Delivering social value is a core element of our business strategy: supported by our employees, encouraged with our suppliers and communicated to our clients/prospects. We strive to support the local areas and communities where we work, both on the contracts with our clients across the UK & Ireland and via our central business operations in the North West. While it can be challenging because we work on a project-by-project, often short-term basis, we continually seek new ways to support and deliver social value where possible.
Social Value Delivery
The types of Social Value outcomes that we have supported, or can support, on client projects include:
- Taking on Apprentices where contract duration allows
- Facilitating work experience placements to shadow us on projects
- Proactive knowledge transfer
- Delivering CV advice and mock interviews
- Giving talks to local schools/colleges
- Mentoring support for local business professionals
- Sponsoring local events
- Supporting our customer’s charity fundraising activities
- Volunteering with local community projects.
We are registered with the Social Value Portal (SVP) and have reviewed the national themes, outputs and measures (TOMs) to ensure we can identify sufficient achievable measures to validate our own social value outcomes. If clients choose to use this platform to monitor and evaluate our social value commitments, then we are ready and keen to support its use to ensure we deliver against plans and expectations.
Active Knowledge Share
Central to our social value commitments is the sharing of our knowledge and expertise for the general advancement of local businesses, charities, schools/colleges, communities and individuals. Outside of specific client/project knowledge transfer social value commitments, we share thought leadership articles on a weekly basis and make our white papers and guides freely available to download.
Leading by Example
Our social value policy and activities are directed and supported by our senior leadership and management team, with the CEO himself making personal commitments to deliver Social Value outcomes. Best Practice Group CEO, Allan Watton, provides ongoing mentoring support to local professionals and regularly offers free consultation appointments for businesses to seek high-level advice on a variety of business matters. Allan is a recognised authority and thought leader in public sector complex strategic supplier relationships, combining operational, technical and legal/contractual expertise. He has a wealth of knowledge and experience from a 30+ year career that would benefit many senior managers in their career development.
Supporting Local Economies & Tackling Economic Inequality
We actively support local supply chains and local economies both related to our central business operations in the North West and on the contracts we work on throughout the UK and Ireland. As an SME, Best Practice Group is keen to procure the services of other likeminded SMEs, ideally based locally to help strengthen the local community/industry.
When delivering procurement/sourcing support we use our market knowledge and expertise to maximise supplier engagement and ensure that new or emerging technology suppliers are encouraged to participate in competition: we have designed an early market engagement process which assures such engagement. We also ensure that contract resource requirements address local employment needs and encourage resourcing from disadvantaged or minority groups, engaging with local suppliers and SMEs and encouraging the development of local workforces. We have helped a number of clients to meet their objectives in this particular area of social value commitment by ensuring their new providers abide by commitments to employ a diverse mix of local individuals and SMEs.
We have our excellent track record of identifying skills gaps and supporting skills development for our clients’ internal teams. We have an open and collaborative approach to knowledge transfer to help upskill client teams and ensure our knowledge does not disappear when our project role comes to a close. We build capability through a combination of knowledge sharing techniques such as work shadowing, mentoring, formal one-to-one instruction/training and group workshops/presentations. This capability building supports in-work progression that can help employees of the contract workforce to move into higher paid work.
Wellbeing
We are committed to ensuring the wellbeing of all our employees and continue to support a flexible, hybrid working policy which allows our teams to manage their work-life balance. With regular catch ups and a ‘open door’ policy, we ensure no one working remotely ends up feeling isolated, everyone feels part of a team and understands the importance of the role they play. We endeavour to extend our wellbeing commitments to the client teams we work with, maximising output through our integrated team approach where everyone feels valued and supported.
Anti-Slavery Policy
Our anti-slavery policy reflects our promise to act ethically and with integrity in all our business relationships. We do not enter into business with any organisation, in the UK or abroad, which knowingly supports or is found to be involved in slavery or forced labour. Our supply chains and supplier adherence to our core values have been established over many years. We have close and personal links and contact with the owners or directors, reflecting the fact that, in the main, we partner with SMEs. When we appoint new contractors or suppliers, we qualify them through a due-diligence process. We look at company performance and get references from other customers to establish that they are suitable. We assess ourselves to have a low risk of modern slavery in our business and supply chains.
