The Social Value Awards

Announcing this year’s winners!

Submissions for the Social Value Awards are now officially closed, and we are delighted to announce this year’s shortlist. A big thank you to everyone who put the effort into their entry, and on behalf of the judges, it has been an absolute pleasure reading through some of the most thoroughly compelling Social Value Stories we seen in years.

We saw a whopping combined 270 submissions across 11 categories, which is double that of last year. The quality of entries this year was also exceptionally high, a positive indicator of just how far the UK has come on its Social Value journey since we first opened these awards back in 2018. Scroll down this page further to see the winners for 2024.

Headline Awards Sponsor

Pre-awards drinks sponsor

This year’s nominees

Social Value Champion Award

For an individual in any sector who is leading the way in delivering the Social Value Economy through their own work or the work they are doing within their organisation. This will include making Social Value core, being accountable, creating capability and demonstrating how they have collaborated across multiple stakeholder groups to achieve this.

The nominees this year are:

  • Shah Begum - United by 2022

  • Suki Dhillon-Basra - Danny Sullivan Group

  • Liz Obertelli - Breyer Group (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Mahroof Anwar - NHS North West Procurement Services (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Amy Holbrook - PH Jones

  • Molly Harris - Travis Perkins Managed Services

  • Michael Amos - Waste to Wonder

  • Innes Murray - BTTC (WINNER)

  • Tony Brady - Sodexo UK&I

  • Sandy Clark - ISS UK

Public Sector Leadership Award

For a public sector organisation that has made a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through how it is delivering its services. The judges will be looking for innovative approaches to solving the challenges being faced through Social Value. Leadership may be evident across the organisation as a whole or within a particular part.

The nominees this year are:

  • NHS London Procurement Partnership

  • Sheffield City Council

  • Ebbsfleet Development Corporation (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • LNER

  • Sandwell Council

  • The London Borough of Waltham Forest (WINNER)

  • MCC Highways

Private Sector Leadership Award

For a private sector organisation that has made a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through how it is delivering its services. The judges will be looking for innovative approaches to solving the challenges being faced. Leadership may be evident across the organisation as a whole or within a particular part.

The nominees this year are:

  • Wates Residential (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • DA Languages

  • WSP (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Robertson

  • Dunsters Farm Limited (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • ISS

  • Adra (WINNER)

SME and VCSE Leadership Award

For a small to medium-sized enterprise (SME) or a voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisation that is making a significant contribution to the Social Value Economy through what they do and how they are working. In addition, the judges will be examining how this nominee has made a notable impact on the needs of the communities where they operate.

This year’s nominees are:

  • STEMAZING

  • JPA workspaces

  • LibertyBus

  • Sahan Cares CIC (WINNER)

  • Gallaway Construction (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Standing Tall

Making Core Award

The first step along the journey of delivering a Social Value Economy is for organisations to embrace and then ‘make core’ the principles behind said Economy. This award is looking for organisations that have made a notable shift in their culture and a discernible change in their governance that supports transformation. Examples may include how a business has adapted its ESG strategy to embrace Social Value, how a voluntary organisation has successfully adapted to meet the requirements of the Social Value Act, or how a buyer has overcome significant internal challenges to deliver Social Value.

This year’s nominees are:

  • Rotherham Borough Council

  • EIT Food

  • Understanding Recruitment Group (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Lendlease Europe

  • Keepmoat (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Bristol City Council (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Kirklees Council

  • Bailey Partnership

  • Nan Fung Group (WINNER)

Accountability and Reporting Award

For any organisation that is going one step further in holding itself accountable to its key stakeholders, including how it has engaged and communicated with local communities.

This year’s nominees are:

  • Canal and River Trust

  • Workspace Group

  • McLaughlin & Harvey

  • Adra Housing Association (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Morgan Sindall Property Services (WINNER)

Creating Capability Award

An award that recognises the contribution that an organisation has made in building knowledge and capability to deliver the Social Value Economy. The award is looking specifically at how an organisation is supporting the upskilling of its own internal teams and secondly, how they are engaging with and building capability across their supply chains. The contributions will be judged on both their innovation and also breadth and depth of impact and may be through a learning management system, or through better supply chain engagement or even the development of a knowledge hub. 

This year’s nominees are:

  • Community Leisure UK

  • Cognizant

  • Hays UK - Project Flourish (WINNER)

  • Wates Group

  • Accenture UKI (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Mott MacDonald - FUTURES4You

Radical Collaboration Award

This award recognises the importance of collaboration to deliver the Social Value Economy. It will be awarded to an organisation or cross-sector team that has delivered an amazing Social Value outcome or innovation through the power of radical collaboration. This may be through a project, technology, or innovation or even a networking group.

This year’s nominees are:

  • Forests with Impact (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Heidelberg Materials & Chapter One

  • HMP Perth

  • We Made That

  • Spacehive & Kent County Council (WINNER)

Enabling Technology Award

This award will be given to an enabling technology, business system or process that has been designed to enable the successful delivery of a Social Value Economy. Judges will be looking for a clear description and evidence of how the enabling technology addressed or proposes to address a market failure, as well as evidence of the outcome delivered.

This year’s nominees are:

  • TellJO

  • Version 1

  • Spacehive

  • Chapter One UK (WINNER)

  • Provide Community (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Match My Project at SNG

Excellence in Planning

Embedding Social Value into the planning process is the new frontier and this award is for a planning team that is leading the way in this respect. The planning team may be changing their local plan or updating their planning requirements. The award winner will have found a way of unlocking additional value from development teams either through a Social Value action plan or Section 106 and have the evidence to show this.

This year’s nominees are:

  • London Borough of Islington

  • Lendlease (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • Salford City Council (WINNER)

  • Sandwell Council

Excellence in Real Estate

This a collaboration award for a real estate team, including developers, professional services teams, contractors, and property managers, that has demonstrated the extra steps required to embed the principles of Social Value into the design, construction and occupation of a building or masterplan. The award covers any phase of a project, from inception to re-use. It may be still on the drawing board or completed, but will need to show clear evidence that consideration of Social Value has impacted decision making and outcomes. This might  include how community engagement has impacted project design, how specification and procurement has helped build the local economy,  or how a building management team has helped unlock value for communities during occupation.

This year’s nominees are:

  • Thakeham

  • Robertson

  • Populo Living

  • Lendlease (WINNER)

  • Battersea Power Station Development Company (HIGHLY COMMENDED)

  • The Happy Homes Project