Sanctus is enjoying exceptional success delivering Social Value to the community at Temple Island, a construction site on behalf of Bristol City Council. Sanctus is currently over-delivering on both the original social value promises and contractual targets made within the contract with BCC. The works are currently ongoing, and Sanctus has delivered on over 177% of our tender target as of the end of February 2025.
The delivery is currently being captured, monitored, assessed and validated by ‘The Social Value Portal’ TOM (Target Operating Model) System Evidence Template, which is independently verified to provide a credible study. This portal provides important definitions of what social value means in the context of the specific contract, the relevant reporting period, and a means of providing both qualitative and quantitative data as evidence, with a delivery plan for each target, and is a superb live case study example of what Sanctus could achieve for the Reed Bed Refurbishment Contract.
The social value markers for Temple Island were chosen based upon research of the needs of the local area, and measured in time, financial value and local impact. Sanctus focused on;
- Support for local Community Projects or VCSEs – such as fundraising, donations and a kit drop for the Bristol Homeless Charity ‘Bristol Soup Run’, targeting homelessness in central Bristol; Volunteering at Bristol Cycling Centre; and Sanctus staff undertaking various volunteering days to aid in Bristol City Council projects such as the provision of expertise and the removal of invasive species Himalayan Balsam at two inner city parks; The provision of staff to undertake the construction of a seeded bed for planting.
- Total Financial Spend within postcodes adjacent to the site, to ‘keep the council investment within Bristol’ and to encourage the use of local companies, products, services and labour through the use of targeted procurement and forward planning. To date, Sanctus has delivered over £1.4m of qualifying local spend, against a target of £730k.
- Tonnes of hard-to-recycle waste diverted from Landfill or Incineration – The diversion of some 2,400 tonnes of waste from Landfill, by the pre-treatment on-site and processing off-site to produce a material suitable for site regeneration elsewhere.
- Sanctus have been in constant dialogue with schools and colleges within the defined postcodes over how we can add value as a result of our project. Sanctus have hosted a site visit morning for photography students from the City of Bristol College, through Bristol Temple Quarter LLP. The opportunity gave me a taste of the construction industry and the ongoing work on site, and it provided the students with exclusive material to record as part of a study module based on the ongoing changes of Temple Island. Sanctus have hosted a site visit for Arup students. Sanctus undertook a Health and Safety Awareness briefing for the students to educate them on potential dangers encountered on construction sites. The visit detailed the ongoing progress of the works and explained the district heating scheme being installed on the site.
- The creation and provision of full-time roles for candidates living within certain areas, and from certain backgrounds or situations; Sanctus designed 3no full-time roles on site for the duration of the works, with prospective full-time employment at the end of the contract. The roles were purposefully varied, based upon different skillsets, to enable the scheme to try to appeal and to help a wider catchment of potential employees, with different types of work available. The roles included Environmental Technician, Site Labourer and Banksman, requiring different types of skills, mindsets, approaches and attributes. In order to fill the vacancies, Sanctus undertook a three-pronged approach; school and college visits for literacy support and careers advice; the provision of a dedicated stand at an inner-city jobs fair, run by ‘One Front Door’ on behalf of BCC; and the use of the Job Centre for formally advertising the roles, and for hosting the interview process from their premises. Prospective applicants for the jobs were afforded mentoring and interview preparation as part of the scheme. Sanctus purposefully undertook a relaxed, informal interview environment, intending to introduce the interview process to the applicants, many of whom had not experienced the process before, and provide a means of reference to draw on for potential future interviews elsewhere, whether successful for this contract or not. Following the interview process, the three successful applicants were treated as full-time Sanctus employees and given the same holiday allowance, terms and privileges. They were subject to full company induction and were given an extensive corporate-branded clothing collection. During the contract, the staff have been mentored by experienced Project and Site Managers, upskilling and on-the-job training by site staff with whom they work on a daily basis, and additional formal training by recognised construction training schemes such as NPORS and CSCS, undertaken by external training providers at Sanctus’ cost – so that besides the actual employment opportunity and experience gained, and they have tangible qualifications and certification to take away which should be useful in the industry throughout their growing career.
