Atkins appoints social value director

Atkins has appointed Mark Bolger as technical director for social value. In his new role, Bolger will shape Atkins’ approach to social value across markets, embedding it at the heart of the company’s projects and procedures. 

He will lead on the development of a social value service line for Atkins to provide clients strategic services from business case appraisal to evaluation of whole life value, helping them to respond to the government social value framework for procurement and create and implement social value strategies and programmes.  

Bolger is the founder of Social Value Consultancy and Social Profit Calculator (SPC). As the founder of SPC, he developed a combined methodology for calculating social, economic and environmental impact, as well as asset value, to create a whole life return on investment ratio. He also wrote Faithful+Gould’s social value policy – the first policy endorsed by Social Value UK and Social Value International.

Mike McNicholas, Atkins’ managing director – infrastructure, said: “The potential for infrastructure to have a real and lasting impact on people and communities is huge; what is more challenging is how we capture, measure and communicate those outcomes. With the recent release of the Construction Playbook and the Social Value Framework for Procurement, PPN 06/20, coming into effect next year, Mark’s appointment will ensure Atkins, and our clients, are at the forefront of social value, shaping how it works in practice for infrastructure projects at every scale and in every part of the country.”  

On his appointment, Bolger said: “The government has made its intentions on social value quite clear, and it is brilliant to see companies like Atkins investing in social value and making it a core part of their business. My ambition is to create the first ever professional services social value team at Atkins, bringing together the built environment’s top experts in social impact measurement and calculation to make the government’s vision of social value on every project a reality.”

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