This year we have been forging relationships with colleagues across the construction sector in order to spread the word of our research and to progress our work where it can be implemented. Kate Faccia has been leading this part of our project and introduced our work to the team at Atkins Global, who have not only a large Heritage team but also a Social Value team who work to embed their Social Value Protocol into all their projects. We worked with Michelle Baker their Assistant Director (Social Value) and Gareth Talbot Principal Heritage Consultant on a piece for Construction News, published in March 2022. It’s behind a paywall, but the (slightly edited for brevity) content is reproduced below:
Conversations about social value
Conversations about Social Value are at various stages across the development sector, with many organisations embedding the concepts and principles, while others are still developing their approaches. At the same time the guidance is evolving rapidly, with the widespread commitment to providing value for communities showing no sign of slowing.
This is a change that has come about since the introduction of the Public Procurement Note (PPN) 06/20, providing the structure through which these can be identified and sets the standard to which public tenders should respond. As a result, many councils and boroughs will have revised their expectations as to what should be supplied with an application and tenders are including specific Social Value provision in their evaluation metrics.
These Social Value-focused conversations have led to more collaborations between public and private sectors. Existing frameworks offered by focused schemes from both the public and private sectors, such as the Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPS) and the various Social Value toolkits, lead decision-makers through project design, ensuring Social Value is maintained as a priority through to implementation and outcomes.
It is well worth being aware of the details within the PPN 06/20 and thinking carefully about how cultural heritage could respond to its specific requirements. Planning frameworks require developers to consider impacts on the historic environment, which includes archaeological remains, historic buildings, parks and gardens, battlefields as well as the more well-known World Heritage Sites, scheduled monuments and listed buildings. This developer-led work is by far the most significant source of new archaeologically-derived knowledge and is a vital contributor to the tourism industry, as well as contributing over £200m to local economies annually.
The archaeological stages of a project tend to be in the first phases, usually at groundworks. But the opportunities for value creation that the historic aspects of a place could contribute would last well beyond the construction phases, and would embed a legacy of longer-term benefits for the local community.
The impact of archaeological projects is often assessed on a regional basis, and the research potential forms the major part of any plans for analysis and dissemination. However, the undeniable local aspects of our work offer new opportunities for us to contribute to Social Value outcomes. These could be as disparate as urban design, training and skills, community cohesion, and both individual and communal wellbeing.
A current example of this can be seen in Transport Scotland’s Archaeology and Trunk Roads Guidance Note which specifies the use of specialist contracts for archaeological investigations at all stages of trunk road development, setting out the requirements to realise associated community benefits. Outreach, publication and public engagement can therefore be delivered in a cost-effective manner by enshrining them within tender requirements.
The cultural heritage of our local places is complex and communities will have different ways of responding to it, but archaeology provides an authentic way of accessing this, and has much to offer Social Value outcomes.
