Real social value for Rochdale Alliance Manchester Business School project

Students from Alliance Manchester Business School have joined forces with Rochdale Stronger Together to deliver a not-for-profit consultancy project

For the second year running a team of students from Alliance Manchester Business School have joined forces with Rochdale Stronger Together to deliver a not-for-profit consultancy project, to help the borough to forge a good local economy and spread community wealth.

This time the students, who have a diverse professional experience and cultural background, have worked over a 10-week period to develop a prototype model for local institutions to collectively create and then deliver a shared vision for social value in the borough.

The 2012 Social Value Act requires all public bodies in England and Wales to consider how the services they commission and procure can be used to improve the social, economic and environmental well-being of the area.

The students have worked with Rochdale Stronger Together partners from the health, leisure and social housing sectors as well as the local authority. By combining their collective spending which reaches hundreds of millions of pounds every year, partners can deliver more ambitious social value projects across Rochdale Borough and so provide greater benefit for local people.

Since social value is still not well understood and depends on the specific needs of each community, the students’ work offers a solution which makes it easier for everyone to recognise what social value really means for Rochdale and then focus on delivering it.

Edward Carpenter, Rochdale Stronger Together lead, said: "The opportunity the Social Value Act represents is enormous, but because it is poorly understood communities across the country have been missing out.

“The work our Alliance MBS MBA team have done therefore provides the people of the borough a real, low cost way forward to work together and gain maximum benefit. I'm hoping their prototype model will now be implemented here in Rochdale."

For more information about Rochdale Stronger Together please visit:

• www.rochdalestrongertogether.org.uk