Apprenticeships as Social Value for Public Sector Suppliers
This article was updated in February 2025 with the latest information.
The new government procurement rules came into force on Monday 24 February 2025 and update the requirements to take account of social value in the award of central government contracts.
We can all, perhaps, agree that it is a truism that social value is a good thing 🙂
But since June 2022, the Government has actually written into the specifications that all public sector procurements include a minimum weighting of 10% (and sometimes much more) for social value. So if you want to win then your organisation needs to excel at this.
The new Government Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 002 defines a social value model which focuses on promoting: 1. Fair work; 2. Skills for growth; 3. Resilient, innovative and flexible supply chains; 4. Sustainable procurement practices; 5. Reduction in crime; 6. Employment and training for those who face barriers to employment; 7. Reducing barriers to entry for under-represented groups and 8. Increasing productivity through physical and mental wellbeing.
1. Commit to apprenticeships that contribute towards skills development related to the contract
Outcomes 1 and 2 in the new Social Value Model include the delivery of apprenticeships as a measure to create high quality jobs, support growth sectors and address skills gaps.
Identify the required skills for the contract. Can you use apprenticeships to develop a more highly skilled workforce? There are apprenticeships for almost every role today, from bid and proposal co-ordinator or comms assistant, through sales and marketing to degree-level service designer and master’s degree-level systems thinking practitioner.
Apprenticeships don’t have to be new starters. Think about how you can support diversity and equality by offering higher level apprenticeships to members of your existing workforce who may not otherwise have an opportunity to progress.
The HR/L&D functions of many large organisations are only too pleased to receive creative ideas from functional teams about ways to spend the levy – if it isn’t spent then it is lost to the company and at present (July 2024) HM Treasury is holding nearly £800 million of unspent levy funds!
2. Use your apprenticeship levy funding to support smaller organisations
The Levy can be drawn down to pay for your company’s apprenticeship training. Alternatively up to 50% of your company’s Levy funds can be transferred to support other businesses to pay for their apprenticeship training and assessment. This will enable you to support businesses in a specific geographic area, sector where skills development is needed or provide opportunities to promote economic equality. Think creatively about what your firm can do to use this to satisfy the requirements of the social value model and strengthen your tenders.
Examples include:
- Transfer to fund a small organisation or social enterprise in your supply chain to support their growth (contributes to Outcome 3 in the Government’s Social Value Model).
- Transfer to remedy skills shortages for those who face barriers to employment in high growth sectors (contributing to Outcome 6 and 7 in the Social Value Model).
Things to remember
Make sure you will have sufficient levy funds in future financial years to pay for the apprenticeship(s) over the course of the duration, as this can be more than 12 months.
Your transferred funding can only be used to pay for apprenticeship training and assessment up to the funding band maximum, it does not cover salary.
You can find details of how to transfer your apprenticeship levy funds on the Gov.uk website Transferring your apprenticeship levy to another business (gov.uk). Many parts of the country have existing not for profit bodies to take any pain from the process. The best known is perhaps London’s Workwhile, but simply google for others across England or as the BBC or BT have done, organise your own!
To find out more about apprenticeships, speak to our helpful team: sales@jga-group.co.uk
