Social Value

Societal expectations are changing rapidly. It is no longer acceptable for organisations to produce superficial corporate responsibility reports and neither is it acceptable to consider social issues simply to be a reputation risk. Stakeholders demand real value creation. However, defining, delivering and measuring social value remains a challenge.

Our team has a depth of knowledge and experience of delivering activities that add value to the communities in which our clients work from the early 1990s, long before the term ‘social value’ became popular.  We support organisations through:

• Strategy and policy development
• Action planning for implementation
• Implementation support – as consultants, interims, secondees or outsourced provision
• Measurement – including definition of appropriate metrics, indicators and KPIs
• Reporting – including qualitative techniques and monetising social value
• Benchmarking
• Capacity building and training
• Understanding client and potential client requirements
• Integrating social value into procurement & supply chain management

The UK Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 has resulted in the phrase ‘social value’ emerging and gaining phenomenal momentum amongst government, businesses and their stakeholders. It is changing how organisations, contracts and developments function in a way that goes far beyond the scope of the legislation, alone.

You may be surprised to hear that the act contains no legal definition of the term ‘social value’. As a result, many clients, stakeholders and consultants have developed their own definitions and measurement techniques. This is a complex area that needs careful guidance.  Read our Social Value briefing paper that reviews these in more detail.