The Programme and Project Partners – Social Impact Toolkit

1. Introduction

Following on from the Social Value Act 2012, central government announced it would go further and explicitly evaluate social value when awarding most major contracts.

Since 01 January 2021, the Social Value Model must be applied to all new procurement activity so, for any major procurement, you will be asked to outline your commitment detailing how you will support the partners to deliver the maximum social impact for our local communities through your response to specific social impact questions.

This Social Impact Toolkit is designed to help The Programme and Project Partners supply chain partners understand what social impact is, why it is important, how to embed it into the procurement process and how they can support positive changes in the community.

The Programme and Project Partners was formed by Sellafield Ltd in 2019 – bringing in KBR, Doosan Babcock, Jacobs and Morgan Sindall Infrastructure – to transform major project delivery at the nuclear site.

As part of The Programme and Project Partners, our supply chain will deliver approximately £5 billion of the £7 billion spend, this can have a significant positive impact on the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of our local communities.

By working together, we can ensure we unlock social value and deliver a real, meaningful change which will directly impact the communities we are working in.

It is worth noting that all impacts are important and should be considered in the context of each project, programme, or organisation.

To this end, our supply chain should focus on commitments which can be delivered on and those that create positive change.

In 2018, Oxford Economics, a leading organisation in global forecasting and quantitative analysis, demonstrated the significance of Sellafield’s contribution to the UK economy and the positive social impact felt locally and nationally.

They also highlighted risks around local economic diversity and resilience in their report.

We also provide a key capability in the Warrington area.

By supporting our communities to exploit and develop their capabilities, we will enable them to generate greater value and drive economic diversification.

2. What is social impact?

The Programme and Project Partners social impact team defines social impact as the life changing effect that our business actions have on people and the community.

Ultimately, it’s about creating permanent, positive and significant social, environmental or economic change through deliberate activities which change people’s lives in West Cumbria and Warrington.

We identify 2 categories of social impact, embedded and additional.

All contracts at Sellafield will have an embedded social value.

This is the social value that is gained purely as a by-product of having the workforce you need to deliver the work, through existing company activities or activities which would be expected of any responsible business.

Examples of embedded social value include, but are not limited to:

• employing people in line with your resource plan
• Transfer of Undertakings Regulations 2006 (TUPE) of existing workforce
• ensuring 5% of your workforce are apprentices (an industry standard)
• delivering work experience, science, technology, engineering and maths (STEM) or education outreach and career activities in isolation or entirely specific to your own organisation
• improving your own internal working practices which address workforce inequality or health and wellbeing

It’s still important to measure and account for embedded value using tools like Sellafield themes, outcomes and measures (TOMS’s) but within your tender response we expect you to detail your commitments to deliver additional social value, above and beyond the basic workforce needs for contract delivery.

Examples of additional social value include, but are not limited to:

• commitments that show how a proportion of workforce and trainees will be recruited from disadvantaged backgrounds
• upskilling activities which have a wider recognised or accredited benefit beyond your current or future workforce
• working collaboratively to deliver education activity which is focussed on improving students’ educational outcomes or employability prospects
• commitments to use the skills and resources within your organisation to deliver long term and sustainable activity which addresses known local needs (i.e. skills-based volunteering, supporting COVID-19 recovery etc)
• maximising the impact through flowing down commitments within your supply chain
• identifying further business opportunities within your organisation or your supply chain beyond the contract delivery which could be delivered from the local area

In tenders we are looking for embedded and additional impact.

3. Where social impact should be delivered

The Nuclear Decommissioning Authority (NDA) have a responsibility to fulfil socio-economic requirements under the Energy Act (2004) to help maintain sustainable communities around their sites leading up to and after eventual site closure.

To do this, communities should be supported to:

• enhance the opportunity for local people to be involved in decommissioning work and other economic activity through education, retraining and skills development
• increase the attractiveness of areas near NDA sites as places to live, work and invest, in an effort to secure future economic sustainability
• work with nuclear new build and adjoining site organisations to ensure that the workforce and local communities are best placed to maximise the benefits and opportunities presented
• support the diversification of local economies into other sectors – reducing the reliance of communities on nuclear sites for employment by increasing the number, variety and vibrancy of local businesses, promoting entrepreneurship and taking steps to attract new enterprises.

4. Why does social impact matter to Sellafield Ltd and The Programme and Project Partners?

The Sellafield mission will last into the next century and as such there is a legal, moral and ethical responsibility to maximise social impact for current and future generations.

With over £7 billion of projects identified to pass through The Programme and Project Partners, a collaborative, joined-up approach to social impact is essential to enable it’s success.

From the Social Value Act in 2012 to the Public Procurement Notice (PPN) 06/20 issued in late 2020, the messaging from government is very clear on the expectation of greater value from every taxpayer pound spent.

This wider value is a key component of delivering The Programme and Project Partners benefits and critical success factors which drive everything we do. The benefits include creating opportunities for local people, increasing value for the UK taxpayer, improving cost and schedule certainty in major project delivery, accelerating high hazard reduction and, in turn, seeing Sellafield Ltd recognised for project delivery excellence.

5. Social impact priorities

The Programme and Project Partnership Social Impact Plan aligns with Sellafield Ltd’s Social Impact Strategy – Social Impact, Multiplied (also known as SiX).

Below, we have mapped out The Programme and Project Partners social impact priorities based on the categories of embedded and added.

These priorities are in alignment with the partnerships business case benefits, the critical success factors and the SiX programme.

Embedded impact:

• creating enhanced employment opportunities for people in West Cumbria and/or Warrington
• creating ‘return to work’ or ‘into work’ opportunities for those who are unemployed
• creating opportunities for local entrepreneurs, supporting economic growth and business creation
• creating training opportunities for people in industries with known skills shortages or in high growth sectors
• supporting educational attainment relevant to the contract, including training schemes that address skills gaps and result in recognisable qualifications
• creating a diverse supply chain to deliver the contract, including new businesses

Added Impact

• increasing start-ups and entrepreneurs creating jobs and economic growth
• creating employment opportunities not directly related to Sellafield Ltd or the partnership
• supporting economic diversification of the West Cumbria economy
• increasing employability prospects of those currently unemployed/underemployed
• increasing aspirations and relevant skills base in young people to enable them to succeed in their career
• supporting community organisations to become more sustainable
• supporting the workforce to volunteer in the local community
• identifying wider social issues, in West Cumbria and addressing these at root cause

Note – employment as embedded and added can confuse people. If you are supporting people into work via the partnership, that is embedded. If you are helping people into work in another part of your business, or helping them secure work elsewhere, that is added.

6. Case Study – The Programme and Project Partnership Internship Scheme

The Programme and Project Partnership Internship Scheme is designed to support residents of West Cumbria who face additional barriers to entering long-term, sustainable, quality careers.

It does this through a programme which aims to build:

• qualifications, skills and experience
• a supportive network of connections. Research shows this is just as important as qualifications and skills in building successful careers

There will be 2 cohorts each year which will start in April and October.

How does this align?

• objective: sustainable incomes
• priority: increase employability prospects of those currently unemployed or underemployed.
• embedded impact

How can you get involved?

Identify a role or roles in your team suitable for someone who is new to the nuclear industry and starts in either April or October.

These roles should be in areas where you know there is a long-term skills shortage. The roles will include 75% development time for the first 6 months and 25% development time for the next 12 months.

You’ll need to put in place:

• a job description. Please make sure this is written in plain English and uses gender neutral language. There are free tools online to check this for you
• a paid role; interns are paid the national living wage
• a suitable line manager, buddy and mentor. We will provide support and guidance for these roles.

For more information email: social.impact@sl-ppp.co.uk

7. Case study – Bedrock

Cumbria Community Foundation, in partnership with Sellafield Ltd, has designed and launched the Transforming West Cumbria (TWC) Programme.

This was designed following the findings from the West Cumbria Opportunities and Challenges report.

Bedrock is one of Sellafield Ltd’s social impact, multiplied projects within the TWC Programme which focuses on building the resilience, capabilities and financial sustainability of charities and community organisations in West Cumbria.

Bedrock consists of 2 elements:

Bedrock Awards

The awards are a tailored package of business consultancy and funding, delivered over 2 stages, designed to develop, and implement improved ways of working for a small number of charitable organisations in West Cumbria.

Bedrock Basics

The Bedrock Basics programme offers advice and support aimed at strengthening and building capacity of the community sector in West Cumbria, delivered by Cumbria CVS and Cumbria Exchange.

Bedrock forms part of the initial 3-year Transforming West Cumbria Social Investment Programme.

Unlike a traditional grant, which would support “business as usual” or a new project, the Bedrock Awards will help community groups to plan for sustainability, development, and growth via a thorough analysis of opportunities for improvement.

How does this align?

• objective: thriving communities
• priority: community organsiations are sustainable
• added impact

How can you get involved?

By committing hours to Timebank – more details about Timebank can be found in the Timebank section in this document.

But what would we do?

Staff from your business can support community organisations through skills-based volunteering either in person or virtually. This could be one off packages of work or a longer-term commitment but can be tailored to what you can commit to.

Community and voluntary organisations needs will differ throughout the professional skills sets but the request could be (but not limited to) advice or direct support with things like HR, communications, business planning or a set project.

For more information email: social.impact@sl-ppp.co.uk

8. Case study – Primary Business Partnership

The Primary Business Partnership connects primary schools with people from local businesses in Copeland and Allerdale.

Professionals from the business community are invited to support career-related learning activities that help inspire the next generation of young people. The scheme was founded by OneAIM to create a sense of aspiration and awareness of the broad range of careers available in Cumbria.

Activities can include aspirations sessions, science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) sessions or reading clubs.

This learning is focused on helping young people to understand who they could become and help them to develop a healthy sense of self.

The service is not about making career choices but more about exploration, development and helping children with their aspirations.

The Primary Business Partnership works with all 102 primary schools across Copeland and Allerdale.

Coordinating the efforts of businesses ensures all children in the area benefit from career-related learning activities.

How does this align?

• objective: sustainable incomes
• priority: increasing aspirations and relevant skills base in young people to enable them to succeed in their career
• added impact

How can you get involved?

By committing corporate volunteering time.

One activity would typically take 2 to 3 hours (including preparation). Participation can be in person or via virtual delivery.

What would we do?

Staff from your business (in person or virtually) can support career-related learning through skills-based volunteering. This could be a one off or through a longer-term commitment.

For more information email: info@pbp.org.uk

You can also find out more here: www.primarybusinesspartnershp.org.uk

9. Social impact in procurements

We have 2 common ‘routes to procurement’.

Social impact is factored into both.

Tenders

A formal, structured procedure for generating competing offers from different potential suppliers or contractors looking to obtain an award.

Direct Awards

A negotiation with one supplier without a competitive process. This typically happens for expedience or where only one supplier can offer the service.

If we are asking you to support a package for the next 18 years, the social impact you can deliver is very different to a company who have a 6-month contract. There is no one-size-fits-all.

Pre contract

For tenders – Invitation to tender, include a minimum 10% social impact weighting.

For direct awards – we have a minimum expectation, you can sign up to this or we can negotiate an alternative.

Contract setup

We agree a Key Performance Indicator (KPI). If you have a long-term commitment, we might want to agree a plan.

Delivery stage

We will monitor the KPI. We will also ask for completion of an annual impact report (this will usually be linked to your KPI requirements).

Contract close out

When your contract reaches the end, the partners commercial team will check with their social impact team whether agreed commitments have been delivered before contract close out.

If they have not, we report this across the business.

10. Social impact key performance indicators

Social impact commitments are embedded in awarded contracts using Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).

In the case of social impact KPIs, these are aligned with Sellafield Ltd’s Social Impact Strategy and the partnerships full business case benefits.

The KPI:

• makes commitments tangible
• aligns under one strategy so we deliver meaningful impact

Typically, a social impact KPI will include a series of measures, each with targets. We measure the performance of each target and the collective.

We agree at contract setup what is under performing, meeting expectation and expectational.

Those underperforming or achieving expectational are highlighted to the partnerships management board.

Example KPI measures:

Embedded: X number of local people transitioned into employment through an agreed back to work, into work or upskilling scheme.

Additional: X number of reciprocal business opportunities for local small businesses based in West Cumbria.

Every contract we let from April 2021 will have a KPI.

Every supplier will be expected to submit an annual social impact report. The partners social impact team will assist supply chain partners in completion of this report.

11. Understanding the impact

It is important that we understand the proposed impact.

We do not always ask you to formally reference attribution, displacement, or deadweight during a tender, but it’s worth understanding the terminology when you submit proposals and ensuring that your tender submission is clear about your intended impact.

Attribution is an assessment of how much of the outcome was caused by the contribution of other organisations.

Displacement is about how much of the outcome displaces other outcomes.

Deadweight is a measure of the amount of outcome that would have happened even if the activity had not taken place.

A great example of attribution is contract employment and subcontract spend. If you bid for work with the partnership, please do not advise that you will employ X number of people or spend £X unless you are doing something over and above what another contractor would be doing.

12. What is Timebank?

Timebank is a system we have created within the partners which uses the credits of ‘time’ rather than money for the purpose of supporting social impact initiatives.

Timebank coordinates corporate volunteering efforts centrally. Hours committed will be invested against the priorities of Timebank.

This is a simple ‘plug and play’ initiative which supply chain can connect into.

As a minimum, we expect supply chain partners to contribute 2 days, per full time equivalent (FTE) per year.

13. Useful links and documents

SiX – Sellafield Social Impact Programme

PPN/06/20 Model

PPN 14/15

Oxford Report-The Impact of Sellafield Ltd

Cumbria Community Foundation report- The opportunities and challenges in West Cumbria

14. Future updates

We will continue to update this toolkit; in the next update we will add:

• more case studies
• increased detail about initiatives you can connect into. We do not need lots of new ways of doing things.
  Sometimes the best thing you can do is support existing schemes.
• a template to help develop a Social Impact plan.

If you have any thoughts on useful additions, then please contact:

Luke Richardson, Programme and Project Partners Head of Social Impact social.impact@sl-ppp.co.uk