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How demonstrable social value turns good buildings into great ones
Danielle Aberg Head of social value at Thrive
Social value is becoming a measure of how well assets are delivered, but it must go further than that: there must be a standard of proof of how investment improved lives and strengthened places.
The real purpose of assurance is to test the integrity of the chain between the need identified, the intervention chosen, the evidence collected and the claim reported. Image: Dreamstime
A building can be beautifully designed, technically excellent and delivered against every conventional measure of success, yet still leave surprisingly little behind for the people who live around it. That is the distinction between a good building and a great one. A good building performs well as an asset; a great building strengthens the place of which it becomes a part.
Construction has understood this for some time. Across the country, projects are creating jobs, developing skills, opening supply chains and supporting communities. Social value is no longer a peripheral idea or a polite addition to a tender – it has become part of how public investment is justified and how the wider success of major projects is understood.
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What is changing now is the standard of proof. The Procurement Act has moved contract performance into a more transparent era. Major public contracts are expected to carry measurable KPIs, with performance assessed and published. PPN 002 already directs central government buyers to develop social value KPIs and report against them, while government proposals to require a social value KPI on jobs, opportunities or skills in major contracts reinforce the direction of travel.
Social value is becoming a regular part of how contractors are judged during delivery, not simply how they are scored at tender.
Improved lives and places
This reflects a wider shift in public decision-making. Commercial value still matters, but it is no longer sufficient to define value only through cost, output or economic growth in the narrowest sense. The government’s renewed Green Book places social value at the centre of appraisal, encompassing economic prosperity alongside health, wellbeing, justice, security and environmental outcomes.
Public bodies are being asked to consider not only whether an asset was delivered efficiently, but whether public investment improved lives and strengthened places.
For construction, this is an enormous opportunity. Few sectors have a more direct influence on local economies and community wellbeing. But greater visibility also exposes a longstanding weakness: a figure can be precise without being reliable.
Local spend does not automatically create local prosperity. An apprenticeship does not, by itself, demonstrate progression. A large monetised total can appear authoritative while concealing weak evidence, generous attribution or activity poorly matched to local need. The claim must not outrun the evidence.
The role of assured social value
This is where assured social value becomes essential. Assurance should not be understood as a final audit of a spreadsheet. Its real purpose is to test the integrity of the chain between the need identified, the intervention chosen, the evidence collected and the claim reported. It ensures measures are appropriate, evidence is sufficient, outcomes are fairly attributed to the project, and additionality is rigorously accounted for rather than claiming value that would have occurred anyway.
Leading contractors are already putting these operational controls in place. For instance, VolkerWessels UK embedded its People-Planet-Purpose framework directly into delivery across 500+ active sites using 23 core metrics, replacing fragmented email logs with transparent, centralised reporting.
Steps like these determine whether the industry can stand behind what it reports. Assurance also protects the value of work already being done well. Without a credible standard of evidence, strong delivery sits alongside inflated or poorly constructed claims and becomes difficult to distinguish from them. A smaller number that can be defended will always carry more weight than a larger one that cannot.
This focus on credible evidence also allows contractors to demonstrate undeniable return on investment to clients. Laing O’Rourke, for example, uses verified data frameworks to prove an additional 11% social value ROI on project spend, providing public sector buyers with absolute clarity on community benefits delivered beyond baseline contract promises.
The wider benefits
The prize is greater than better reporting. More consistent, assured data allows the sector to prove that investing in local supply chains improves resilience and reduces delivery risk, that better employment practices strengthen retention and productivity, and that early, community-led intervention reduces delays and pressure on public services.
At a wider level, it demonstrates how construction-led social value contributes to regional productivity, labour-market participation and longer-term economic resilience. Rather than relying on assertions, assurance creates the foundations for comparison, learning and a clearer line between social outcomes, commercial performance and macroeconomic value.
A great building is not made great by the size of the social value number attached to it. It becomes great when its wider contribution is relevant, demonstrable and durable, and when the industry can stand behind that contribution with confidence.
