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Provisional alignment statement

PPN 026 Social Value Model

Episodic ICCE recognises PPN 026 - The Social Value Model, published by the Cabinet Office on 5 August 2026, as a significant new public-procurement direction for good jobs, fair working conditions, fair pay, skills, progression and talent pipelines. The published model establishes two outcomes and six Model Award Criteria, applies to covered in-scope central-government procurements of at least £1 million including VAT commenced from 1 January 2027, and increases the minimum social-value weighting to 20% for contracts valued at £5 million or more.

This is a provisional alignment statement. PPN 026 establishes the policy direction and high-level Social Value Model, but the Cabinet Office has confirmed that accompanying guidance will follow in autumn 2026. That guidance is expected to establish the detailed sub-criteria and practitioner application needed to select outcomes and criteria, evaluate responses and apply metrics, together with further target-cohort, existing or inherent social-value, community-programme and framework/call-off application guidance. The mappings in this statement are therefore limited to the PPN 026 source and Annex A published on 5 August 2026. When the supporting sources are formally published, Episodic will undertake a further controlled mapping of ICCE against them and revise this statement accordingly.

On that provisional basis, the published PPN 026 direction strongly suggests that ICCE is a strong candidate for alignment. The policy places greater procurement value on good employment, fair working conditions, fair pay and measurable contract delivery; ICCE is being developed as a controlled PAYE employment, payroll, payment and evidence infrastructure for temporary labour. The strongest directional relationship is therefore with the Good Jobs criteria and with evidence-led contract monitoring. Skills, progression, talent-pipeline, locality, target-cohort and additionality outcomes may also be supported where the relevant externally owned programme, community, training or worker-context evidence is lawfully supplied and attributable.

ICCE provisionally aligns as a Collaborative Procurement-Support Provider for ICCE-routed temporary-labour activity. It is designed to provide authorised buyers, suppliers, contractors, framework providers, procurement platforms, contract managers, social-value functions, responsible-procurement functions and auditors with controlled labour evidence relevant to worker route, working activity, PAYE payroll, pay, deductions, payment outcomes, challenges, corrections, project attribution, supply-chain visibility and contract-selected performance measures. ICCE does not select award criteria, define community need, make supplier commitments, evaluate tenders, allocate scores, determine additionality, certify social value, determine exclusion or claim Cabinet Office approval or endorsement.

Alignment table

Expectation Relevant sources ICCE enforced alignment ICCE evidence / output
Provisional source position and pending guidance PPN 026 paragraphs 6, 12-15; Annex A notes ICCE is provisionally mapped only against the PPN 026 policy and six Model Award Criteria published on 5 August 2026. Detailed sub-criteria, practitioner application, response-evaluation and metric guidance remain pending. Source-version record, mapping scope, pending-guidance limitation and formal review trigger.
Scope, contract relevance and proportionality PPN 026 paragraphs 4-8 and 14 ICCE can associate authorised labour evidence with externally supplied contract, project, framework/call-off, package, location and reporting context. ICCE does not determine whether an award criterion is relevant, proportionate, non-discriminatory or lawful. Contract and project attribution, procurement-context reference, reporting-period evidence, scope and limitation statement.
Weighting and evaluation boundary PPN 026 paragraph 13 ICCE does not set the 10% or 20% weighting, design award criteria, evaluate bids, allocate scores or determine value for money. Authorised procurement parties may use ICCE evidence when assessing or monitoring supplier commitments. Factual evidence pack, target-comparison support where externally defined, no-score and no-evaluation statement.
MAC 1a - Create and/or retain high-quality jobs Annex A, Outcome 1, MAC 1a ICCE is designed to preserve attributable PAYE employment, engagement activity, hours, pay and contract context for ICCE-routed workers. Whether a job is new or retained, locally relevant, additional, responsive to an identified skills shortage or created through a defined recruitment intervention depends on externally governed context. PAYE employment evidence, engagement record, contract attribution, worker and activity counts, external locality/baseline/new-or-retained reference and coverage limitation.
MAC 1b - Fair working conditions Annex A, Outcome 1, MAC 1b ICCE is strongly directionally aligned with fair-working-condition evidence through a controlled PAYE employment route, verified engagement records, worker-facing terms, working activity, challenge, correction and payment evidence. Commitments that go beyond statutory minimums remain buyer- or supplier-defined. PAYE route evidence, worker terms and acknowledgement, working-activity record, dispute/correction history, grievance or exception evidence and externally defined fair-work commitment reference.
MAC 1c - Fair pay Annex A, Outcome 1, MAC 1c ICCE is strongly directionally aligned with fair-pay evidence through integrated PAYE payroll and reconciled payment records showing hours, rates, gross pay, statutory deductions, net pay and payment outcome. Above-minimum pay commitments and progressive remuneration policies remain externally defined. Payroll artefact, pay and deduction record, reconciled payment status, externally defined pay-threshold reference and remuneration-policy reference where supplied.
MAC 2a - Training / Retraining Annex A, Outcome 2, MAC 2a ICCE does not deliver or independently verify training. Where authorised training, placement, apprenticeship, adaptation, provider, learning-hour, completion or qualification information is supplied, ICCE can associate it with the relevant worker and contract activity. External training or placement reference, worker and contract attribution, learning/placement hours, completion evidence and source-owner label.
MAC 2b - In-work progression Annex A, Outcome 2, MAC 2b ICCE can evidence attributable changes in role, rate, working activity and PAYE outcomes and can associate externally verified development activity with those records. It does not infer career progression, causal impact, retention improvement or service-quality improvement. Role/rate comparison, PAYE and working-activity evidence, external development reference, retention/service indicator where supplied and causality limitation.
MAC 2c - Talent Pipeline Annex A, Outcome 2, MAC 2c Outreach, community co-design, pre-work training, placements, apprenticeships and future-workforce programmes sit outside ICCE unless verified programme data is supplied. Where a participant moves into ICCE-routed paid work, the resulting employment and payroll activity can be evidenced. External programme/partner reference, authorised participant linkage, placement or apprenticeship record where supplied and subsequent PAYE employment evidence.
Relevant area, locality and community benefit MAC 1a, 2a and 2c; Annex A notes ICCE can associate labour activity with project or site geography and with a lawfully supplied locality reference. It does not infer nationality, residence, deprivation or community benefit from ordinary employment or payroll information. Project/location attribution, external locality classification, permissioned worker reference, aggregated reporting and locality limitation.
Target cohorts and barriers to employment Annex A notes; future target-cohort guidance ICCE does not infer NEET, disability, long-term health condition, care-leaver or other sensitive cohort status. Where such information is lawfully collected for a defined procurement purpose, it must remain externally sourced, permission-controlled and reported proportionately. External cohort reference, purpose/permission record, controlled reporting field and small-population protection.
Additionality and existing / inherent social value PPN 026 paragraph 19; Annex A notes ICCE can compare an externally defined baseline, supplier commitment and recorded result and preserve the supporting evidence. ICCE does not determine whether an outcome is additional or qualifies as existing or inherent social value. Baseline reference, target, recorded result, evidence population, comparison output and additionality limitation.
Contract incorporation, KPIs and annual reporting PPN 026 paragraphs 16-17 ICCE is directionally aligned with evidence-led contract management by supporting contract-scoped labour reporting, attributable source records, coverage information, exceptions, corrections and reproducible performance evidence. External parties own the commitment, KPI selection, contractual effect and publication. KPI evidence pack, contract/period scope, source evidence, result, coverage/exclusions, correction history and authorised reporting output.
Framework and call-off evidence PPN 026 paragraph 6 and footnote 3 Where framework and call-off references are supplied as authorised procurement context, ICCE can associate relevant labour evidence with those references for reporting. ICCE does not establish, award or manage procurement frameworks or call-offs. Framework/call-off reference, contract/project attribution, scoped labour report and procurement-authority limitation.
Poor performance and future exclusion boundary PPN 026 paragraph 18 ICCE can preserve factual performance evidence, exceptions, corrections and remediation history. It does not determine whether performance is poor for procurement purposes, whether an exclusion ground exists or whether a supplier should be excluded from a future tender. Recorded KPI result, exception/remediation chronology, supporting evidence and no-exclusion-decision statement.
Privacy, visibility and evidence release PPN 026 commercial-lifecycle application; relevant data-protection and procurement controls ICCE is designed to provide role-appropriate reporting from the same underlying labour activity while preserving source attribution and limiting worker-level visibility to authorised purposes. Stakeholder-specific reporting, permissioned worker reference, aggregated outputs, source labels, coverage information and release audit.
Tender, scoring, certification and endorsement boundary PPN 026; Procurement Act award-criteria requirements ICCE does not select Model Award Criteria, write tender responses, score bids, certify social value, verify additionality, state PPN 026 compliance or claim Cabinet Office approval or endorsement. No-score, no-certification, no-compliance and no-endorsement statements; buyer and supplier responsibility boundary.
Implementation-state boundary ICCE controlled project documentation This statement maps PPN 026 against the controlled ICCE target-state model. ICCE remains pre-alpha and the statement is not evidence that the full mapped capability is currently operating in production. Target-state label, current-state limitation, no-live-performance claim and implementation review requirement.

Sources covered

Principal source

Published policy position covered

Pending guidance position

Provisional alignment boundary

Document control

PPN 026 Social Value Model Provisional Alignment Statement

Document code
UPS-AS-014

Document title
PPN 026 Social Value Model Provisional Alignment Statement

Version
1.1

Status
Public provisional alignment statement

Internal alignment basis
Controlled ICCE model, reporting, evidence and outward-language documentation

External alignment category
Good jobs, skills, social-value and contract-performance evidence support

Source covered
PPN 026 - The Social Value Model, published 5 August 2026

Source population covered
Two outcomes, six Model Award Criteria, weighting, KPI/reporting requirements and published application notes

Publication date
7 August 2026

Revision basis
Reclassified as provisional pending autumn 2026 guidance; suite-standard opening layout adopted; public mapping language tightened; provisional-source boundaries made explicit

Publisher
Augscape Research & Development Limited, trading through the Episodic ICCE documentation surface.

Company number
12996074

Website
episodic.co.uk

Document status
Public provisional alignment statement · 1.1

Publication date
7 August 2026

Use boundary
General information only. Not legal, tax, financial, insurance, employment, procurement, social-value or investment advice.