Posted 07 Aug 2026
Whitepaper on Neuroinclusive Employment: A New Social Value Strategy for Public Sector Suppliers
A job created is only social value when a person can enter it, learn in it, stay in it and progress.
The government announced the new central-government jobs-and-skills procurement approach on 5 August 2026. It is intended to apply from 1 January 2027, with detailed technical guidance expected in autumn 2026. Suppliers should act now on workforce pathways and measurement, while keeping bid language and KPI definitions under review.
This paper makes a practical case: how public sector suppliers can turn jobs-and-skills promises into accessible recruitment, useful learning, sustainable employment and evidence that stands up to scrutiny. It is written from two connected viewpoints. The first is frontline practice: what people experience when they apply for work, learn a role, ask for support, manage uncertainty and try to progress. The second is organisational strategy: how procurement, job design, management, data, incentives and supply chains shape those experiences at scale.
The paper is written by Gunjan Odedra and Dr Nancy Doyle from Genius Within CIC. We are a VCSE / SME with over fifteen years’ expertise in supporting public-sector suppliers win and deliver jobs-and-skills commitments by designing neuroinclusive employment pathways and independently evidencing sustainable outcomes.
Author bios:
Gunjan Odedra – Occupational Delivery Team Lead and Business Psychologist at Genius Within. She holds a BSc in Psychology with Counselling Skills and an MSc in Psychology: Mental Health and Wellbeing. She is a BPS Registered Qualified Test User (RQTU) and is currently undertaking a Doctorate in Coaching and Mentoring
Dr. Nancy Doyle – CEO and Founder of Genius Within. Dr. Nancy Doyle is a globally recognised organisational psychologist, social entrepreneur, and leading authority on neurodiversity and disability inclusion in the workplace. A Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and a member of the American Psychological Association, Dr. Doyle holds a PhD in Organisational Psychology from City, University of London.
What’s inside the whitepaper
- What the procurement reform changes – and what it does not
- Britain’s workforce participation problem
- What employment feels like on the ground
- The psychology of sustainable employment
- A neuroinclusive workforce participation model
- Measuring social value that can be trusted
- Recommendations
- Genius Within’s capability
Executive Summary
The Government’s new central-government Social Value Model will place jobs, skills and economic participation at the heart of procurement under the Procurement Act regime. Detailed guidance is expected in October 2026, with implementation planned from 1 January 2027. For major contracts, the announced increase in social-value weighting to 20% means employment outcomes will become commercially significant not a supporting paragraph added at the end of a bid.
For senior leaders, this creates an immediate delivery challenge. Winning organisations will need to make credible employment commitments, translate them into accessible workforce pathways and produce evidence that withstands contract-management and public scrutiny. This is an operating-model issue spanning bid, HR, learning, operational, supply-chain and social-value teams.
- Treat job creation as a delivery commitment, not a bid-writing exercise. Employers must identify genuine workforce demand, determine which skills can be developed and build realistic pathways from recruitment through onboarding, learning and progression.
- Measure meaningful employment, not simply job starts. A job creates lasting social value only when a person can access it, perform effectively, remain in work and progress. Volume measures should therefore be balanced with retention, job quality, skills completion and progression.
- Design for the workforce currently being excluded. Disabled and neurodivergent people represent a substantial source of underused capability, yet conventional recruitment, learning and workplace systems frequently create barriers unrelated to job performance. Neuroinclusive design can widen participation while strengthening recruitment validity, workforce resilience and management practice.
- Build evidence that can be trusted. Suppliers will need clear baselines, additionality, attribution and proportionate KPIs. Every claimed outcome should be linked to the contract, counted once and supported by credible data—without creating incentives for unsuitable placements, repeated counting or unnecessary collection of sensitive employee information.
- Use specialist partners to connect strategy with delivery. Effective mobilisation requires more than awareness training. It brings together accessible recruitment, job and learning design, workplace adjustments, manager capability, participant support, local referral networks and outcome assurance across the supply chain.
Genius Within already combines these capabilities. As an award-winning Community Interest Company, we bring more than fifteen years of frontline employment practice, business psychology and organisational workforce expertise. Since 2020, we have supported more than 6,400 unemployed people. On Intensive Personalised Employment Support, we achieved a 56% job-outcome rate against a 31% national provider average, with sustained outcomes of 44% compared with 6.5% nationally.
This paper sets out a practical model for responding before the January deadline: identifying credible workforce opportunities, creating accessible routes into work, supporting sustainable performance and producing defensible evidence of impact. The objective is not to promise more jobs on paper. It is to build the delivery infrastructure that makes those promises achievable.
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