Thought Leadership

Multi award-winning Oxford social enterprise brewery, bakery, and hospitality organisation Tap Social Movement appoints former Asahi Europe & International CEO Paolo Lanzarotti and former Punch Taverns CEO Giles Thorley to senior advisory roles as the company embarks on its next key growth stage and seeks to expand its impact on the lives of prison leavers. Lanzarotti brings extensive experience in the beer and brewing industry, with a particular focus on sustainably accelerating growth and scaling brewery operations while maintaining quality and consistency. At Asahi Europe & International Lanzarotti oversaw a group with 20 breweries and production facilities distributing across eight domestic markets and more than 80 internationally. He previously held a number of country Managing Director roles at SABMiller. Lanzarotti says: “For a number of years, I’ve admired how Tap Social have built a business balancing the delivery of growth in numbers alongside having a positive impact on people in prison and prison leavers. Now I’m excited to be part of the journey that will see this business having economic and social impact at greater scale. And the beer is pretty good too!” Currently CEO of Development Bank of Wales, Thorley joins Tap Social with nine years of hospitality management experience with Punch Taverns, which under his leadership became one of the largest pub groups in the UK. In both 2007 and 2008 Thorley earned the top spot in the annual “Top 50 Most Influential People in the Pub Trade” list. Thorley has a proven track record in backing exciting early-stage businesses in the hospitality, leisure and consumer goods sectors, including as an initial backer of Deliveroo. Thorley says: “Tap Social is a fantastic business that combines a great multi-function business model with a strong ethical stance – a model that encompasses a hugely innovative brewery, an award winning bakery, unique retail spaces, entertainment, and a principled brand.  Whether it is the support for the rehabilitation of offenders or sourcing of sustainable products and a focus on local suppliers, the Tap Social Movement is one to join and one that I am excited to support.” As senior advisors, backers Lanzarotti and Thorley will help strategically guide the scale and direction of Tap Social’s expansion into new markets. A recipient of two Great Taste 2025 awards for Time Better Spent (5.1% Juicy IPA – 2 Stars) and Jobsworth (3.4% Session Pale Ale – 1 Star), Tap Social distributes select beers to more than 240 Waitrose & Partners supermarkets in the UK. Tap Social currently runs three Oxfordshire community venues, including its award-winning wholesale bakery and café Proof Social Bakehouse. Later this year it opens Day Release, a purpose-built café, bar, bakery, and community venue at Milton Park, the UK’s largest science, business, and technology hub, as well as additional outlets later this year.  To date Tap Social has created more than 112,000 hours of paid employment for people in prison and prison leavers. It was named the UK’s “Consumer-Facing Social Enterprise of the Year” in 2024, and is currently the “Community-Based Social Enterprise of the Year.” Learn more about Tap Social Movement and its mission to reduce reoffending and turn lives around at tapsocialmovement.com. About Tap Social Movement With a shared passion for social justice and independent beer, Paul Humpherson and sisters Amy and Tess Taylor founded Tap Social Movement in 2016 to provide support, training, and fulfilling employment to people who have had contact with the criminal justice system. In addition to its commercial production brewery, Tap Social currently runs four community venues across Oxfordshire, including its bakery Proof Social Bakehouse and Day Release, its newest location opening in mid-2026 at Milton Park. It brews a range of modern, accessible beer highlighted by its award-winning core range, which includes its best-selling Juicy IPA Time Better Spent.

Nuneaton Signs has been manufacturing signs for Wates Group since 2018. The partnership has enabled the business to grow and sustain their mission of providing meaningful employment and training opportunities for people with disabilities. Nuneaton Signs Nuneaton Signs is a social enterprise which provides employment and training for people with disabilities through the manufacture and sales of signs. The company has been running for over 40 years, having been set up in 1982, and has grown to be one of the UK’s leading signage manufacturers. 100% of its profits are reinvested back into the business to create more impact.   The partnership with Wates Since 2018, Nuneaton Signs has been working with Buy Social Corporate Challenge founding partner, Wates, delivering on projects across the country. Wates is the UK’s leading family-owned development, building and property maintenance company and supporting and scaling the social enterprise sector is at the heart of their social value delivery. After initially meeting at a networking event, the two businesses have developed a strong partnership, with contracts from Wates unlocking more opportunities for innovation and impact at the social enterprise.   “The impact of the partnership is a well-established relationship that delivers goods Wates would be purchasing, but with additional social value. Supporting the social enterprise sector and facilitating employment for those furthest from the workforce aligns with our purpose to reimagine places for people to thrive.”  - Su Pickerill, Head of Social Value, Wates Group The impact As Nuneaton Signs reinvests 100% of its surplus back into its core purpose, having consistent work is essential. Thanks to Wates’ partnership over the past years, the organisation has been able to support more individuals into meaningful employment than ever before. It now employs 89 people, 74% of whom have a disability, learning disability, life-impacting medical condition, or mental health condition. The regular work provided by Wates has been a major contributing factor to this success. Beyond buying commercial services, Wates has also supported Nuneaton Signs through participation in its ASSETS programme, a seven-month business support programme for social enterprises in the construction industry, which has helped grow skills and develop the business.  “Wates was one of the first construction companies that supported us and truly believed in our capabilities. From our first order with Wates to the present day, our turnover has trebled, we have employed a further 30 persons with disabilities and have opened a second manufacturing facility.”  - Becky Anderson, Commercial Sales Manager, Nuneaton Signs Additionally, Nuneaton Signs was able to increase their positive environmental impact. The social enterprise has grown and adapted to meet the environmental challenges faced by its customers, developing a 100% PVC-free, fully recyclable material range used by Wates, as well as materials made entirely from recycled content for environmentally focused projects. Its partnership with Wates has helped ensure it remains at the forefront of sustainability within an industry that can often be wasteful. nuneatonsigns.co.uk  wates.co.uk 

With a record number of children homeless in the UK, social enterprise leaders met with government to explain the barriers making it hard to reduce this number – and the solutions that work.   "The housing system is broken." That was the blunt opening from Richard Kennedy, co-founder of Cornerstone Place, at the fourth evidence session of the Social, Cooperative and Community Economy All-Party Parliamentary Group. Chaired by Patrick Hurley MP, the session brought together social enterprise leaders from Cornerstone Place, the National House Project, Change Please, Connection Crew, P3, and Beam, which are all working on the frontline of the UK's housing crisis every single day.  With 176,130 children currently living in temporary accommodation in England, according to the most recent figures from the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (October–December 2025), Kennedy's assessment was hard to argue with. "I'm sure everyone would agree that that is almost unforgivable in a first world country," he said.  The human cost of a broken system  Mark Simms, Chief Executive of P3, framed the stakes plainly. "People need time to recover from trauma, rebuild their relationships or move forward into work and independence. But without somewhere to live, that's almost impossible. Fragmented short-term housing solutions don't really ever deliver that."  Simms traced the crisis to decades of policy failure. Right to Buy, he argued, had "decimated the social housing stock and made a famine of it." Councils are now spending billions on temporary accommodation, and the businesses profiting from that misery are celebrated rather than challenged, he said. "This profit from misery model just simply has to change." Aside from charities, the biggest provider of temporary accommodation in the UK is hotel chain Travelodge.  Tori Campbell, strategic lead for UK partnerships at Beam and a former Head of Transformation at Cambridge City Council, warned that the system has become dangerously dehumanising. "We're looking at the homelessness system and lots of local authorities are seeing these people as numbers that need to be moved through it. What we need to do is put humans back in the middle of this. How can we do that in a space where budgets are continuing to be cut?"  The trap of temporary accommodation  Patrick Hurley MP offered a vivid illustration from his Lancashire coast constituency. Coastal towns like Southport, Blackpool and Morecambe have an oversupply of B&Bs, and local authorities (particularly those in London) routinely place homeless individuals and families there. What was once a six-week measure has, in the wake of austerity, stretched to two and a half years. By that point, people have put down roots - found a partner, a community, sometimes a drug habit - and when a property becomes available back home, many refuse it. The problem is then passed to the seaside town's already stretched services.  Simms had a concrete example of exactly the kind of upstream intervention that could break this cycle. P3 took on 58 empty flats in Coventry that was previously accommodation for older people. P3 refurbished them, and filled them with families previously housed in B&Bs and budget hotels within two days of opening. The project worked. What didn't work was getting paid. It took nearly seven months for the local authority to process rent payments, leaving P3 carrying 58 rents, 17 staff wages and a housing association lease. "If we were smaller, that cash flow issue could have literally drowned us." The loss to their bottom line: £280,000.  A system working against itself  The session's most searching conversation concerned the perversity baked into commissioning systems. Simms described commissioners funding support, employment and accommodation through entirely separate streams, with no single commissioner responsible for all three. The result is that organisations are sometimes pressured to move people on before they are ready, and the moment a resident gets a job, they can lose all their housing benefit on the same day. "There's a conflict built into the commissioning system," he said. "So there's perversion in the system rather than cohesion."  Procurement was identified as an equally stubborn barrier. Kennedy described presenting solutions to local authorities only to be met with framework demands and bureaucratic checks that cause complex proposals to "wither on the vine." He jokingly dubbed procurement officers the "development prevention officers." Campbell called for a shift to outcomes-led commissioning and suggested piloting more latitude for direct awards to social enterprises in a group of councils.  What needs to change  By the session's close, clear policy asks had emerged. Kennedy called for procurement reform, community asset lock by default for any housing built with public money, and cheaper, more patient capital from institutions like Homes England or the UK Infrastructure Bank. Simms made the bigger picture case: the government's pledge to deliver 1.5 million new homes must be honoured. "You can't be homeless if you've got somewhere to live. It will literally save you billions and transform the lives of millions."  As Warren Rogers of Connection Crew put it, every organisation in the room would happily trade itself out of existence if the problem were solved. That instinct - to end the industry of homelessness rather than build on it - is what makes the social enterprise sector different. Whether government is ready to match that ambition is the question the APPG report, due in June, will need to answer.  Photo shows P3's Wolverhampton Homeless Services which provides safe, temporary accommodation along with advice and support for people aged 18 and over in Wolverhampton who are at risk of or experiencing homelessness.

The Social, Cooperative and Community Economy All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) convened last week to hear from social enterprise leaders on the government's defining mission: growth. They made the case that growth without community at its heart is growth that fails most people. Growth has been the buzzword of the Labour government since it was elected, but there's a stark difference between growth that widens inequality and 'good growth' that delivers better living standards for everyone. Social enterprise leaders came to Westminster to tell Patrick Hurley MP that their sector is not just part of the answer; it is often ahead of where government policy currently sits. The social enterprise economy in action Gareth Hart, Director of the Plymouth Social Enterprise Network, offered some striking numbers. Plymouth is home to 250 social enterprises, representing 10,000 jobs and around £650 million a year, roughly 20% of the local economy. The city has catalysed £15 million of social investment, seen measurable improvements in the Index of Multiple Deprivation, and been recognised by PwC as one of the best cities for living and working. But Hart was equally clear about what is still needed: access to finance, advice and training, markets, and much better support with impact reporting. The social enterprise infrastructure, he warned, is fragile and needs sustained investment and better policy at both local and national level. More than GDP One of the meeting's most striking statements came from Social Enterprise Coalition Group CEO Peter Holbrook, who challenged the very framing of growth as a measure of national progress. Pointing to the Joint Intelligence Committee's 2026 report on threats including water scarcity, conflict and migration, he argued that social enterprises don't just deliver growth: they deliver security and resilience. Decentralised, community-rooted organisations, he said, have proven their capacity to adapt in a crisis, as COVID made plain. "Social enterprises aren't just delivering resilience and security and growth," said Holbrook, "they're also creating opportunities for communities to come together, build relationships and become self-determining." A narrow focus on GDP figures, he warned, obscures the full value of what the sector contributes. Liverpool's blueprint Jennifer Van der Merwe, Executive Director of Kindred in the Liverpool City Region (and now also seconded as a Place Advisor to the Office for the Impact Economy) described a model others might learn from. Liverpool's ten-year local growth plan has inclusive growth at its core, she told the room. Kindred is scaling its social investment from £6.5 million to around £50 million, working with eight infrastructure organisations across the city region. Since 2020, its membership of socially trading organisations has grown from 150 to 1,600. Central to the approach is the concept of social and financial innovation zones — placing social economy thinking at the heart of industrial clusters in sectors like advanced manufacturing and health sciences that wouldn't traditionally associate themselves with social enterprise. As Van der Merwe put it: "You're either a social business or you're an antisocial business. It's not what your governance structure is; what are your behaviours?" What's blocking progress Duncan Howard of ECT Charity put his finger on a persistent frustration: the Social Value Act is not being followed by local authorities. ECT moves people where the market won't, getting children to school and older people into town, connecting communities. That social value isn't being factored into contracting decisions, leaving community transport operators to deliver subsidised services ... but without any subsidy. Community asset transfer was another flashpoint. Birgit Kehrer of ChangeKitchen CIC in Birmingham described the local picture as a near-failure with the responsible part of the council near enough blocking transfers, and assets being sold off to developers for a fraction of their value.  Central government, the room agreed, needs to issue clear guidance and hold local authorities to account. What needs to happen Several concrete proposals emerged. Van der Merwe called for capital to be redesigned and devolved to place. Kehrer argued for longer-term funding settlements and better support for apprenticeships within social enterprises. Holbrook suggested aligning local authority pension fund incentives with local investment opportunities, and asked government to match the sector's ambition in its own language and leadership. Gareth Hart's suggestion drew immediate recognition from the chair: social enterprise economic development zones, where CIC startups receive corporation tax exemptions and business rate relief, and CICs are brought into line with charities for policy purposes. "There are no new ideas under the sun," Patrick Hurley acknowledged, citing a twenty-year-old pamphlet he still had on social enterprise zones. "But it's a good idea. We should do it." The Social, Cooperative and Community Economy holds regular evidence sessions with practitioners, investors and policymakers.

Several social enterprise leaders recently met with government to share how they could be supported to create more jobs President Trump’s invasion of Iran and the associated financial tremors aren’t making it easy currently, but economic growth remains the government’s priority. Key to that will be a more resilient labour market, one that delivers secure, quality employment, supports career progression and includes those furthest from work. Despite facing challenges, social enterprises are experts in this field, so sector leaders recently met with Patrick Hurley MP to give evidence of how they could contribute to economic growth in this way. Evidence has shown that social enterprises are significantly more likely to employ people from disadvantaged groups and operate in left-behind communities, providing holistic employment support. They contribute to higher workforce stability and retention, improved wellbeing and productivity, and help reduce long-term pressure on welfare and public services. Yet it’s far from plain sailing. Leaders told Hurley of the difficulties they face, including short-term, cost-driven commissioning, barriers to accessing public contracts and the labour intensive (and potentially fruitless) work of applying for grants. Their experiences painted a vivid picture of what social enterprises can achieve, but also of the systemic failings holding them back. Opening the door to employment "We are set up to employ people that no one else will," said Half the Story founder Matt Parfitt, describing the ethos of his biscuit business. "We try to lower the bar for access, but only as a stepping stone to higher-value jobs. It's the holistic support - the culture, the coaching, English lessons for refugees, help with finances or housing - that changes lives, not just the job itself." Half the Story is now planning to replicate its bakery model in ten locations, proof that purpose-driven business can scale, without permanent subsidy. The business is philanthropically seed funded. Lucy Ferguson of Mediorite, a 15-year-old video production company, was candid about the pressures her organisation faces. "It has never been harder to operate as a social enterprise," she said. "The demand is growing, but how do you remain sustainable when fighting for funding against other charities and fighting commercial businesses for work?" Ferguson also highlighted an unpaid burden many social enterprises carry: "We are filling gaps between schools, the DWP, and the commercial sector, but we aren't getting paid for that extra support work." With labour costs rising and tenders coming in below market rate, Ferguson warned of a sector reduced to "fighting each other for crumbs left by the commercial sector." Armeena Athwal of Breakthrough echoed the frustration. Supporting ex-offenders and people with mental health issues requires intensive one-to-one coaching, yet commissioning often rewards the lowest bid. A recent three-day Ofsted inspection, "like being investigated by the police," she said illustrated the disproportionate scrutiny placed on those doing the hardest work with the most vulnerable people. How the government can support social enterprises Several practical solutions emerged. Ferguson argued that the apprenticeship levy should be reformed to cover wages, not just training costs, giving smaller enterprises the financial breathing space to bring in people who need time to develop. Athwal called for a culture change among large corporates and argued that government should, when awarding major contracts, hold suppliers to account for what they actually do to prioritise the social sector. Chair of the meeting Patrick Hurley noted that procurement officers routinely fail to use the powers already available to them under the Social Value Act, and signalled his intention to address this at national level in the coming months. The Skill Mill's Iciar Ania raised the importance of data. Her organisation works with young people who have offended, and has secured funding from the Youth Endowment Fund to run a randomised control trial across 22 areas but accessing data on employment and reoffending outcomes remains frustratingly difficult. Better data access, she argued, would help prove what works and unlock investment in what does. Cutting through all of it was a question about value. Not value for money in the narrow sense, but value in the broader sense - what society is actually willing to pay for. As Parfitt put it: "If it's just about price, it's a race to the bottom. We have to speak the language of value." He pointed to the Belu water on the table as a small but telling example: someone in procurement had chosen to spend more on water because the story behind it mattered. The ask from this group of leaders is not radical. They are not seeking permanent subsidies or special treatment. They want commissioning that reflects the true cost of supporting the hardest-to-reach, procurement that looks beyond the lowest price, and the kind of seed investment that allows proven models to grow. Done right, the returns - in reduced welfare dependency, improved wellbeing, and stronger communities  - would far outstrip the outlay. The evidence will contribute to recommendations in a final report to be published later this year.

Most lenders would reject an applicant with no track record of the project they needed £300K for. But WCVA is no ordinary lender. We spoke to one of the winners of the Social Investment of the Year award at last year's UK Social Enterprise Awards to find out how it happened. When Tai Heulwen CIC – the name translates from Welsh as "sunshine houses" -approached WCVA's social investment team, they had an idea about creating a children’s residential home, but not much more. No property in mind. No successful track record in that sector. Just a vision: to open a new residential home for children in care in Wales, run on social rather than profit-driven values.  For most lenders, that conversation might have ended pretty quickly.  "It was going to be 100% finance for a startup organisation," says Alun Jones, who leads WCVA's social investment work. "From a lender's perspective, you've got no guarantee it will be signed off by Care Inspectorate Wales as suitable premises. And you've got no guarantee the local authority will actually place anybody there."  The risks didn't stop there. With months of renovation work ahead and no income coming in, interest would simply roll up, meaning the borrower could owe more by the time they opened than when they started.  So why did WCVA say yes?  The legislation changing everything  Part of the answer lies in a seismic shift in Welsh policy. New legislation means that, within a five-year transition period, all residential childcare in Wales must be delivered by local authorities, charities, or not-for-profit organisations. To prevent profiteering from looking after vulnerable children, the private sector is out.  "The legislation is something of a challenge to the sector to make it work in a practical sense," says Jones. "It’s up to us as the sector to find some solutions. Somebody has got to start taking some risk. And we thought, well, why not us?"  WCVA had done something similar a decade earlier and knew it could work. But this time, Jones saw a smarter way to structure the deal, one that would dramatically reduce the risk for everyone involved.  The missing piece  WCVA was already lending to a second organisation: Community Impact Initiative (Cii), a social enterprise whose model involves buying properties, renovating them, and either renting them out long-term or selling them on. Cii had the skills, the experience, and critically: a strategic ambition to become a long-term property owner.  Jones put two and two together. "I said, why don't the two of you get together? Because this sounds like the perfect solution. I'll happily lend money to a builder who knows what they're doing."  The structure they landed on was elegant. Cii would buy and renovate the property to Tai Heulwen's specification. If it gained approval from Care Inspectorate Wales, Tai Heulwen would become the tenant, which suited them perfectly, since they'd concluded they were a childcare company, not a property company. And if approval was never granted? The enhanced fire safety spec, such as having sprinklers and reinforced doors was the only real difference from a standard residential home. Cii could rent it out or sell it on. The downside was manageable.  "Putting the two together took not all the risk, but a huge lump of the risk out of the whole process," says Jones. How the money works The final loan structure was split across both organisations. Tai Heulwen received around £120,000 to cover furnishings and the revenue costs needed to bridge the gap between opening and receiving their first council payments.   Cii received £200,000 over 25 years for the property purchase and renovation, secured against the building itself. Both loans carry an initial base rate of 7%, fixed for the full term, with discounts available for paying the Real Living Wage and committing to a climate action plan.  The plan is for WCVA to eventually hand Cii's loan over to Ecology Building Society (another socially-minded lender) once the property is tenanted and proven. That frees up WCVA's capital to fund Cii's next project.  The build has hit some bumps - a scaffolding contractor went under, causing delays - but the home is now expected to be completed by summer 2026 and will accommodate up to five children. Recognition on the national stage The deal caught the attention of judges at the UK Social Enterprise Awards, where WCVA, Tai Heulwen and Cii were named joint winners of the Social Investment of the Year award - the second time WCVA has taken the prize.  For Jones, the win meant more than the trophy. "We go under the radar a little bit and just bump along doing what we think is right," he reflects. "To go to a UK awards and win it — you go, actually, we've got a reasonable idea of what we're doing here." UK And with Wales's voluntary sector now tasked with filling a gap that legislation has created, WCVA hopes this deal is more than a one-off. It's a proof of concept and an example to governments everywhere of what can be achieved when socially minded investors and social enterprises work together. 

Every two years, our Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre publishes the State of Social Enterprise report. In 2025 we surveyed nearly 2,000 social enterprises, asking them questions about their finances, growth and impact. It provides the clearest picture of how businesses that are crucial to the health and wellbeing of UK communities are performing.   The State of Social Enterprise has influenced UK government policy and contributed to greater understanding of social enterprise internationally, but the rich data also offers a lot of value at a local level. It is for this reason that we’re publishing nine factsheets that provide further insight into the contribution of social enterprises in different regions.  Are more jobs being created by social enterprises in the North East? Are more vulnerable people being supported in the South West than any other area of the country? What do those in the West Midlands think of the finance they can access? All the answers are in these nine sheets.   As we’ve published previous editions of these, we know the regional factsheets help local authorities understand the contribution of social enterprises to their economy, provide our Places networks with quick facts to support their work, and act as a useful resource for local journalists reporting on businesses with a social or environmental purpose. They’re also useful for local funders.   We’re grateful to our partners Access – the Foundation for Social Investment, and Better Society Capital for supporting the Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre, and Fusion21 for supporting the State of Social Enterprise report.  North East North West Yorkshire and the Humber East Midlands West Midlands East of England London South East South West Photo: Celebrating the end of the Build Your Business programme at Impact Hub Yorkshire.

Social enterprises, local authority councillors, corporate supporters and legal experts recently met with MPs to discuss why existing procurement legislation is failing to deliver the social value it promises – and what needs to change. Why are local authorities not making greater use of the powers they already have to procure from voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations? That question framed the latest meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the Social, Cooperative and Community Economy, chaired by Patrick Hurley MP. Social enterprises, councillors, corporate partners and legal experts shared evidence with MPs on the barriers preventing procurement legislation from delivering greater social value through public supply chains. The backdrop for the discussion was the Procurement Act 2023 and the National Procurement Policy Statement, which together set clear expectations that public bodies should use procurement to deliver wider social, economic and environmental outcomes. The challenge under scrutiny was straightforward: if the legislative levers already exist, why are so few councils using them effectively? Is TOMS the wrong tool? A consistent theme was the over-reliance on the Themes, Outcomes and Measures (TOMS) framework as a proxy for social value. Mark Simms, Group Chief Executive of P3, argued that TOMS is poorly suited to people-centred services. He described procurement exercises where required metrics – such as apprenticeship numbers or job creation – bore little relation to the realities of service delivery. This, he argued, disadvantages honest providers while rewarding those willing to over-promise. Sandra Hamilton, Consultant at Stone King LLP, went further, suggesting that people-focused services require a fundamentally different procurement approach. With adult and children’s social care now accounting for an estimated 75% of local authority spending, she argued that a one-size-fits-all market procurement model is structurally unfit for purpose. Bristol City Council has already acted on this insight. Councillor Sibusiso Tshabalala confirmed that the authority has moved away from TOMS entirely, replacing it with contextual measures aligned to contract size and local priorities. Capacity, risk and the guidance gap Anne Epsom, Assistant Director at Surrey County Council, offered a candid local authority perspective. She acknowledged that under-resourced councils often default to TOMS because it is readily available and familiar. Her call was for clearer, centralised guidance: a shared methodology that would reduce the burden on individual officers trying to drive best practice through lengthy internal processes. She also highlighted the persistent gap between what the Procurement Act mandates for central government and what is binding on local authorities – a distinction that undermines consistency and ambition. Levelling the playing field Terry Murphy, CEO of Sheffield Social Enterprise Network, proposed a simple structural change. Rather than requiring social enterprises to repeatedly evidence their social value through lengthy tender responses, commissioners could ask a single, binary question: is the organisation legally required, through its governance, to deliver social or environmental benefit? Verification could be as straightforward as a Companies House check, with a positive answer attracting a score. If social value is embedded in an organisation’s legal structure, Murphy argued, it should not need to be restated in every procurement exercise. Amanda Johnston of Social Enterprise Northern Ireland highlighted another underused lever: government minimum thresholds. A small legislative amendment allowing direct awards to social enterprises below this level, without challenge, could significantly increase access to public contracts at the lower end of the market. Towards honest procurement A broader cultural shift also emerged as essential. Several speakers called for a move from transactional to relational procurement, particularly in complex, people-centred services. Mark Simms reflected on P3’s role in the Covid-era Everyone In programme, where services were mobilised rapidly on the basis of trust and shared risk to safeguard homeless people from infection, often before contracts were finalised. Transparent discussions about costs, risks and delivery constraints enabled faster and more effective responses. He described this as an example of “honest procurement” – focused on problem-solving rather than contractual compliance. Sue Racster from Amey echoed this approach, describing the company’s shift towards more intentional partnerships with VCSEs, shaped by listening to what social enterprises need in practice rather than imposing top-down solutions. Accountability and transparency Finally, Councillor Tshabalala raised the issue of accountability. He proposed the use of civic platforms rooted in neighbourhood forums, enabling communities themselves to verify whether promised social value has been delivered locally. Such approaches could build on existing place-based infrastructure and give residents visibility over commitments made in their name. He also highlighted a persistent imbalance: while councils routinely require suppliers and grant recipients to report on impact, they publish no equivalent account of the social value generated through their own procurement. A standardised framework for annual social value reporting by local authorities, aligned with budget decisions, could close this gap and strengthen public accountability. What happens next The APPG will continue to gather evidence throughout April, with a report expected in late spring or early summer. The aim is to clarify what local authorities can already do under existing legislation – and to identify where further changes to law, guidance or practice are needed to unlock the full potential of social value in public procurement.