Although the idea of Social Value – value to people, place, and planet beyond business-as-usual – is not UK-specific, the country has spent the last decade on a particular journey with Social Value, moving from narrow, undefined legislation to an operating model embedded into good business practice.

More recently, New Zealand has been on its own journey, and took a significant step with the October 2025 update to the Government Procurement Rules. The UK's experience offers something useful for the next phase. Guy Battle - CEO and Founder of Social Value Portal explains more. 

Why public sector procurement is the key lever

Public procurement is a hugely effective vehicle for scaling Social Value. The reason is structural: government spending is among the largest transfers of value in any developed economy, and the public sector has both the scale and the legitimate authority to attach conditions to how that value flows back into communities. Suppliers, community organisations, and social enterprises are all crucial, but no other actor combines that financial weight with that mandate.

For New Zealand, with annual government procurement spend of approximately NZ$51.5 billion (around 20% of GDP), the prize is huge.

Learning from the UK's journey

The UK has already demonstrated how the public sector can embed Social Value. The Social Value Act 2012 gave authorities the basis to consider Social Value in procurement. Procurement Policy Note 002 made the Social Value requirement operational: a minimum 10% weighting in tender evaluations for central government contracts. Alongside this, the Procurement Act 2023 places a legal obligation on contracting authorities to "have regard to" maximising public benefit. 

New Zealand has done some comparable work. Under the 4th edition of the Government Procurement Rules, agencies were required to consider Broader Outcomes – social, environmental, cultural, and economic benefits – when planning and awarding contracts. 

The 5th edition, in effect from 1 December 2025, consolidates the previous Broader Outcomes rules into a new Rule 8 focused on "economic benefits to New Zealand," backed by a mandatory 10% evaluation weighting and contractual obligations to deliver. Alongside the rule, government guidance sets out seven model economic benefits covering employment, workforce development, regional development, environmental sustainability, and social and cultural outcomes. 

This shared set of categories gives agencies and suppliers a common reference point. What's not yet established is a standardised way to measure and report delivery. Without this common language for Social Value, comparing delivery and understanding performance is difficult, and improvements are hard to drive across the system. 

How the UK measures Social Value 

In the UK, the Social Value TOM System™ emerged early on as a widely adopted standard for measuring and reporting Social Value at scale – and the data shows the success this produced. 

The TOM System is built around Themes (broad areas), Outcomes (strategic objectives), and Measures (specific, trackable activities. It is used widely across the public sector in procurement and for reporting impact.  

What has proven uniquely effective about the TOM System in the UK is its use of proxy values: financial figures that express benefits to people, communities, and society on a single scale. 

Hiring a long-term unemployed person, for instance, generates an SV£ figure built from the income gained, the future earnings lifted, the fiscal saving to the state, and the health and wellbeing benefits to the individual. This provides:

• A standardised way of measuring Social Value

• Adaptability to different priorities

• Usability by procurement teams, decision-makers, and community stakeholders alike

Social Value: More than a number

Across a representative sample of Social Value delivered through UK public procurement reported with the TOM System between 2020 and 2025, the upper-quartile (top 25%) of performers generated an additional 38% of social, economic, or environmental value for every £1 of public spend, at no extra cost to the buyer. 

On a NZ$50 million contract, that same performance would equal NZ$19 million of additional community value – on top of the contract's core purpose. Applied to New Zealand's NZ$51.5 billion total public procurement spend, it would represent over NZ$19.5 billion in additional Social Value generated each year through procurement that's already happening.

Of course, while measuring impact in financial terms is strategically useful for procurement and reporting, it’s important to remember that the figures are more than numbers – they ultimately represent tangible outcomes for people, place, and planet. 

In the UK, we have seen:

• 300k local people employed

• £5bn spent with micro, small, and medium enterprises (SMEs)

• £95m spent with Voluntary, Community, Faith, and Social Enterprises (VCFSEs)

• 2.4m tonnes of carbon emissions saved

• 3.4k employment opportunities created for people facing barriers to work 

A common Social Value framework

A standardised framework gives procuring authorities a common reference point: a way of knowing what good looks like across different contract types, supplier sizes, and categories of impact. Using a financialised language meanwhile resonates with boards, investors, and commissioners. 

It also allows more effective procurement because it allows buyers to not only assess impact from a subjective point of view, but also to objectively and quantitatively assess multiple bids. 

Markets in New Zealand’s region have already begun this journey. The TOM System for Australia is already in use, built around Australian data sources and contexts. Ventia, one of the largest infrastructure businesses across Australia and New Zealand, uses it because they recognise the value of consistent, evidence-based measurement. 

"It's one thing for an organisation to say this is the Social Value you bring. It's another thing to have a standard measure and be able to compare and benchmark versus others."
- Dean Banks, CEO, Ventia

What New Zealand's procuring authorities should do now

New Zealand has a big opportunity around Social Value in procurement. These three concrete actions represent the next steps to capitalise on it:

• Build on existing legislation. The mandatory 10% weighting on economic benefit is a strong first step. Extending the same approach to capture as many social, environmental, and cultural outcomes as possible would deepen the impact. Authorities should consider a total weighting of 15-20% which is common practice in the UK.

• Adopt a shared framework for defining, measuring, and reporting Social Value. This should be localised for New Zealand, as the TOM System for Australia has been for its context. Without a common reference point, every procurement team is making local judgements in isolation and improvements are hard to drive across the system.

• Consider using financial proxy values. A monetised approach gives procurement teams a single scale to weigh different kinds of contributions, and a language that speaks to boards, investors, and political stakeholders. 

New Zealand’s legislation has already set the direction. What comes next – how delivery is measured, compared, and reported – will determine how much of New Zealand’s multi-billion Social Value opportunity comes to fruition. 

Guy Battle is CEO and Founder of Social Value Portal, and a passionate social and eco-entrepreneur. He is former Lead Partner for Sustainability Services at Deloitte, Founder of the Sustainable Business Partnership, Co-Chair of the Public Sector Chapter of the Sustainable Procurement Pledge in the UK, and Chairman of the Board for Riversimple.