Developers don’t need to build social value alone – colleges are ready to do the heavy lifting

Construction firms are under more pressure than ever to evidence genuine community impact. Nikki Davis of Leeds College of Building argues the answer is often sitting right on their doorstep.

Section 106 obligations now routinely demand local employment and training outcomes as a condition of consent. Public sector procurement scores social value at up to 20% of total bid weight under the Social Value Act. Tier 1 contractors are cascading the same expectations down through their supply chains. And on top of all that, ESG reporting requires investors and boards to see auditable evidence for the social pillar, not aspiration dressed up as commitment.

The direction of travel is clear, and it isn’t reversing. What’s less clear, for many firms, is how to deliver against it without diverting people away from the job of building.

A resource hiding in plain sight

Here in Yorkshire and the Humber, we sit inside one of the strongest construction labour markets in the North, alongside some of the country’s highest concentrations of young people not in education, employment or training. That combination is precisely the gap that further education colleges like Leeds College of Building exist to close.

As the Construction Technical Excellence College (CTEC) for the region, we already work daily with developers and contractors who are wrestling with exactly these obligations. What we see, time and again, is that the willingness is there. What’s missing is capacity: the time to source candidates, the expertise to design a compliant pre-employment programme, and the know-how to translate a site visit or a work placement into evidence that will stand up in a bid submission or a Section 106 discharge.

That is the gap a college can close. We can manage the recruitment, deliver the training, run the apprenticeship pipeline, and produce the National TOMs Framework-referenced reporting pack a planning authority or procurement evaluator wants to see. For the employer, involvement is reduced to what it should be: hosting a placement, giving a site tour, offering a handful of staff hours, and interviewing the graduates at the end of it.

Why this matters beyond compliance

It would be a mistake to treat this purely as a box-ticking exercise, because the same pipeline that produces your social value evidence also produces your workforce. Every placement, every apprentice, every pre-employment cohort is a candidate who already knows your site, your standards and your culture before you ever make them an offer. At a time when the sector cannot recruit fast enough to meet demand for 1.5 million new homes, new towns and net zero retrofit, that is not a side benefit. It is, arguably, the main event.

We also see the supply chain dimension discussed too rarely. Tier 2 and tier 3 subcontractors are increasingly asked by tier 1 contractors to evidence their own social value contribution, often with no internal resource to do so. A college-backed programme that any business in the supply chain can plug into removes that weak link and gives the main contractor a defensible answer when asked how their obligations cascade in practice.

An open door

Our message to developers, contractors and subcontractors working across Yorkshire and the wider North is a simple one: before your team builds a social value programme from scratch for the next site, talk to us first. As the region’s CTEC, our role is to be the delivery partner that makes your Section 106 obligations, your bid commitments, and your ESG reporting easier – not harder – to meet, and to make sure the people we train end up working for you.

Social value done well shouldn’t feel like a tax on doing business in a place. It should feel like building the workforce that place needs. That is the partnership we are offering, and it is one we are ready to start having today.

• Nikki Davis is the principal & chief executive officer of Leeds College of Building.