This is a standing record rather than a guide. It answers one question: what of PPN 026 actually exists today, and what is still to come. We update it as documents publish.
If you want the full working guide to scoring against this model, that is our PPN 026 guide. This page is the status of the paperwork behind it.
What has published
The notice itself, on 5 August 2026. PPN 026 is the new edition of the Cabinet Office Social Value Model. It applies to central government procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027, at 1 million pounds inclusive of VAT or above.
The structure is settled. PPN 026 sets two outcomes and six model award criteria beneath them.
Good Jobs
- 1a, create and retain high quality jobs
- 1b, fair working conditions
- 1c, fair pay
Skills
- 2a, training and retraining
- 2b, in work progression
- 2c, talent pipeline
The weightings are set, in two tiers. A minimum 10% weighting for contracts valued at 1 million pounds and above but less than 5 million. A minimum 20% weighting at 5 million pounds or above.
What has not published
Five things were expected in autumn 2026 and none of them has appeared.
- The detailed sub criteria. The six criteria above are headings. What a buyer actually scores under each one is not published.
- The practitioner guidance. How in scope organisations are expected to apply the model.
- The List of Community Programmes.
- The framework and call off guidance. How the model works where the buy runs through a framework or a dynamic market rather than a standalone procurement.
- The Target Cohorts and Target Skills definitions. Which groups and which skills count, which is the difference between an answer that scores and an answer that reads well.
This is the single most important fact on this page, so we will state it plainly. Anyone offering you a finished PPN 026 scoring engine today is scoring against criteria that have not been published. That includes us, which is why CrowMark offers PPN 026 and makes it the default on new work, and does not pretend to score against sub criteria nobody has seen.
The date collision worth checking
Read the 5 million pound boundary carefully, because two notices put a threshold at the same number and mean opposite things by it.
PPN 026 says “5 million pounds or above”, which is inclusive. A contract at exactly 5 million sits in the 20% tier.
PPN 006 sets its Carbon Reduction Plan duty at “above 5 million pounds per year”, which is exclusive. A contract at exactly 5 million does not meet it.
So at precisely 5 million pounds the two notes give opposite answers, and a central government bidder can meet both in the same procurement. It is a narrow case. It is also exactly the kind of thing that gets assumed rather than read.
What this edition stops asking about
Social value under PPN 026 narrows to jobs and skills. Carbon reduction, community engagement and wellbeing are not criteria of this edition.
That has a practical consequence most bid teams have not costed yet. A library of social value answers written against the previous model’s themes does not map across on its own. Neither do proxy values that price outcomes this model no longer asks about. The work is not a rewrite of the words, it is a re assessment of which of your commitments this edition will pay you for.
Who is actually in scope
PPN 026 binds central government departments, their executive agencies and non departmental public bodies.
Other public sector contracting authorities may wish to adopt the same approach. That is an invitation, not a duty. A council, a university, a housing association, a police authority or a fire authority is not bound by it. The NHS has its own social value duty and has done since April 2022. Private utilities contracts are out of scope, and so are procurements whose primary purpose is overseas delivery.
If a supplier tells you every UK public buyer will be scoring PPN 026 from January, they have not read who it addresses.
Where PPN 002 stands
This is the part most often stated wrongly, so we state it carefully.
PPN 026 does not mention PPN 002 at all. It refers to a transition period from “the previous edition” without naming it. GOV.UK has not withdrawn PPN 002, and it still appears in the current list of Procurement Act 2023 procurement policy notes.
What PPN 026 does say is that for procurements commenced under the Procurement Act 2023 before 1 January 2027, in scope organisations are encouraged to transition to the new model but may apply the previous edition during the transition period.
So both models are live work for the next few months. We have made our own product decision about that, which is a decision about our roadmap and not a statement about the status of any notice: CrowMark stops offering the previous edition after 31 December 2026, and anything already built under it stays readable, stays exportable and keeps naming the model it was built against.
What to do before January
Do not rewrite your library yet. The sub criteria are the thing that decides how an answer is marked, and they are not out. Rewriting now means rewriting twice.
Do map what you already have onto the six criteria. Which of your existing evidence lands under fair pay, under in work progression, under talent pipeline. That work is safe, because the six criteria are published and will not move.
Do find the commitments that no longer earn anything. Carbon and community answers that scored under the previous model are not scored by this one. Knowing which parts of your library just became decorative is worth doing before a deadline, not during one.
Frequently asked questions
Has the full PPN 026 guidance been published?
No. The notice itself was published on 5 August 2026 and sets out the two outcomes and the six model award criteria. The detailed sub criteria, the practitioner guidance, the List of Community Programmes, the framework and call off guidance, and the Target Cohorts and Target Skills definitions were all expected in autumn 2026 and none of them has published. You can plan against the structure today. You cannot score against the detail, because the detail does not exist yet.
Does PPN 026 replace or withdraw PPN 002?
No, and it is worth being precise. PPN 026 does not mention PPN 002 at all. It refers to a transition from the previous edition without naming it, and GOV.UK has not withdrawn PPN 002, which still appears in the current list of Procurement Act 2023 procurement policy notes. What PPN 026 does is apply to procurements commenced on or after 1 January 2027.
Which organisations does PPN 026 actually bind?
Central government departments, their executive agencies and non departmental public bodies. Other contracting authorities may choose to adopt the same approach, which is an invitation rather than a duty. A council, a university, a housing association or a police authority is not bound by it, and procurements whose primary purpose is overseas delivery are out of scope.
What does PPN 026 no longer ask about?
Social value under this edition narrows to jobs and skills. Carbon reduction, community engagement and wellbeing are not criteria of PPN 026. A bid library written against the previous model’s themes does not map across on its own, and proxy values that price outcomes this edition does not ask about no longer earn anything.
Sources
- Cabinet Office, PPN 026: The Social Value Model. The publication date of 5 August 2026, the application date of 1 January 2027, the 1 million pounds inclusive of VAT threshold, the two outcomes, the six model award criteria and the two minimum weightings: gov.uk
- The full list of Procurement Act 2023 procurement policy notes, which is where PPN 002’s current status can be checked rather than assumed: gov.uk
Every statutory claim we make about UK procurement is recorded with its instrument, its date and its primary source on our sources page.