The Next Gen Sounding Board welcomed its second meet of the year to discuss and add our views to topics raised in the NLA Sounding Board’s May meeting. We focussed on the challenges and opportunities for London post-local elections before reflecting on the recognition of social value as a key metric following a resounding point raised in the main sounding board:

 

‘we’ve got to grapple with the issue of the value of places, which has been intimately tied up with local politics’ – how do we measure the social, environmental and financial value that investment brings to a place?

 

It was clear during our discussions as a Next Gen group that there is a strong interest within the group to focus on the importance of social value and that this is strongly intertwined in all the topics we discussed. 

 

Selasi Setufe of Be First opened the discussion by picking out key points from the main sounding board meeting, particularly focussing on comments about engaging inclusively with local communities, building relationships across council borders and the intermediate market being forgotten about. 

 

We echoed the main sounding board’s concerns over political churn and discussed how the predicted weaponising and politicking of the built environment will only reinforce an already troubled system: where project lifespans outlive political parties’ terms, preventing a long-term holistic view being taken on tackling the key issues which really matter. 

 

As recurring themes throughout our discussions, two of these key issues from a Next Gen perspective appear to be housing and the environment. These issues need to be able to sit above the politicking so that real, long-term solutions which really work can be identified and implemented. 

 

 

We went on to discuss how social value is currently being achieved on many projects - from community outreach to internships - with a number of large frameworks requiring certain targets to be met. Where it lacks however is that social value targets, although prevalent in the public sector, are only filtering through slowly into the private sector, and there is a concern these targets are just a ‘tick-box‘ exercise.

 

Some clients are leading the way on real social value, and Laura Collins of Stanhope points out that they have their own dedicated ESG experts to advise on projects – the board agreed that this is something that more SMEs should be encouraged to do and one of the challenges is how to incentivise this to companies with limited resources and finances to spend on social value. 

 

The Next Gen board discussed that although we are seeing a positive change in focus on social value, if it continues to be self-regulated and not mandated then there is a risk that targets may not be achieved, especially when we are entering into a period of economic uncertainty. Will social value be the first thing to go when no one has any spare cash?

 

We need to maintain a focus on these issues and ensure this is not the case. However, if social value is to be mandated in regulation, then there needs to be an established measure. Sophie Smith from Forsters states that there are mechanisms to secure social value in current frameworks, local plans and s106 agreements, but a suitable metric needs to be determined to allow social value to be delivered but which at the same time is flexible. 

 

Our discussions ended on the positive note of collaboration – the ‘Next Generation’ are more connected than ever before and have so much more opportunity to collaborate. We all need to work together; transcending disciplines, politics and geographies to form long-term solutions to tackle these issues.