10089642Verifying impact through direct access to community networksClosedInvestment AcceleratorInnovate UKThe Social Value Act allows government to drive social and environmental impact through its supply chains, with third party spend of approximately £270bn a year. It can use its spending power to effect a shift in supplier behaviour - incentivising suppliers to deliver additional social and environmental benefits in the communities they are working when delivering government contracts. Social Value can be instrumental in the delivery of several strategic outcomes, from addressing economic and social inequalities to community development to its new post-Brexit procurement regime. Social Value has become a significant factor in the award of government contracts. Often Social Value receives 10% tender weighting when supplier tenders are evaluated and scored. In some authorities, this rises to 20%, For larger contracts then, where suppliers' unit costs are often commensurate, Social Value can determine contract award. This should be a good thing. But it is not, because suppliers increasingly make Social Value bids to win, rather than to deliver. This has resulted in a perception of 'impact washing'. Suppliers are able to do this because the process by which Social Value bids are scored at tender stage and how Social Value commitments are delivered in contract mobilisation have been de-coupled. Current approaches to establishing a link between these two processes are sub-optimal and problematic. They are costly, at best - through the use of expensive 3rd party consultants - and riven with potential conflicts of interest, at worst (suppliers being asked to self-report). Right now, Social Value is not working in the way that it can. We created Match My Project in 2022, and it is this year's winner of the Best Initiative to Deliver Social Value Through Procurement award from the Chartered Institute of Procurement and Supply. This funding will allow us to build a new measurement tool that links Social Value commitments to the Social Value delivery enabled by Match My Project. Our Match My Project marketplace gives us direct access to beneficiaries - community organisations and individuals - who verify delivery of Social Value commitments, to time and quality. Community verification means no conflict of interests and no expensive third parties. In addition, community feedback means we can introduce deadweight, attribution and displacement to impact evaluations at lower cost. This will increase the quality of those evaluations and our understanding of what interventions are working to improve social and economic outcomes for local communities.