Our Services
We build trust. Rooted in real need, leaving lasting legacies.
Every service Sonar provides connects back to the same belief: that genuine community intelligence, gathered properly and used honestly, makes everything better - better social value, better bids, better projects, and better outcomes for the communities you work in.
Stakeholder Management & Public Consultation Services
Construction, highways, rail and utility works affect real people - residents, businesses, councillors, community groups and anchor institutions. That disruption, handled badly, generates complaints, media coverage, council pressure, legal challenge and programme delay. Handled well, it generates the kind of community goodwill that outlasts the project.
Sonar provides the full range of stakeholder management and public consultation services - from early influence mapping and communications planning, through public information events, focus groups and field engagement, to ongoing sentiment tracking and complaint resolution on live schemes. We work across the entire project lifecycle, and we bring the community intelligence that makes every part of it more effective. We are trusted by National Highways, Network Rail, local authorities and many others to manage stakeholder relationships and project communications on complex, high-profile schemes. Whether you need a full communications strategy, targeted stakeholder mapping, or experienced people on the ground running public engagement - we can help with one, some, or all of the above.
Our Public Liaison Officers (PLOs) are drawn from policing, community management and neighbourhood engagement backgrounds, not PR. They know how to enter difficult situations, build trust quickly and protect your programme. Get in touch to learn more about our services.
Visit our dedicated Stakeholder Management services page →MENU OF SERVICES
- Stakeholder mapping and analysis
- Stakeholder influence mapping
- Relationship assessment and advocates
- Community engagement events and plans
- Media and communications plans
- Focus groups and workshops
- Public information events
- Door-to-door field engagement
- Anchor institution engagement
- Complaint resolution
- Project risk management
- Customer road audits
- Sentiment analysis and perception tracking
- Communication planning from pre-works notification through to project close
Local Needs Assessments (for councils and public bodies)
Before a council or NHS trust spends on regeneration, housing, or infrastructure, it needs to know what residents actually need from that investment. Not what planners assume. Not what the consultation process surfaced from the minority who always show up.
Sonar's Local Needs Assessments provide independent, evidence-based, community-rooted intelligence that makes investment decisions defensible. This is Social Value CWaNA™ delivered for a public sector audience - and it's exactly what good community co-design looks like in practice.
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- Demographic and socioeconomic data analysis
- LSOA and deprivation index mapping
- Political and institutional landscape review
- Anchor institution and LEP engagement
- Direct community fieldwork and interviews
- Hard-to-reach group engagement
- Documented, auditable evidence report
- Investment decision briefing for councils and NHS trusts
Strong for
- Councils with active social value agendas
- NHS trusts planning capital works
- Combined authorities with transport investment programmes
- UKSPF and regeneration-funded programmes
- Housing associations
- Public sector bodies and VCSE organisations with community investment programmes
Pride in Place Programme Support
Pride in Place puts £20 million into some of the UK's most deprived neighbourhoods - and asks Neighbourhood Boards made up of ordinary residents to spend it wisely. Through our Local Needs Analysis (CWaNA™), we give boards the evidence base they need: a structured picture of their community's real priorities, built from deprivation data, socioeconomic analysis, and genuine on-the-ground engagement with the people formal processes consistently miss.
We also support councils and combined authorities commissioning community engagement ahead of regeneration, transport, and housing investment - wherever decisions need to be grounded in what residents actually said, not what planners assumed.
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- Local Needs Analysis (CWaNA™) for Neighbourhood Boards
- Deprivation and socioeconomic profiling (LSOA, OCSI datasets, etc.)
- Stakeholder and anchor institution mapping
- Inclusive community engagement fieldwork
- Pride in Place Plan development and facilitation
- Neighbourhood Board support and engagement methodology
- Ongoing community listening and delivery support
- Local needs assessments for councils and combined authorities
Social Value CWaNA™ Training & CPD
Social value carries real weight in bids, audits, and supply chain conversations - but most teams don't have a methodology. Sonar offers two programmes: a half-day Social Value Training course for professionals who want to understand the landscape, and the six-session CPD-accredited CWaNA™ Practitioner programme for practitioners who want a structured, repeatable methodology.
Both are led by Christian Sait. Whether you need a practical grounding or a full certification, there's a programme that fits.
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- Six-session CPD-accredited programme
- Introduction to social value legislation and the CWaNA™ wheel
- Political landscape and stakeholder mapping
- Socioeconomic research and deprivation analysis
- Stakeholder engagement methods and fieldwork practice
- Social value measurement, MeasureUp, and optioneering
- Writing and presenting your own completed CWaNA™ assessment
- CWaNA™ Practitioner Certificate on completion
- Right to state 'CWaNA™ Trained' in bids and professional profiles
- Access to cohort peer network
NHS & Healthcare Social Value
Social value in healthcare is not the same as social value in construction. The community lens is different. The vulnerabilities are different. The Evergreen Assessment requirements are different.
Sonar's healthcare social value service is led by Claire, with direct NHS network access and deep expertise in what Evergreen Assessment Levels 2, 3, and 4 actually require in practice. We help healthcare suppliers, NHS trusts, and healthcare FM organisations build genuine social value strategies - rooted in community health needs rather than generic employment pledges.
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- CWaNA™ assessment adapted for healthcare settings
- NHS Evergreen Assessment Levels 2, 3, and 4 support
- Community health needs analysis
- Engagement with vulnerable and hard-to-reach populations
- Healthcare social value strategy development
- Evidence trail documentation for Evergreen Assessment
- Supply chain social value support for NHS framework partners
Customer Road Audits
Don't wait for the complaints. Sonar's trained Public Liaison Officers drive and walk your live roadworks — day or night — to identify hazards, signage failures, and customer experience issues before they reach the public. Every audit is filmed, issues are flagged the same day, and your traffic management team can act immediately.
Suitable for National Highways, Network Rail, utilities and local authorities.
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- Drive-through and pedestrian walkthrough audits
- Mystery shopper approach — unannounced and independent
- Day and night-time inspections
- Full video evidence throughout
- Live same-day feedback to your traffic management team
- Signage, wayfinding, and diversion route assessment
- Safety and compliance checks (Chapter 8 / Streetworks Code)
- Pedestrian accessibility and experience review
- Written report with prioritised actions
Strong for
- National Highways SDF 2 framework schemes
- Network Rail possession and closure works
- Utility companies
- Local authorities
- Traffic management companies
- Tier 1 contractors
Not sure where to start?
Most clients begin with a conversation. Tell us where you are in the process and we'll tell you what we'd recommend.
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Social Value Consultancy
Social value should be practical, credible and impactful. Through strategy planning, team training, structured bid support and community wants and needs analysis, our consultancy helps clients develop approaches that are commercially relevant, rooted in real need and aligned - where required - to PPN 002, the Social Value Model 2025, the National TOMs, NHS Evergreen Assessment, the NHS Social Value Playbook, the Sustainable Development Goals or any others. Whatever framework governs your work, Social Value CWaNA™ produces the community intelligence and evidence trail to support it.
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