one of the commissioner's primary anxieties.

TUPE social value evidence to include in your response

  • Retention rate of TUPE-transferred staff at 3, 6, and 12 months from previous contracts you've taken on
  • Named mobilisation lead (typically the registered manager or a dedicated HR contact)
  • Staff communication plan — when and how you'll engage with transferring employees before the start date
  • Commitment to maintaining existing terms of employment beyond the statutory minimum period
  • Investment in transferring staff's development in the first contract year

Providers who have TUPE data from previous contract transfers have a clear advantage here. If you took on a home care contract in 2023 and retained 87% of the transferred staff at 12 months, that figure belongs in your social value response for every subsequent contract you bid for. The care DPS guide covers more about how workforce data feeds into Selection Questionnaire requirements across different procurement routes.

Platform Capability

How CareBids helps care providers build their social value evidence base

The core problem with social value in care tendering isn't that providers lack good stories. It's that those stories are scattered — across payroll reports, training records, HR files, volunteer rotas, and the registered manager's memory. When a tender lands with a 10-day deadline, pulling all of that together coherently is genuinely difficult.

We built the CareBids evidence base specifically because of this gap. Providers tell us it was the feature they didn't know they needed until they saw it.

Workforce data store

Store staff postcode breakdowns, employment start dates, training completions, and turnover rates. Pull local employment percentages instantly when a tender asks for them.

Training & development log

Record NVQ starts and completions, CPD hours, apprenticeship data, and specialist training. Annual summaries are generated automatically.

Community impact tracker

Log volunteer hours, community partnership activities, befriending programme data, and hospital avoidance outcomes. Build a rolling record across all sites.

Social value response library

Previous social value sections — with scores and commissioner feedback where available — are stored and searchable. Localise a strong previous answer in minutes rather than hours.

The evidence base integrates directly with CareBids' AI bid writing tool, so when you draft a social value response, the AI draws on your actual stored data rather than generic sector language. For providers bidding on domiciliary care contracts, where multiple similar tenders appear across a region in the same procurement window, the time saving is substantial.

This is the differentiation that consulting firms and generic bid-writing software can't replicate: a platform that knows your organisation's specific social value data and uses it consistently, across every tender, without starting from scratch each time.

Social value FAQs for care providers

The questions we hear most often from registered managers and care directors — answered plainly.

Since February 2025, under the Procurement Act 2023, all public contracts in England and Wales above the relevant thresholds must include a minimum 10% social value weighting. In practice, most NHS and local authority care contracts now include social value as a scored criterion. Many councils, particularly in London and the North West, routinely set the weighting at 15–20%. For care contracts specifically, where commissioners are acutely aware of workforce instability and community impact, social value sections are rarely optional.
The Procurement Act 2023, which came into force in February 2025, requires all contracting authorities to 'have regard to the importance of maximising public benefit' under Section 12. For central government contracts, PPN 002 (which superseded PPN 06/20 from October 2025) mandates a minimum 10% social value weighting. Local authorities and NHS commissioners are strongly encouraged to apply the same standard — and most do. Below the procurement thresholds, social value is not legally required in every case, but commissioners frequently include it regardless, particularly for spot placement and block contract renewals.
MAT (Most Advantageous Tender) replaces the old MEAT framework under the Procurement Act 2023. The shift matters because it explicitly allows commissioners to weight non-price criteria more heavily than before — social value, workforce quality, community impact — without legal challenge. A provider scoring 18/20 on social value and 14/20 on price can beat a cheaper competitor who scores 8/20 on social value. Price-only competition in care procurement is now largely a thing of the past.
PPN 06/20 was the government's original social value model, published in 2020. It set five themes: COVID-19 recovery, tackling economic inequality, fighting climate change, equal opportunity, and wellbeing. PPN 002 replaced it from October 2025 under the Procurement Act 2023 framework. The five broad themes remain similar, but PPN 002 removes the COVID-specific theme and aligns more directly with the Act's 'maximising public benefit' duty. Many local authorities and NHS trusts still reference PPN 06/20 categories in their quality schedules — so knowing both remains useful in 2026.
Small providers often worry that social value is a game for large organisations with dedicated CSR teams. It isn't. A 15-bed residential care home that employs 22 people — half of whom live within three miles of the home — that partners with the local college for NVQ placements and runs a volunteer befriending programme already has substantive social value evidence. The issue is rarely the absence of activity. It is the absence of records. Commissioners want data: staff postcodes, apprenticeship hours, volunteer contact hours, carbon reduction actions. If you haven't been recording these, start now. CareBids helps you build and store this evidence systematically.

Key takeaways — social value in care tenders 2026

Six things to take away from this guide. The Procurement Act 2023 replaced MEAT with MAT and set a 10% floor for social value weighting. Many local authorities now go higher. PPN 002 (October 2025) is the operative central government model, though PPN 06/20 categories still appear regularly in LA quality schedules. That matters if you're bidding across different procurement routes.

Social value responses that score highest lead with past performance data, make specific contract-bound commitments, and reference the commissioner's own strategic documents by name. TUPE handling is increasingly evaluated as social value evidence: your retention rates from previous contract transfers belong in every subsequent bid. And two structural rules: don't recycle social value sections across contracts without localisation, and don't treat evidence-gathering as a tender-day task. The data needs to exist before the deadline, not be assembled after it.

Evidence your social value. Win more contracts. Start free.

CareBids stores your workforce data, training records, and community impact metrics — and turns them into scored tender responses in minutes. 14-day free trial, no credit card required.

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This guide references the Procurement Act 2023, Social Value Act 2012, and PPN 002 (October 2025). Legislative guidance is updated regularly — check GOV.UK and your local commissioner's procurement portal for the most current requirements. This guide was last updated March 2026. Nothing in this guide constitutes legal advice.