Celebrating our Regional Construction framework partners

Recently celebrating the first anniversary, we're proud to announce our partners have collectively created over £3.6m worth of social value for communities across the East Midlands and the East of England.

Thank you to our framework partners Ashe, Conamar, Clegg, G F Tomlinson, Jeakins Weir, Lindum Group, R G Carter and Stepnell Construction for their collaboration and excellence in project delivery over the last 12 months - and to everyone across SCAPE Group that has helped make this possible.

In Autumn 2022, we announced the first project completed through the framework – a new, low operational carbon Arts and Drama Building at The Priory Academy LSST in Lincoln, delivered by Lindum Group. Since then, a variety of projects have been accelerated through the framework, and it remains a responsible and compliant procurement route that public sector clients know and trust.

Most KPIs are chosen by our clients, but there are a few that we mandate on every project, such as 100% for Health and Safety, Environment and Fair Payment for the supply chain.

Our partners on the Regional Construction framework not only achieved this consistently over the last year, they've achieved:

• 100% for SME engagement (engaging with almost 200 organisations)
• 100% for SME spend, keeping the pound local and supporting clients and their communities.
• They have also delivered 62 apprenticeship weeks.

Additional social value examples delivered by our partners include Ashe, who partnered with a local community interest company to deliver a series of free healthy eating workshops to school children from disadvantaged backgrounds and their parents. One of the biggest challenges in measuring social value is that sometimes it’s hard to quantify, but the social and environmental impact of equipping people with better food and nutrition knowledge will be reflected in the health and wellbeing of that community for generations to come.

Stepnell's incredible fundraising efforts for the charity Crazy Hats Appeal below, enabled a new breast cancer patient waiting area and landscaped garden to be created for Kettering General Hospital NHS Foundation Trust. Still in delivery, these new areas will provide calm, quiet spaces and a fantastic legacy that will improve the health and wellbeing of patients, visitors, and staff for years to come.

All of our delivery partners share our carbon-conscious approach, and waste reduction is a key target across every SCAPE framework. Like many other framework providers, we work hard to maximise the amount of waste diverted from landfill. However, unlike others, we have also broadened our focus to include reducing waste at source, by promoting the principles of the circular economy.

All our regional partners are committed to using The Construction Waste Portal, part of the SCAPE Group, which is a digital platform we use to deliver waste benchmarking, forecasting and reduction to minimise embodied carbon and reduce the environmental impact of projects.

Free across all SCAPE projects, the portal helps improve material use by enabling smarter decision-making, with an aspirational target of 50% reduction in construction waste on the SCAPE Civil Engineering and Construction frameworks by the end of their life cycle.

Our Regional Construction partners have also recently formalised their shared pledge to creating community impact by joining our Community Legacy Programme.

The programme encourages a collaborative approach to identifying and supporting causes for social good, and I'm looking forward to seeing the impact of some of these initiatives in the years to come.