Is your business mission ready for the 2025 Social Value Model?

What’s changed, what’s scored and how to win bids under the PPN 002.

Is your business mission ready for the 2025 Social Value Model?

In February 2025 the UK government released PPN 002: Taking account of social value in the award of contracts—a long-awaited refresh of the Social Value Model that goes live today (1 October 2025), raising the bar for how social value is designed, scored, and written into contracts across central government procurement. If your company bids on and delivers public sector work, this matters. A lot.

Background to the update

The update to the Social Value Model follows the Procurement Act 2023, which streamlines procurement and ensures public buying supports wider government priorities. A key shift is from MEAT (most economically advantageous tender) to MAT (most advantageous tender): price still matters, but awards should also deliver measurable economic, social, and environmental benefits—not just cost savings. The updated Social Value Model in PPN 002 operationalises this shift.

What’s new in the Social Value Model

The updated Model is mission-driven, aligning social value delivered through public procurement with the government’s national missions. It provides a clear framework of:

·       Missions

·       policy outcomes –

·       Model Award Criteria (MACs) and sub-criteria

·       Standard Reporting Metrics (SRMs).

It’s more prescriptive, measurable and enforceable, with social value commitments made at tender stage reflected in contract terms and metrics. You’ll also see a standard model question in tenders, bringing greater consistency in the question asked and how you are expected to respond.  

The National Missions

The updated, mission-driven Social Value Model sets out a clearer framework, including a defined set of Standard Reporting Metrics (SRMs) across the five missions. These SRMs are intended to make tracking social value impacts across government departments and contract delivery more transparent. They also signal what a strong tender response should focus on and give a good indication of what will score well.

The missions align with broader government priorities, and while several themes from the 2020 Social Value Model carry over, there are notable changes:

• Mission 1: Kick start economic growth reflects the UK governments commitment to driving economic prosperity, increasing job opportunities, and improving productivity.  It can be mapped back to the themes of Tackling Economic Inequality and Equal Opportunities in the 2020 Social Value Model. Within the mission there are 3 policy outcomes that focus on creating more quality jobs, increasing productivity, and building strong local economies through fair work, future ready skills, and resilient and diverse supply chains.

  
  

• Mission 2: Make Britain a clean energy superpower reflects the UK government commitment to accelerating the transition to a net zero nation, reducing bills, and creating green jobs that strengthen energy security. This mission is largely unchanged from the previous models Fighting Climate Change theme, with one policy outcome that focused on carbon reduction, use of green and clean energy technologies and sustainable procurement practices.

  
  

• Mission 3: Take back our streets reflects the UK Governments commitment to reducing violent crime, improving public safety, and increasing confidence in the police and criminal justice system. This is new addition and doesn’t specifically map back to the 2020 social value model. While the policy outcome supporting reduction in crime through community cohesion, awareness raising and action interestingly the only MAC under this mission focuses specifically on action taken with staff, suppliers, customers, and communities to support the reduction in domestic abuse. Given the guidance in the PPN on selecting outcomes that are relevant to the contract type, this mission and outcome potentially has limited applicability in public sector procurement.

  
  

• Mission 4: Breakdown barriers to opportunity reflects the governments committed to ensuring that public sector procurement support education childcare and social mobility creating a more inclusive and fairer society.   This mission maps to but is an evolution of the Equal Opportunities theme of the 2020 Social Value model, and we believe will be widely used through public sector procurement due to the wide-reaching focus of the mission.

  
  

• Mission 5: To Build an NHS for the future ensure that public sector procurement actively supports on the NHS by improving healthcare delivery, reducing inequalities in access to services. The MAC focuses on the provision of health and wellbeing services in the contract workforce which will contribute to reducing the burden on the NHS by ensuring employers are proactively supporting their employees and supply chains. Again, given the guidance in the PPN on selecting outcomes that are relevant to the contract type, this mission and outcome is likely to used solely on NHS and healthcare service procurement.

Conclusion

The 2025 Model is a focused, evolved framework that seeks to ensure suppliers bidding on public sector contracts make numeric, time-bound clear, promises—and then deliver them. Whether it’s a true step-change will depend on how consistently buyers enforce SRMs in contract management, but the direction of travel is promising.

Is your business mission ready?  

If not start by reviewing your social value strategy against the updated model (missions-outcomes-MACs-KPIs) and identity where there may be gaps in your approach and likely focus of your target client procurement activity.

Get in touch if you want to find out more or need support in evolving your approach.