Redesigning Opportunity: A Portfolio Approach to Social Value

Social value now sits at the heart of public procurement. The Procurement Act 2023 and Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 002, signal that public money should not only buy buildings and infrastructure but also support goals such as inclusive growth, Net Zero and better health. Yet the way social value is measured has not caught up. Too often it is still defined by what is easiest to count on a single contract rather than by what genuinely changes lives. 

Wellington Place in Leeds - 11 & 12 Wellington Place has been awarded ESG New Build Project of the Year at the Property Week ESG Awards.

On many projects, social value is reduced to small, self-contained activities that can be neatly logged: a school visit, a short placement, a volunteering day. These can be worthwhile, but on their own they rarely build resilience or shift life chances. The real question should be whether investment in the public estate, including the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy, is helping to create long-term opportunity, stronger communities and more equitable outcomes. A narrow focus on individual tasks makes that harder to see. 

The problem lies in a fragmented, contract-by-contract mindset. Social value is often assessed in isolation for each commission, with bespoke promises requested even on small or short-term appointments. Designers and consultants feel this acutely. Our involvement is frequently time-limited and upstream, yet our real contribution comes from how we operate as a business across multiple programmes, sectors and places. Contractors may have more chances to work directly with local communities, but even there the most meaningful outcomes arise when efforts are joined up across a portfolio of schemes and sustained over years. 

There is also a weakness in how performance is scored. Social value in procurement can end up rewarding promises more than proof. Future commitments sometimes attract more marks than an evidenced track record of delivery. Public bodies are left managing a patchwork of micro-commitments that are hard to monitor and do not always add up to a coherent legacy. This administration absorbs significant resource without necessarily improving outcomes on the ground. 

Social value deserves better than to be treated as a compliance exercise. Used well, it is a policy lever that can help unlock inclusive local growth, widen access to good work, support the transition to clean energy and tackle health inequalities. To realise that potential, we need to change how we define and measure success, shifting away from counting activities on individual contracts towards understanding impact across organisations and over time. 

For a purpose-led business like Curtins, this points towards portfolio-level, company-wide models of social value, particularly for professional services. Instead of demanding fresh, project-specific promises on every tender, public bodies could ask how each pound of public income is translated into social, economic and environmental value across the full body of work an organisation delivers. They could place greater emphasis on track record, transparency and long-term commitments, with regular reporting that sits alongside other corporate disclosures. This would reduce duplication, align more clearly with national missions and free up capacity on all sides to focus on delivery rather than paperwork. 

That thinking underpins our partnership with The Purpose Coalition and our joint campaign, Redesigning Opportunity. Together, we argue that infrastructure should be seen not just as a collection of assets but as a system for creating opportunity. As an engineering consultancy with deep regional roots and national reach, Curtins is involved in projects and programmes across sectors including health, education, residential & housing, data centres, energy, science & technology, and secure buildings. We see every day how early, value-led engineering and design can help turn public investment into lasting benefits for people and places, from improved access to services to stronger local economies and healthier, more sustainable environments. 

We are working with our partners and policymakers to build the evidence for a more strategic approach to social value and to explore how procurement and planning can better support long-term, purpose-led outcomes. The direction set by the Procurement Act and PPN 002 is welcome, but to make the most of it we need measurement and reporting that reflect long-term missions rather than short-term metrics. The UK is investing heavily in its public estate, so every pound must work harder. If social value remains a narrow, contract-bound tick-box exercise, we will fall short. If instead we embrace a portfolio-level model that rewards authentic, long-term impact, we can begin to redesign not just our infrastructure but the way we understand its value. 

At Curtins, we are committed to that shift. Social value is not simply a set of numbers to report, but a way of shaping decisions so that public investment tackles the barriers that limit opportunity. Our aim is that the projects we help to deliver contribute to fairer outcomes and stronger communities, and that is how we will measure our success. 

- Oliver Delucia-Crook, Board Director - Head of Business Development at Curtins