Social Value Festival – 19th to 22nd July 2021

Posted on: July 12, 2021

Essex County Council will hold a Social Value Festival from Monday 19 to Thursday 22 July 2021. The Festival is aimed at existing and potential vendors to ECC of any size and type, ranging from small to medium enterprises to large organisations as well as social and community enterprises across the wide range of sectors in which we work. All of the sessions are online and are free of charge. Our goal is to communicate the festival to a broad range of audiences.

We would appreciate to have your support in communicating the Social Value Festival in your network of Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprises organisations. Claire Dove CBE, UK Government’s Crown Representative for Voluntary, Communities and Social Enterprises (VCSEs) will lead a session dedicated to VCSEs. Could we have a quick chat about the Festival? I would love to hear more about your work with communities and the opportunities to collaborate communicating the Social Value Festival.

The Festival will be led by Councillor Whitbread, Cabinet Member for Finance, Resources and Corporate Affairs who will launch the Social Value Catalogue, our new repository of advice, tools and examples and the programme features keynotes from leading experts in the field. These include Professor Chris White, the author of the Social Value Act (2012), Director of the Industrial Policy and Insight Centre at the Manufacturing Technology Centre and a visiting Professor of Industrial Strategy at Loughborough University. Arnab Dutt OBE, Head of Social Value Policy at FSB (Federation of Small Businesses) and member of UK Government SME Panel, will lead a session dedicated to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Please find attached the full event agenda and press release. We have images and other materials available as well.

The programme runs from Monday 19 July to Thursday 22 July as follows:

Day 1 – Monday 19 July

1 – 3pm: Introduction to Social Value and ECC Social Value Priorities

· Plenary session: keynote speaker Professor Chris White, the author of the Social Value Act (2012).

· Breakout sessions: ‘Social Value: The opportunity for Vendors’; ‘Social Value and the Climate’; and ‘Social Value: Creating New jobs and Skills’.

Day 2 – Tuesday 20 July

10 – 11am: Introduction to the National ‘TOMs’ method & ECC framework

12 – 1pm: Social Value at Essex County Council for SMEs

Day 3 – Wednesday 21 July

11am – 12pm: Social Value at Essex County Council for VCSEs

2 – 3pm: Social Value in health and social care