There’s a section in most care tenders that providers treat as an afterthought, dash off in the final hour, and fill with vague good intentions. It’s also, very often, the easiest place on the entire paper to gain marks.

It’s social value. And the gap between how much it’s worth and how little effort most providers put into it makes it one of the best return-on-effort opportunities in bidding. Here’s how to stop leaving those marks on the table.

Why Social Value Matters More Than You Think

Social value is the idea that public spending should deliver benefits beyond the service itself, economic, social, and environmental gains for the local community. It’s been a feature of UK procurement since the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, and it has only grown in importance.

Under the government’s Social Value Model, applied to central government procurement and widely mirrored by local authorities, social value carries a meaningful, explicitly weighted share of the total score. In many care tenders it’s worth 10%, sometimes more. That’s not a rounding error; it’s frequently the margin between winning and losing.

Here’s the opportunity: because so many providers treat social value as a box to tick, the average submission in this section is weak. Which means a genuinely strong, specific, credible social value response doesn’t just earn its own marks, it lets you overtake competitors who are stronger than you on paper elsewhere. This is a section where modest effort produces outsized returns.

Why Most Social Value Responses Fail

The typical social value answer fails for predictable reasons, and understanding them shows you exactly how to do better.

It’s generic. “We are committed to supporting the local community and reducing our environmental impact.” This says nothing an evaluator can score. Every competitor writes it.

It’s unquantified. Vague promises to “create opportunities” or “give back” carry no weight. Evaluators reward specific, measurable commitments, not sentiment.

It’s undeliverable. Providers sometimes overpromise wildly to score, committing to things they’ve no intention of, or capacity for, delivering. Experienced commissioners spot this, and under current rules social value commitments increasingly become contractual obligations you’ll be held to and asked to report on.

It’s disconnected from the service. A social value offer bolted on with no relationship to the actual contract feels exactly like what it is, an afterthought.

It ignores what the commissioner asked for. Many authorities specify the social value themes or outcomes they care about. Providers who ignore those and offer generic commitments miss the marks on offer.

Every one of these failures is avoidable, and avoiding them is how you score.

How to Write Social Value That Scores

Strong social value responses share the same qualities as any strong bid answer: they’re specific, evidenced, deliverable, and matched to what’s being asked, the same principles we set out in writing a method statement that actually scores.

Read what the commissioner wants, and answer that. Start with the tender’s social value priorities and themes. If they emphasise local employment, tackling inequality, or environmental sustainability, build your response around those, not around whatever you happened to prepare earlier.

Be specific and measurable. Replace “we support local employment” with “we will create three apprenticeships for local care workers within the first year and recruit at least 60% of new staff from within the borough.” Numbers, timescales, and defined commitments are what evaluators can actually score.

Commit only to what you’ll deliver. Because these commitments become contractual and reportable, credibility matters. A smaller set of genuine, deliverable commitments beats a long list of aspirations you can’t meet, and it protects you from underperforming against your own promises later.

Connect it to the service and the community. The strongest social value flows naturally from the contract. For care providers, that’s a real advantage: employing and training local people, supporting family carers, reducing isolation, partnering with local voluntary organisations, and improving community wellbeing are all authentic extensions of what you already do.

Show how you’ll measure and report it. Commissioners increasingly want to see that you’ll track and evidence delivery. Demonstrating a clear method for measuring your social value, and reporting against it, signals a provider who takes the commitment seriously.

Social Value Is a Natural Fit for Care Providers

Here’s the encouraging part: care providers are unusually well placed to deliver genuine social value, because so much of it aligns with what the sector already does.

You employ people, often locally, and can offer training, apprenticeships, and progression. You support some of the most vulnerable people in the community, and the family carers around them. You can reduce social isolation, partner with local charities and community groups, provide work experience, support people back into employment, and contribute to community wellbeing in ways a purely commercial supplier can’t.

That means your social value response doesn’t have to be invented or artificial. It can be a truthful account of the community benefit your service naturally creates, made specific, measurable, and deliberate. That authenticity is exactly what scores, and exactly what commissioners want to see, across the domiciliary care, supported living, and day services contracts we support.

The Easiest Marks You’re Not Claiming

Social value is one of the clearest examples of a wider truth in bidding: the marks are there, but only for providers who take the section seriously.

While your competitors dash off generic promises in the final hour, you can invest a little genuine thought, align your response to the commissioner’s priorities, make specific and deliverable commitments, connect them authentically to your service, and show how you’ll measure delivery. Do that, and you’ll routinely outscore stronger competitors on a section they didn’t respect.

It’s the best return on effort in the whole bid. Stop treating social value as a box to tick, and start treating it as the competitive advantage it is. Our case studies show how providers win on the strength of the whole submission, social value included.

For the framework, providers should be familiar with the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 and the government’s Social Value Model.

Ready to win more of the right contracts? For over five years, AssuredBID has helped care providers across the UK prepare stronger bids and win the work that grows their business. If tenders are taking up too much of your team’s time, or you keep coming second, we can help.

Book a free consultation with our tender experts to talk through your next opportunity, explore our tender writing and bid management services, and follow AssuredBID on social media for practical guidance you can actually use.

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