Social Value UK

Tag: Commissioning

  • Social value is about changes to people’s lives, so we need to ask ‘have we made as much value as we can with the resources available?’

    Social value is about changes to people’s lives, so we need to ask ‘have we made as much value as we can with the resources available?’

    Measuring social value is important – but what we do with that information is even more important. Join our Maximising Value training course in Manchester on 25 May.

    So, as well as asking yourself the question of how to measure social value, we also need to be asking, why are measuring social value?

    The answer to this question is often that we need to prove or demonstrate our impacts to others such as investors or funders – this is and will remain important. But if this is the only reason why we are measuring, we are missing real opportunities for maximising value from measuring the results of our work.

    When we talk about social value, we are talking about how important changes are to people’s lives. And when we have this focus, the question we should be asking is not just ‘how much value has been created?’ We need to be asking ‘how we can make even more value?’

    Remember, this is about changes to people’s lives – so we need to ask if we have made as much value as we can with the resources we have available?

    Social Value UK (SVUK) have been working with leading organisations in the UK and around the world, and we recognise that this approach has helped organisations to identify opportunities to improve the value they create.

    By involving stakeholders to understand the value of changes to their lives – and without increasing the money required, organisations have made changes to their work and targeted their efforts to change the lives of people even more effectively than before.

    Using social value evidence does not replace the expertise and knowledge of people within an organisation, but it does help to provide more information to inform the decisions they take.

    Social Value UK (SVUK) can help you with this way of thinking – we have a one day practical course on Maximising Social Value that will take you through the steps required to design, collect, and analyse data.

    Designed for data analysts and decision makers this is an interactive course that will help you to identify insights to help maximise the changes you help create in people’s lives.

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    Maximising Value training course details:

    £175 + VAT
    25 May, 9.30am – 4.30pm.
    Friends Meeting House, 6 Mount St, Manchester, M2 5NS
    Book online: https://sv-test.wp-support.team/social-value-training/maximising-social-value-training/

    • Are you a Social Impact manager, Finance Director, Senior Manager, or Commissioner?
    • Do you work in an organisation looking at how social value evidence can help you to make decisions?

    Social Value UK can provide you with the practical skills to maximise the value you deliver through your work.

    Our expert trainer Dr Adam Richards will facilitate practical, hands on training.

    Have any questions? Email us. info@sv-test.wp-support.team

  • The Social Return on Investment Network and Local Government Association launch new “Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value.”

    The Social Return on Investment Network and Local Government Association launch new “Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value.”

     

    The SROI Network, in co-operation with the Local Government Association is pleased to announce the launch of the new “Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value.”

    The guide, which has been prepared by The SROI Network as part of the National Programme for Third Sector Commissioning, will be launched officially at The SROI Network International Conference –“A Time for Social Value” on 16-17th February 2012, University of Potsdam, Germany.

    It brings together a range of related practice and is intended as a starting point for further development of professional commissioning practice.

    Specifically, the guide is aimed at commissioning teams responsible for public services, and is most relevant to those with responsibility for relational services, dealing with what value is and how it may be better understood and taken into account in decision making throughout the cycle of commissioning.

    Jennifer Inglis, an author of the report and a director of The SROI Network, said –

    “We are delighted to be publishing this major new guide with the LGA. Commissioning is an extremely important discipline in today’s public services. Commissioning teams have the potential to transform not only the impact that individual services, make but also to make a significant difference to communities.”

    “Making the most of this potential is key to successfully navigating through current reforms, including Localism, and is also central to meeting existing duties under Best Value.”

    “Commissioners have to make difficult decisions and this Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value offers some principles, adapted from the principles of Social Return on Investment, to help guide these difficult professional judgements.”

    “We know there is a lot of interest in Social Return on Investment amongst local authorities and other public sector bodies, and we would invite all interested parties to join the SROI Community of Practice hosted by the LGA to share experiences and further develop practice.”

    The Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value is a timely addition to the UK Government’s “Best Value Statutory Guidance,” in light of reforms in EU Public Procurement Regulation and MP Chris White’s Public Services (Social Value) bill, which call for the concept of making social value more relevant and important in the placement and provision of public services.

    It is highly relevant to the changing landscape of public services in England, with a need for systems that support good local decisions, involvement of service users and other stakeholders. It is also relevant in relation to the difficult decisions that many organisations are facing at present, and may be of use in Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland and additionally to those responsible for back-office services.

    The model presented on commissioning for value draws on the training, meetings and other interactions that the SROI Network has had with commissioners on the subject of value. It applies the principles and practices set out in the Cabinet Office’s 2009 “A Guide to Social Return on Investment” but revises and extends them in a way that is both useful and appropriate to commissioning.

    To download a copy of the “Guide to Commissioning for Maximum Value” please visit The SROI Network website here.

     

  • Common Questions in Commissioning Social Value

    Common Questions in Commissioning Social Value

    Common Questions in Commissioning Social Value

    October 2013Questions

    Jeremy Nicholls, CEO of The SROI Network alongside Joelle Bradly, Research Manager at Leicestershire County Council and Jenni Inglis, Director of VIE have come together to try and answer some of the most common questions they have encountered regarding commissioning and social value.

    1 What is social value?

    Social value relates to changes (outcomes) experienced by people and the environment, much of which is currently not captured in financial transactions. However the outcomes of activities and services are experienced by a range of people and are all of different levels of importance. Social value is an expression of changes that occur and the relative importance of these outcomes to those experiencing them. Social value will be being created through existing expenditure.

    2 How can we secure more social value?

    There are many ways in which more social value can be secured. A great starting point is to understand the outcomes desired by communities and prioritising them according to their relative importance. When you consider what you might do to achieve these outcomes, forecasting the likely effects and reflecting their relative importance will help to choose the best solution. Lastly, when activities are being delivered, checking what the social value of the solution actually is can help to inform future commissioning. If you understand what these outcomes are and how these outcomes are delivered you can then commission based on the activities and outcomes that create maximum value. This can be many things – ranging from employment opportunities through to reducing social isolation. It is very difficult to be prescriptive in advance.

    3 Why is social value important to us?

    One of the purposes of the public sector, and a duty for some public bodies, is to achieve best value, or in other words continuous improvement in economy, efficiency and effectiveness. Assessment of ‘economy’ has not always questioned what need there really was at the start and too often assessment of ‘effectiveness’ has not been able to account for the importance of the changes secured, and even sometimes what changes happened. Social value offers us a way to understand and generate real value for money. So you need to know how much social value you are getting for what you spend and, in decommissioning or redesigning services to cut costs, you need to be aware of effects on social value.

    4 When should we start thinking about social value?

    Start now. Understanding social value and acting to secure more of it will require:
    • better systems to understand and prioritise desired outcomes together with communities,
    • the involvement of communities and suppliers in developing solutions and a broader assessment of value in options appraisal and
    • changes to delivery mechanisms (whether staff roles or contracts for example).
    • encouraging potential providers to think about the social value they may be creating for different groups through existing solutions and how they can measure and value it.

    5 Can social value be quantified?

    It can but there are three questions that need answering.
    • What are the relevant and most significant outcomes for those affected?
    • How are these measured?
    • How important are they to the people that experienced them?
    So outcomes can be measured and weightings can be given to the quantities of outcomes to express social value.

    6 Why can’t we just let providers tell us what their social value is?

    Avoid the risk, appealing through it may be, of adding a box to the tender for providers to tell you their ‘added social value’. It will be impossible to score fairly. Involve providers earlier on in generating ideas on how to create the most value so that it can be built into the specification.

    7 Why can’t we just decide a list of things we think are the most important types of social value for our area and add these to tenders?

    There is a risk that the things on your list may have limited relevance to the subject matter of the service specification, which may make your procurement process more open to legal challenge. Restricting what is and isn’t social value also runs the risk of missing significant opportunities for securing more value. If you involve providers prior to sourcing your solution you can better understand what they might deliver and better specify social value requirements.

    8 Why can’t we just commission against last year’s strategy?

    You should not make decisions without a thorough understanding of the needs and aspiration of your residents and stakeholders and how much they value outcomes. Such an understanding enables a weighting to be applied to different outcomes for different stakeholder groups. Without a way of prioritising intended outcomes it is difficult to know where effort should be focussed and could lead to commissioning the wrong things based merely on what has been done before.

    9 Is social value always positive?

    No it isn’t always; activities can both create and destroy value. Recognise this when anticipating the likely results of a course of action and when evaluating the actual results, so that where negative effects occur and social value is being lost they can be reduced or avoided altogether.

    10 Who decides the value? Is there a standardised list of social values?

    Social value can only be better understood through recognising the relative value of different outcomes experienced by people and the environment. Encourage decision makers to develop an understanding of relative value from the perspective of those affected and how this differs between groups. An off-the-shelf list of values is not always appropriate but a standardised approach to determining how to value them may be helpful.

    11 Can this help me identify cashable savings?

    Some social value can help free up resources depending on the priorities that your needs analysis arrives at. The extent to which these changes can lead to reductions in budgets depends on scale, business models, latent demand in the system and political decisions. Reporting on how your costs vary with scale helps inform these decisions. Identify the potential for, and difference between, cashable saving, resource savings, or reallocation of resources in advance.

    12 Can social value help us work across departments?

    Social value doesn’t work in silos. Many opportunities for increasing social value will come from commissioning outcomes that are managed by different departments. Understanding the value to other departments can also prompt and inform conversations around funding decisions if there is evidence of the benefits to them.

    13 Will smaller providers deliver more if we take more account of social value?

    Creating the most social value requires organisations to understand the holistic needs, assets and aspirations of the people they are working directly with and the communities they inhabit. Smaller organisations are often good at doing this but they can be excluded for financial risk reasons, or because of a belief in economies of scale. You should manage financial risk at a corporate level and allow increased financial risk in some areas so that organisations that may create more social value are not excluded before they start. You should also consider how you package work and how this may increase your options. You can also use the small lots concession to enable participation by SMEs in any large, homogenous, requirement. Smaller organisations may be good at delivery but may not have capacity to manage and analyse data on needs and outcomes. Consider how you can support them. For example, smaller organisations may have the capacity to collate social value information but not analyse it.

    14 Do we really need to speak to people?

    Social value is what your customers and residents want. They can tell you their needs and aspirations and how they may experience change. Different groups will have very different needs and aspirations and so you need to involve them to understand what the social value is in any given context. In exploring service options, design services with them and others affected.

    15 When should social value be measured?

    Social value may be created during delivery of a service, may persist after the service has stopped and the most significant social value may occur after the service has been provided. Contract management and information on when outcomes occur and how long they last will be critical for ensuring the social value is actually created and understood. If you want to know if your services are improving social value you will need to know how much you are creating at the moment. You need a baseline.

    16 How can we embed practices to secure more social value in commissioning?

    In order to embed an approach to maximising social value in commissioning you will need to further build on skills in a wide range of existing functions. For example listening to and asking open questions of a wide range of different people, collecting this data and identifying patterns and analysing relationships between activities and outcomes, and involving people in generating options. You may need to shift the emphasis in how you commission to consider value across organisational boundaries, to spend more time on gaining insight from needs analysis or to do more comprehensive options appraisals. You will need to nurture a shared understanding across staff levels and departments and this will take leadership. Make sure that appraisal of staff takes all these tips into consideration.

    If you have any questions or comments on this article please email info@thesroinetwork.org

  • Localis report recommends an outcomes based approach in strategic commissioning

    Localis report recommends an outcomes based approach in strategic commissioning

    A recent report published by independent think-tank Localis, named “Commission Impossible? Shaping places through strategic commissioning” has highlighted the potential benefits of implementing innovative impact measurement models such as SROI and payment by results, finding that a large number of the councils they surveyed had either used, or where planning to use, an outcomes based approach to commissioning.

    The report refers to SROI as a good way of defining value, finding that “many authorities are trying to integrate the principles into commissioning, procurement and the funding of discrete projects.”

    It found that of all the councils surveyed almost everyone uses, or is planning to use, an outcomes based approach in their strategic commissioning. Mapping outcomes is a key stage of the SROI process, which allows users to develop an impact map, or “theory of change” to illustrate the relationship between inputs, outputs and outcomes.

    Localis state that SROI and other innovative approaches are “gaining credence” with 53% of councils planning on using SROI models in their approach to deliver on strategic commissioning plans.

    One of the key lessons, as outlined by this report, states that; “SROI, payment by results and other innovative models have the potential to revolutionise the way services are delivered. In the absence of sufficient data on the financial savings of early intervention, a focus on outcomes may be a useful way to shape the development of the social investment market.” In SROI, it is often preferable to start by forecasting what social value may be in order to ensure the right data collections systems are in place. For an evaluative SROI, outcomes data is essential.

    In the section headed; “Support a thriving market for all sectors” the report states that “Central Government should support councils to open up services to all organisations including small and voluntary organisations, by helping evidence social return on investment and reducing procurement barriers.” It also states that “councils should look to utilize social return on investment, payment by results and other innovative funding models that have the potential to revolutionize the way services are delivered.”

    To read the full report, visit the Localis website here.