This article gives general information on the Procurement Act 2023 and Procurement Policy Note PPN 002 as we understand them in October 2026. It is not legal or procurement advice. Each buyer's tender documents and contract decide what you must deliver and report; check them, and the current guidance, with your bid and legal teams.
Social value has been part of UK public procurement for years. What changed in 2025 is the framework around it. The Procurement Act 2023 came into force on 24 February 2025, and with it Procurement Policy Note PPN 002 and its Social Value Model, published in February 2025 for central government contracts. Contracts awarded under it are now in delivery, and buyers are asking suppliers to show what they promised. Many suppliers reach for their employee volunteering figures first. Those figures help, but only for some of what a buyer asks.
What PPN 002 asks for
- Social value is scored: central government buyers include social value in the tender evaluation, with a minimum of 10% of the total score.
- Outcomes linked to the government's missions: the buyer chooses the outcomes that matter for the contract, and bidders commit to deliver against them.
- Standard reporting metrics: during the contract, the supplier reports what it delivered using metrics set out with the model, reported by UK region.
- Older procurements: procurements started before 24 February 2025 follow the previous model under PPN 06/20.
What volunteering records can evidence
Two of the standard reporting metrics sit close to what a volunteering programme records anyway:
- 3bi: "number of engagement activities with the community, community representatives and/or anchor institutions". Each volunteering activity your people run with a local charity, school or community group is an engagement activity, with a date, a place and a partner who can confirm it.
- 4bi: "number of hours spent influencing staff, customers and communities to support the environment". Hours on environmental activities, such as a litter pick or a tree-planting day with a community group, can be part of the evidence. The metric is about influencing people, so check with the buyer how it wants those hours counted, and keep a note of what each activity involved.
Both are reported by UK region, so each activity needs one: the nine English regions, Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. Volunteering hours, the number of volunteers and the number of people helped add useful context around these metrics, even where the contract does not ask for them by name.
What volunteering can't evidence
- Commitments on other outcomes. Jobs, apprenticeships, training, supply chain spend or workforce wellbeing are reported with their own metrics and records. Volunteering hours are not a stand-in for them.
- Work outside the contract. Activities before the contract started, or done for another contract, don't count. One hour should count towards one contract only.
- Money given. A donation to a charity is not an engagement activity or an hour. Record it separately, as a donation or sponsorship.
- Estimates. Report what was delivered and confirmed. If you show the value of volunteering time, say how you worked it out.
What to record from day one
- The contract: the metrics and targets in the contract, the reporting periods and the buyer's reporting template.
- Each activity: the date, the partner, the UK region, whether it was an environmental activity, and the contract it counts towards.
- Each volunteer's hours: approved, not just signed up for. Attendance confirmed at the venue or by the partner is stronger evidence.
- Who benefited: the number of people helped, confirmed by the partner where you can.
- Evidence: partner sign-off, photos with consent, and an audit trail of approvals.
An illustrative example
Take a facilities supplier that starts a central government contract on 1 April 2026, with a commitment under 3bi to run 20 community engagement activities a year in the North West and Yorkshire and The Humber.
- By the end of September 2026, approved records show 9 activities linked to the contract: 6 in the North West and 3 in Yorkshire and The Humber, with 41 volunteers, 236 approved hours and 610 people helped.
- Two of the activities were park clean-ups with a local environmental charity, with 64 hours between them. The bid team asks the buyer whether those hours should go under 4bi before reporting them there.
- Another 5 activities in the same regions were never linked to the contract. Some may belong to it; linked now, with notes, they can be checked. Left unlinked, they are invisible in the report.
The figures are invented to show the method. Your own metrics, targets and reporting periods come from your contract.
Doing it in CorpHands
Create a campaign for each public contract and link the activities delivered under it, and set the UK region on every activity. The Giving and social value page, filtered by that campaign, shows the number of community engagement activities (3bi), hours on environmental activities (4bi), volunteering hours, volunteers, people helped, the value of volunteering time at your company's hourly rate and hours by UK region, and flags hours with no region. Download the CSV and copy the figures into the buyer's template; the UK report pack has the year's 3bi and 4bi figures, volunteering hours and hours by region. See how it works.