"Social Value" is coming down your supply chain. Here's what it means if you're small.
If you're a small firm that does work for a council, a housing association, a main contractor or a developer, you may soon get an email that says something like: "As part of our contract commitments, we need our suppliers to support local employment and skills. Please confirm what you can offer."
If that lands and you think "we're six people, what am I supposed to do with this?", this piece is for you.
What's going on
When public money gets spent, the organisation spending it is expected to show what the local community gets out of it beyond the thing being bought, such as jobs, apprenticeships, work experience and training. That's Social Value. It has been part of public procurement for years, and this summer government strengthened the jobs and skills expectations in its own major contracts.
Big contractors win work partly on those promises. Then they have to deliver them, and a lot of the actual work on any big contract is done by smaller businesses. So the ask travels down the chain to you.
A national commission led by Youth Employment UK and Business in the Community has just looked at how this works in practice. Their conclusion is blunt: the intent is good, the delivery is patchy, and small businesses are the ones most likely to be handed a requirement with no support to meet it. They say plainly that commitments shouldn't be passed down to SMEs as paperwork.
We agree, and we'd add that small businesses are often better placed to do this well than large ones.
Why you're better at this than you think
A young person on a placement at a large firm might spend a week shadowing someone in a department of 200. In a business of six, they meet the owner, see the whole operation and do real work by Wednesday.
The Youth Voice Census 2026 asked young people what would help them most into work. Three quarters of jobseekers said paid work experience, up from 55% last year. Among those who'd done a placement, 72% rated it good or excellent. The demand is there, and what's short is the number of businesses offering placements.
What "doing your bit" can look like at your size
It doesn't have to be an apprenticeship. The commission describes a simple pathway of Explore, Experience, Employment, and you can start at whichever step fits.
Explore. This takes an hour. A workplace visit, or twenty minutes talking to a college group about what your trade is really like.
Experience. This takes a day. One paid taster day for one local young person. You see how they work, and they get the experience line every job ad asks for.
Employment. This happens when you're ready. A part-time role, a seasonal job or an apprenticeship, offered to someone you've already met.
Each of those counts as local employment and skills activity. If you can show it happened, it's also evidence your main contractor needs.
What's usually missing
In our experience small firms are usually willing. What holds them back is finding the young people, knowing what's reasonable to offer, and proving it afterwards without a spreadsheet and a lost afternoon.
That's what we're building the inyourroots® Ecosystem to handle. You list what you can offer, from an hour to a job. Local young people who already know their strengths express interest, and you decide who to meet. When something happens, such as a visit, a taster day or a hire, it's recorded, and if someone up the chain asks what you've done, you have the answer.
We're in beta across Essex and Suffolk and looking for our first 100 local businesses. A profile is free. [LINK]
Sources: National Commission on Local Opportunity Report 2026 (Youth Employment UK and Business in the Community); Youth Voice Census 2026 (Youth Employment UK).