Telent adds social value by supporting growth in the third sector through free expert business advice.
Telent is committed to providing maximum social return on investment (SROI) to customers, by adding measurable social benefits to the communities we operate in. Through the ‘Supply Chain Social Value Strategy’, Telent provides opportunities for growth to voluntary, community and social enterprises, by offering free business resources to improve local services and enable access to future funding.
10-year signal maintenance contract
In 2021, Telent were awarded a 10-year contract to carry out signal maintenance on more than 160 highways for Solihull Metropolitan Borough Council (SMBC). A key element of Telent's offering was a strong commitment to delivering social value in the area, in-line with local priorities. This was valued at £650,911 over the life of the contract through targets around local employment, training opportunities, employability skills for young people, local supply chain spend and the provision of expert business advice to VCSEs.
Following SMBC’s VCSE networking event in 2023, Telent made support commitments to several third-sector organisations, to provide in-house expertise on a range of business-related issues.
Offering free business advice to VCSEs can significantly enhance their operational efficiency and overall impact. Voluntary organisations often operate on limited resources and expert guidance in areas such as ICT, strategic planning, financial management and organisational development can prove invaluable to achieving their social purpose.
Technical guidance and commercial support for Solihull Citizens Advice
Citizens Advice Solihull Borough (CASB) Ltd is an independent charity within the national Citizens Advice network, providing confidential advice online, over the phone, and in person, for free to the people of Solihull.
They are dedicated to providing the advice people need for the problems they face and improving the policies and practices that affect them.
In 2022, they supported over 3,000 local people to find a way forward through:
- The provision of specialist advice, information and advocacy in debt/money advice, welfare benefits, Universal Credit, housing, employment, relationships and legal including casework
- Researching and collecting evidence on the issues effecting local people and campaigning to ensure those issues do not impact others in the future
One of the most important tools to achieve this is their Advice Line, giving people specialist advice and information over the phone through a team of trained advisers.
The problem
The charity is working harder than ever to deliver a cost-effective service that genuinely meets the needs of local people. However, it remains a challenging prospect to meet the ever-increasing demand with significantly reduced funding resources. This is particularly true of day-to-day ICT and commercial support, to enable the delivery of their services.
In response to the pandemic and changes in the way volunteers support the charity, a new cloud-based phone system and associated connectivity was required. However, with a small budget, limited technical knowledge and the resources to properly tender a new system, CASB turned to Telent for free, impartial advice and support.
Telent’s Procurement team worked with CASB to establish requirements and propose a new connectivity solution based on the latest marketing offerings which is scalable, futureproof, user-friendly and crucially, cost-effective.
Telent managed the tender and contracting process on their behalf, prioritising Solihull-based small businesses for the opportunity to maximise the social value potential. After a competitive bidding and demonstration process, Flaming Ltd was selected based on their solution, support provision and the substantial cost savings they can provide to the charity.
I’m thrilled with the outcome of this project - Flaming have a great track record of providing small enterprise IT solutions and hands-on technical support, something which is invaluable to VCSEs. We worked with them to devise a solution that was not only tailored to CASB’s individual needs, but also offered fantastic value for money. What is more, the economic benefit of this contract stays in Solihull to support local employment and development, so it really is win-win.
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The new system incorporates:
- Cloud-based softphone system with increased capacity and functionality for use across all devices
- Managed integration to ensure 100% uptime throughout the transition
- New high-speed broadband connection to tackle previous bandwidth issues
- New Wi-Fi 6 solution to support the system, provide maximum flexibility to staff and volunteers, while also giving free guest Wi-Fi to all clients
We are so grateful for the support received by Telent’s Procurement team, and we could not have done this without them. Help like this makes such a difference to non-profit organisations like us and we cannot believe that we’ve managed to make these improvements to our systems for far less than we were previously paying. This not only benefits our staff and volunteers, but also the many people that use our service.
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Telent commit to providing in-house expertise on a range of business-related topics to local MSMEs and VCSEs as part of its projects to deliver social return on investment (SROI) to customers. In FY23, Telent also spent over £181 million with Micro, Small, and Medium-Sized Enterprises (MSMEs) across the UK, accounting for 67% of suppliers. This focus on MSME engagement not only diversifies Telent's supply chain and drives innovation, but also contributes to the prosperity of local economies, generating £40 million of additional social value benefits according to the National Themes, Outcomes and Measurement (TOMs) Framework.