Social Value: Investing in the Legacy of our Projects

When I first started working in this industry over 20 years ago, social value wasn’t a term that had yet risen to prominence. It has become extremely important as more clients are looking for contractors and suppliers that prioritise and demonstrate effective social responsibility and community engagement.

Defining social value is far from straightforward, given the many contrasting definitions that exist across public and private organisations; however, we do understand significant impacts can be made on the society, environment, and economy in the area surrounding our projects. 

Farrans has always been a community-spirited contractor, but we have seen the need to develop a more strategic approach to planning, delivering and measuring the outcomes achieved, and we have made a social impact one of the main pillars of our business. 

Recent legislation explicitly requires the evaluation of Government tenders to consider social value commitments as part of the award decision. This has led to a step up in clients' expectations around social value delivery, both in terms of proper needs-based plans leading to strong delivery and, ultimately, the provision of robust evidence-based measurement. The winning tender should no longer be just about the lowest price, but the overall added value should be achieved. 

"Defining social value is far from straightforward, given the many contrasting definitions that exist across public and private organisations; however, we do understand significant impacts can be made on the society, environment, and economy in the area surrounding our projects."

For this reason, Farrans has invested in our own in-house social value team, responsible for developing and supporting the delivery of all elements of this area within the business. We are a team of dedicated experts providing leadership on social value approaches and activities, educating and upskilling colleagues to create and expand organisational capability to support the delivery of social value.

Our team is involved from the very initial stages of a project, collaboratively and innovatively developing a programme of activity which aligns with the priorities of our clients and the local communities. For some, this may be a focus on sustainability or providing employment opportunities, while others will be keen on opening up learning opportunities for young people.We engage with our supply chain to educate and inform them on social value priorities.

We empower them through regular knowledge-sharing meetings in the early stages of procurement negotiations to enable collaboration and innovation. This enables us to develop relevant and impactful initiatives together. 

At the end of every year, we like to look back on our impact. In 2023, for example, we supported 76 apprentices and 70 graduates, engaged with over 8,500 young people through education engagement, worked with over 450 local suppliers in the areas where we were active, and raised over £51,000 for charities across the UK and Ireland. We hosted over 37 sustainability-led events, supporting the protection of biodiversity, education on environmental issues, and support to different communities with the development of green spaces.

When we deliver major construction and civil engineering projects, we want to invite the local community on that journey with us. We want to make sure that they feel informed and that they can see that, as contractors, we are doing our best to leave their area improved from when we arrived. We won two national GO Excellence in Public Procurement Awards for our work at South Lake Leisure Centre in Northern Ireland and the Edinburgh Trams to Newhaven project in Scotland.

When it comes to innovation, we provided a best practice solution during the delivery of Edinburgh Trams to Newhaven, which we delivered in JV with our partners as Sacyr Farrans Neopul (SFN). A ‘Support for Business’ package was developed for businesses along the project route with many support measures, including help with deliveries and dispatches during the works. A key challenge was the diversity of the businesses in the Leith community, so we recruited local people to deliver the initiative.

Five Logistics Hubs were established, working in partnership with Sustrans Scotland, to bring trikes and trailers onto the street. The hubs managed over 87,500 deliveries and received 250+ pieces of positive feedback. In addition,, the team delivered on-street engagement,, including pop-up information points and sessions, for the wider community. 

This is only one example, but our social value priorities are reflected in processes and systems, from our policy to procurement to contract and delivery management, and they reflect our understanding of our customers, suppliers, and third-party partners. The social impact achieved is captured and continuously improved upon to ensure we add maximum value for the communities in which we work to make a real difference now and in the future.