How to Write a Tender-Ready Social Value Statement in Adult Social Care

July 11, 2025

In public sector tenders, social value is no longer a “nice to have”. In adult social care, it is increasingly a scored section that can meaningfully influence the overall result, particularly where competing providers appear broadly similar on technical quality and price. Practical guidance across the Social Value knowledge library and the related Social Value Measurement & Reporting guidance series points to the same conclusion: commissioners want to see how your service benefits the wider community, not just the people you support directly, and they are more likely to score responses well when they are specific, measurable and clearly tied to local priorities.

Why social value matters

Social value matters because commissioners are increasingly looking beyond the minimum service specification. In adult social care, they want to know whether a provider will contribute positively to local employment, inclusion, community resilience, sustainability and wider wellbeing. This is especially relevant where contracts are being commissioned in the context of workforce shortages, health inequalities, pressure on voluntary sector infrastructure and rising expectations around environmental responsibility.

Strong social value responses demonstrate a provider’s commitment to local employment, inclusion, sustainability and partnership working with voluntary, community and faith organisations. More importantly, they show that the provider understands the wider purpose of care delivery within a place. That means the provider is not only offering safe and effective support, but also contributing to stronger local systems, broader opportunity and better long-term outcomes for communities.

In competitive tenders, this can become a real differentiator. A provider that explains clearly how it will add value to the commissioning area often creates more confidence than one relying on broad, unsupported claims. Social value therefore matters not only for marks, but for the overall impression of credibility, local understanding and leadership maturity.

What to include in a social value statement

Your statement should show how your organisation contributes to several practical areas of added value. One of the most common is local employment. In adult social care, this may include recruiting from the local community, offering apprenticeships, creating structured progression routes or opening pathways for people who may face barriers to work, including carers or people with lived experience.

Environmental sustainability is also increasingly relevant, but it needs to be grounded in operational reality. Good examples might include reducing waste, using digital systems to limit paper dependency, improving travel planning or gradually moving toward lower-emission vehicles where the service model allows this. In adult social care, environmental claims usually sound strongest when they are tied to measurable operational change rather than abstract ambition.

Community engagement remains another important theme. This may include supporting carers, enabling volunteering, working with local groups or building stronger links with VCSE organisations that expand local opportunity and inclusion. The strongest statements explain why those partnerships matter and what outcomes they help deliver rather than mentioning them only in passing.

Equality and inclusion should also be visible. This may involve recruitment from underrepresented groups, inclusive development opportunities, cultural awareness, representation within governance or service design that responds more effectively to different communities. Providers often strengthen this section when they move beyond values language and show what inclusive practice looks like day to day.

Health and wellbeing can form part of the social value offer too, especially where the provider can demonstrate wider benefits beyond core care delivery. In adult social care, this may include supporting social participation, confidence, volunteering, carer wellbeing or preventive activity that reduces isolation and supports longer-term resilience.

The most important point is that examples should be practical, measurable and proportionate to the contract size and value. A smaller number of well-developed commitments will usually score better than a long list of broad promises.

Operational example 1: local employment and progression in domiciliary care

A domiciliary care provider bidding for a local authority contract knew that one of the commissioner’s biggest concerns was workforce fragility. Instead of writing a generic statement about creating jobs, the provider shaped its social value answer around local recruitment and career progression. The context included recruitment pressure, continuity concerns and a need for more stable local care capacity.

The support approach involved working with local employment support agencies, advertising vacancies in the contract area and creating progression routes from induction into senior care and coordinator roles. Day to day, branch managers tracked where recruits came from, how many completed induction and how many remained in role beyond probation. Leadership reviewed the data alongside sickness, turnover and continuity indicators through governance meetings.

Effectiveness was evidenced through improved local retention, fewer rota disruptions and more stable continuity of care for people using services. This made the social value answer stronger because it demonstrated benefit to the local economy and direct support to service quality.

Operational example 2: inclusion and community engagement in supported living

A supported living provider supporting adults with learning disabilities wanted its social value response to go beyond generic references to community connection. The context involved people at risk of social isolation and limited access to meaningful local opportunities without intentional support.

The support approach focused on volunteering pathways, community groups and partnerships with local organisations able to offer inclusive activity. Day to day, support workers recorded community participation goals, managers reviewed those goals through support plan meetings and leadership examined whether opportunities were being sustained rather than offered once for reporting purposes. The provider also gathered feedback from people using services about whether those opportunities felt meaningful and achievable.

Effectiveness was evidenced through increased volunteering participation, stronger feedback on community belonging and clearer outcome reporting around independence and inclusion. The statement was more persuasive because the community engagement offer was measurable and clearly linked to lived outcomes.

Operational example 3: sustainability and wellbeing in residential and outreach services

A residential and outreach provider wanted to evidence environmental sustainability and wider wellbeing in a realistic way. The context included commissioner interest in greener delivery, but also awareness that overclaiming would reduce credibility if the service could not measure the impact.

The support approach focused on reducing unnecessary travel, improving route efficiency for outreach staff, cutting avoidable waste and linking staff wellbeing to retention and service stability. Day to day, managers tracked mileage, reviewed usage patterns and monitored whether supervision and wellbeing support were contributing to stronger workforce consistency. Sustainability and workforce actions were reviewed through leadership meetings rather than being treated as separate initiatives.

Effectiveness was evidenced through reduced travel in some service areas, stronger reporting on workforce wellbeing activity and clearer internal oversight of environmental improvement measures. This gave the provider a more credible social value offer because it linked broader benefits to actual service operations.

How to make it tender-ready

A social value statement becomes tender-ready when it is aligned closely to the outcomes in the specification and written in a way that makes scoring easy. That means being specific, using local data or case studies where possible and avoiding broad promises that cannot be measured. If the statement says the organisation will recruit locally, create apprenticeships or reduce waste, it should also say how many roles, what pathways, which measures and how progress will be reviewed.

It is also important to show proportionality. Social value commitments should match the contract scope and the provider’s actual capacity. Overpromising can weaken credibility, particularly if there is no clear delivery route or governance structure. In adult social care, a smaller number of well-evidenced commitments will usually outperform a more ambitious but weakly evidenced list.

Good practice is to organise the statement under clear headings and then explain each commitment through the same sequence: what will be delivered, why it matters locally, how it will be implemented and how it will be measured and reported. This helps evaluators follow the logic and makes the answer easier to score consistently.

Common mistakes to avoid

One of the most common mistakes is submitting a generic statement with no local context. Commissioners usually want to know how your service will benefit their area, not how your organisation behaves in general. Another weakness is repeating what is already written elsewhere in the method statement without showing additional social value beyond the core service requirement.

Providers also weaken answers when they make promises they cannot measure or evidence. In adult social care, statements about reducing isolation, improving wellbeing or supporting inclusion need to be linked to practical activity and clear outcome indicators. If the promise cannot be measured, it is much harder for commissioners to trust.

Commissioner expectation: local, measurable and proportionate delivery

Commissioner expectation: Commissioners are likely to expect social value statements to show clear local relevance, specific commitments and a credible route to measurement and reporting. In adult social care, stronger responses usually demonstrate how social value supports local jobs, inclusion, sustainability, community resilience or wider wellbeing in ways that are proportionate to the contract and capable of being reviewed over time.

Regulator / Inspector expectation: wider value should sit within a well-led service

Regulator / Inspector expectation: Although social value is usually assessed through procurement and contract monitoring rather than inspection scoring itself, the commitments still need to sit within a safe and well-led service. If a provider makes attractive promises that are weakly owned, poorly governed or disconnected from day-to-day operations, those commitments are less credible. Stronger providers usually review social value through the same leadership and quality systems that support wider service assurance.

Final thought

A strong social value statement can give you a competitive edge in adult social care tenders, but only if it feels real, relevant and measurable. Commissioners increasingly expect providers to deliver and evidence social value, not simply promise it. The strongest statements therefore do more than show good intentions. They demonstrate local understanding, operational realism and a clear plan for creating wider benefit alongside the core service.

When providers get this right, social value becomes more than a scored section of the tender. It becomes part of the wider case for why they are a credible, community-aware and well-governed delivery partner.