What is social value?

Good question – social value is a measurement of the benefits that your services and programmes bring to people and communities.

Since 2012 we’ve been pioneers in helping organisations measure their social impact. Wherever you are in your journey, we can help.

Why measure?

There is huge potential and demand for social value information to be used to enhance and deliver the social purpose of your organisation, including:

Your organisation’s impact on the lives of individuals or your services in general

Responding to requirements of ESG lenders

Responding to tender requirements for development and regeneration schemes

The UK Social Value Bank is built on a coherent and unified approach that operates across complex organisations, supply chains and partnerships.

How to use the bank

The UK Social Value Bank contains a suite of 88 outcomes. Each outcome has a defined financial metric, which incorporates a wellbeing value, a health top up value and, where applicable, an Exchequer value (savings to the state).

The outcomes have been developed using a consistent methodology, using more than eight years of research and national data surveys. The Bank builds on person centred principles, using data on self-reported wellbeing and life circumstances measuring people’s actual experiences. This means that the values for each outcome are based on how they impact people’s lives as they live them.

Poplar HARCA & Hill Group

The Teviot Estate is a large regeneration project; the UK Social Value Bank has been used to generate significant long-term social value goals.

Sovereign

Sovereign have not only used the UK Social Value Bank to measure their impact but were one of the first investors of the social value roadmap and played an instrumental part in developing the latest values and HACT's online tool Social Value Insight designed to measure and maximise the outcomes from the bank.

Shelter Scotland

13 Scottish Housing Associations are currently using the Bank as part of a longitudinal study with Shelter Scotland into the social impact of affordable and new build housing in Scotland. You can read more about the first phase of this work, a literature review.