Department For Culture Media Sport
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Helpful links
Guidance for VCSE organisations
VCSE Crown Representative - Claire Dove CBE
VCSEs: A guide to working with government - This guide provides advice for voluntary, community, and social enterprise organisations on how to bid and win contracts with government
VCSE Contract Readiness Programme - the Contract Readiness Programme (funded by DCMS for 2022-2025) aims to support VCSE suppliers in England to work with government clients.
Public Services Hub - This platform, hosted by Social Enterprise UK, provides resources and opportunities to help advance the role of VCSEs in public sector commissioning
Tools for VCSE organisations
Contracts Finder - This tool enables charities, social enterprises, and other organisations to keep updated on new and upcoming contracts with over 12,000 with the government and its agencies
Find a Tender - This tool enables charities, social enterprises, and other organisations to search and apply for high value government contracts (usually worth 138,760 including VAT)
Find a Grant - This tool enables charities, social enterprises, and other organisations to search government grants and find out how to apply
Crown Commercial Service Upcoming Agreements - This tool enables charities, social enterprises, and other organisations to find relevant upcoming agreements under the Future Pipeline and Planned Procurements sections of the page
Resources for charities and social enterprises from the National Cyber Security Centre on Cyber Security:
- Small Charity Guide - This guide sets out how to improve cyber security within a charity - quickly, easily, and at low cost
- 10 Steps to Cyber Security - This provides guidance on how organisations can protect themselves in cyberspace
- MyNCSC - This provides a common point of entry to a number of the NSCSs Active Cyber Defence services
- Cyber Security Toolkit for Boards - This comprises resources designed to help board members govern cyber risk more effectively
Forewords
Minister Stephanie Peacock MP, Minister for Sport, Media, Civil Society and Youth
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) values the significant contribution that VCSE sectors make to the UK economy and civil society. Resetting the relationship between civil society and government is a key priority, and the government has a critical role in working with these sectors to ensure that they can play a role as an equal partner in delivering a shared vision of national renewal. One way the government is doing this is by working to increase civil society organisations delivery of public service contracts. In that context, I hope this VCSE Business Hub will be a useful resource for charities and social enterprises looking to increase their involvement in public service contracts and working together to deliver the governments missions.
VCSE Crown Representative, Claire Dove CBE
In my role as the Crown Representative for the Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise sector, I act as an intermediary between government and the charity and social enterprise sectors to champion the Social Value Act and improvements in commissioning practices.
I am keen to enable a thriving sector, through working to bring more charities, public service mutuals, and social enterprises (VCSEs) into public sector supply chains. I am also working with industry and sector experts to identify and reduce barriers to charities and social enterprises participation in public service markets.
To help meet these objectives, we have created the VCSE Business Hub. This hub has information for charities and social enterprises on how the government is engaging with the sector at a strategic level. For government departments that have published a VCSE Action Plan, it houses the latest information on their procurement and market engagement with charities and social enterprises. It also links to brilliant existing resources for charities and social enterprises from across the government. I hope that it will be a valuable resource for organisations across the civil society sector.
For practical guidance on how to work with public sector buyers, how to get ready for tender, what buyers are looking for, and 10 top tips for tendering, see our guidance page for VCSE organisations.
How the government is supporting VCSE organisations
This section talks about the ways that the government recognises and supports VCSEs in the public procurement process.
The Public Services (Social Value) Act
The government supports charities and social enterprises by bringing social value into public procurement through the Public Services (Social Value) Act.
The aim of creating this act was to secure more efficient and effective public services for local communities. The government also aimed to open up more opportunities for charities, public service mutuals, and social enterprises to deliver public services through creating the new legislation, recognising the positive impact that these organisations can have in delivering public services.
The Social Value Act puts those aims into practice by requiring people who commission public services to think about how they can secure social value, in the design of all major new procurements and award contracts on the basis of more than just price. There are 3 categories of social value:
- social (e.g. activities that promote productivity through an inclusive society)
- environmental (e.g. efforts to assist the community in reducing waste or pollution)
- economic (e.g. training, employment or apprenticeship opportunities for disadvantaged groups)
In June 2018, central government announced it would go further and evaluate social value when awarding most major contracts. Subsequently the government published the Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 06/20 in 2020, which set out how to take account of social value in the award of central government contracts by using the new Social Value Model. This tool for central government and arms length bodies sets out how to evaluate social value and report on the social impact of in-scope contracts consistently. It includes a requirement that the minimum weighting that should be applied to social value in the bidding process is 10%, so large suppliers are not able to win on scale alone.
The Procurement Act 2023
The government has introduced further legislation that will support the VCSE sector. The new Procurement Act 2023 reforms public procurement law to improve the way procurement is done. This benefits suppliers of all sizes, including charities and social enterprises. The new procurement regime:
- creates a simpler and more flexible commercial system, that will make it easier to bid, negotiate, and work in partnership with the public sector
- opens up procurement to new