Welcome to this month's newsletter, focusing on the latest changes to social value, what a decade of Emiratisation and Saudisation can tell UK bidders about where this goes next, plus interesting reading and upcoming events.
1) Social value gets a pay rise — and a narrower job description
PPN 026 doubles the social value weighting on the biggest central government contracts and shrinks the model down to jobs and skills. Here's what changed, why it's awkward for parts of the transport supply chain—and what a decade of Emiratisation and Saudisation can tell UK bidders about where this goes next.
Cabinet Office has a gift for timing. PPN 026, the new Social Value Model, landed on 5 August, when half the sector was out of office and the other half was pretending to be. If you had only just got comfortable with PPN 002, which replaced PPN 06/20 less than a year ago, commiserations: this is the second overhaul of the model in eighteen months, and the bigger of the two.
What’s actually changed
Two things, pulling in opposite directions.
First, social value now carries more weight. From 1 January 2027, in-scope central government contracts worth £1 million to £5 million must weight social value at a minimum of 10%. At £5 million and above, that minimum doubles to 20%. On a major transport contract, a fifth of your quality score is now riding on it.
Second, the model itself has shrunk. PPN 002 gave buyers five themes and eight policy outcomes to choose from - fair work, wellbeing, environmental sustainability, innovation and more. PPN 026 cuts that to two outcomes and six award criteria: good jobs and skills. The government’s definition of social value has been rewritten to match - good British jobs, skills and opportunities “in every postcode” - however hackneyed you think that phrase is.
Social value also becomes harder to walk away from after award. Commitments are expected to be monitored through contractual mechanisms such as KPIs, which means the promises in your submission will follow you into delivery. To be honest, the more advanced UK authorities are doing this already—but it is a useful reminder that what you write at bid stage will now be marked at delivery stage too.
One important caveat: PPN 026 applies to central government departments, their executive agencies and non-departmental public bodies. Local transport authorities and franchising authorities are not bound by it—though many will borrow from it, and plenty were ahead of it anyway. Detailed guidance and sub-criteria are promised for autumn 2026.
Higher stakes, narrower target—and the impact for transport businesses
Here’s the tension. The weighting has gone up, but the routes to scoring have narrowed to one theme: people.
If you are a labour-intensive business, that suits you fine. If you are a technology supplier, it is a genuine problem. A software or systems business bidding into a £10 million contract now has 20% of the score hanging on jobs and skills commitments—and hiring is expensive, slow and often simply not what the contract needs. You cannot conjure headcount to please an evaluator, and you should not want to. Under the old model, a technology bidder could lean on environmental outcomes or innovation.
We will need to see what the autumn guidance says about proportionality. But the deeper issue is the churn itself. This is the third version of the Social Value Model since 2020. Bid teams building multi-year pipelines are drafting against a moving target, and constant change is its own tax on smaller suppliers who can least afford it.
What it means for transport
For transport, the picture is genuinely mixed.
Good news for the employment side. Public transport is one of the few sectors that can answer a jobs-and-skills model honestly and at scale. Drivers, engineers, apprenticeships, depot-based training, routes into work for people facing barriers—this is what operators already do, in exactly the “every postcode” geography the model is written around. If you run services, this model plays to your strengths.
Less good for the supply chain. Vehicle manufacturers, ticketing and technology providers, and specialist SMEs have a harder hand. Their social value used to live in decarbonisation, innovation and supply chain resilience. A jobs-only lens undervalues what they actually contribute and risks rewarding padded employment commitments over genuine ones.
The Middle East got there first
If scoring jobs through procurement feels like a novelty, it isn’t. You could say: this is workforce nationalisation delivered through public spending, and the GCC has been running that experiment for over a decade.
In the UAE, Emiratisation requires mainland private companies with 50 or more employees to reach 10% Emirati representation in skilled roles by the end of this year, built up at 2% annually since 2023—with fines of AED 9,000 a month for every unfilled position. Saudi Arabia goes further. Under Nitaqat, your Saudisation band determines whether you can bid for government work at all: fall into the Red band and you are excluded from public procurement entirely. Layer on profession-specific quotas (70% for procurement roles, 30% for engineers) and local content weightings in tender evaluation, and you have a system where jobs and skills are not a scored annex—they are the licence to compete. Anyone who has bid a metro or bus contract in Riyadh or Dubai has been writing nationalisation and training plans as standard for years.
Two lessons for the UK.
1 - Mandated jobs targets always collide with commercial reality, and the Gulf’s decade of experience shows how that plays out: gamed compliance, followed by tougher enforcement (the UAE now prosecutes fake Emiratisation schemes) and, notably, subsidy—the Nafis programme tops up Emirati salaries to make the maths work. The UK is starting with scoring and KPIs; expect the same pressures to follow the same path.
2 - If you are a supplier working both markets, this is quietly good news: a genuine, evidenced workforce development strategy is now the common currency of winning public transport work from Manchester to Makkah.
What I’d do about it
Write your social value strategy now, before the guidance lands and before the next tender does. Not a bid annex—a standing document. What you already deliver on jobs and skills, the evidence behind it, the partnerships you can call on, and the commitments you can genuinely price and sustain. Do the work once, properly, and it is there every time a tender asks—rather than being assembled at 11pm the night before submission, which is where most social value responses are currently born.
🧭 Social value strategy for public transport — if you want a structured starting point, this is your starter for 10.
2) Useful reading
📄 PPN 026: The Social Value Model — the policy itself, direct from GOV.UK. Shorter than you’d fear.
🐝 Greater Manchester’s Good Employment Charter — worth a look as a live example of a jobs-led approach that predates the new model.
🚄 Etihad Rail completes new Dubai passenger station two months early - Arabian Business on the latest milestone in the UAE’s passenger rail build-out, delivered ahead of schedule. Rail continues apace in the Middle East, great to see.
3) Upcoming events
🚌 10 September - UK Bus Summit, Liverpool a good barometer of where the bus policy conversation sits going into the autumn. Do get in touch if you’ll be there.
🎓 14–16 September - UITP Diploma Programme for Managers in Public Transport (3 Modules) kicks off next month in London so still space to sign up. I'm one of the trainers so I'm biased but still space to sign up.
🚌 8–9 October - Clean Buses UK 2026, London Global Mass Transit's fifth annual conference on the UK's zero-emission bus transition, bringing together authorities, operators, OEMs and financiers. I'm moderating, so do come and say hello if you're there.
Team MAD - London to Paris triathlon
One more thing before I go. Regular readers know I don't usually ask for anything in this newsletter, so I'll keep it brief. Later this month, Team MAD — Mother and Daughter, aka my mum and me — are taking on the Enduroman Arch to Arc: an 80-mile run from Marble Arch to Dover, a Channel swim under Channel rules (no wetsuit, because let's make this harder?) and a 181-mile ride to the Arc de Triomphe. We're aiming to be the first Scottish team, the first all-female two-person relay and the first mother-and-daughter team to complete it.
We're raising money for Maggie's Centre Glasgow, which supports people affected by cancer and their families, a cause close to both our hearts. If you'd like to sponsor us, you can do so here, and normal service resumes next month. Possibly slowly 😉 Thank you!
Until next month,
Rachel
About Surbon Consulting
Surbon Consulting helps public transport operators, authorities and suppliers win contracts and deliver social value, with 18 years of experience and over 40 bids across the UK, Europe and the Middle East. Want to know more? Book a call or explore articles and resources.
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