Social Value UK

Tag: Seven Principle

  • Impact Management: A chance to put the reindeer before the sleigh?

    Impact Management: A chance to put the reindeer before the sleigh?

    This is a blog by Social Value UK’s Operations Manager, Ben Carpenter.

    They will look back on 2017 and they will say “Ah, the year of ‘impact management” – well, maybe, or maybe it will only be me that says that (to an empty room)! In all seriousness, it has been a real privilege this year to lead Social Value UK’s role in the Impact Management Project; an ambitious social sector collaboration funded by Access Foundation aiming to help organisations get better at impact management. Why? So that they can create more social impact and help diversify their income (so says the theory of change!).

    There has been a clear journey for the impact management revellers this year and as cheesy as that sounds let me tear you away from your yule time festivities to talk you through it!

    What’s the point of all this measurement?

    We began the year running ‘roadshow’ events – rolling in to town and talking about the new ‘term’ on the block; “forget impact measurement, that’s so 2016 – it’s all about impact management now, don’t you know?” Cue, frantic discussions about the differences between measurement and management; “don’t you need to measure in order to manage?”, “Do we really need a new science?” and “Haven’t we all got enough to be doing?”  Yes, no and yes.

    Putting our healthy scepticism to one side, this was an important phase: conversations began to move beyond measurement. Rather than worrying too much about the how, we were addressing the why and challenging ourselves; “why do we measure that if we don’t do anything with the data?”. The conversations dared to consider “what if we had no funder to report to? – would we still collect data?”. Thankfully the answers were largely yes! In data terms we might no longer have the cart before the horse (or the sleigh before the reindeers?). We talked passionately about accountability, and how being accountable to your beneficiaries means relentlessly innovating to create the most impact you can (with the resources you have). I wrote a blog that wondered if impact management is a ‘state of mind’. It was a great time to be alive.

    Yeah, yeah but how do we do it?

    Heady stuff indeed. But once we sobered up we still had some of the old questions; “how do we do impact management?” and “what does it look like?”. Together with Social Enterprise UK we ran co-design workshops that drilled into the detail a bit more. New Philanthropy Capital led an exercise to distil this feedback and turn it into a structure. Impact management does require a specific type of organisational ‘culture’ but it also requires ‘data’ and some ‘planning/systems’. These are the three building blocks of the programme and they’ve proved to be useful areas for organisations to consider as they grapple with impact management.

    We continued to hold ‘co-design workshops’ and develop a cohort of organisations across six regions of England. These sessions were passionate and productive. Discussions around ‘data’ led to the identification of five types of data and whilst this may seem like a relatively simple categorisation of ‘data’ it’s provided many eureka moments so far. At SVUK we believe the value of outcomes is an extremely important and powerful subset of the outcome data set. If you are lucky enough to have more than one present under the tree this year, will you be considering the relative importance (or value) of each?

    When discussing ‘data’ we’ve forced the questions; “why do you collect this data”? or “what decisions can you make with this data (or information)? We made a rule: “Imagine you have no funder – you only collected information to help you improve your services and make changes”.

    Are we already doing impact management?

    The organisations we have worked with have all been at the beginning of their thinking about impact management. Whilst many are small, all of them enter this subject with an air of trepidation – as you might approach a long overdue check-up with the dentist. However, it’s been great to turn this trepidation into an optimism and even a confidence about impact management. It might not be so painful after all… Turns out we’re kind of doing it already?

    I firmly believe that all of the organisations we have engaged with are continuously making changes to their services. “It’s just what we do” is the common response. Of course, it is, these are people who care, who want to provide a good service so they are already in the habit of continuous improvement. In our most recent round of events we’ve been collecting examples of these changes and then asking what data (or information) they’ve used before making that change. This is impact management and maybe we’re already doing it? I wrote a blog about this too and suggested that all we need to do is recognise it, do more of it, in a systematic way and use more data to support these decisions.

    What does the future hold?

    There is still lots to do. Whilst it turns out organisations are (sometimes) good at collecting:

    1. user data
    2. engagement data
    3. feedback data and are using this to make changes

    They are not so good at the other types of data:

    1. outcomes data
    2. impact data.

    We can help organisations with this; NPC are creating some online resources and we have established a network of peer learning groups.

    But you cannot keep the white elephant, in our case the ‘funder’, out of the room for long. Despite our best efforts to imagine a world where funders don’t dictate data requirements, it never lasts. Unfortunately, in the real world, it is far too common to hear that organisations are prioritising data that their funder wants before considering what data would be useful for them.

    I do not want to have a go at funders (they deserve a good Christmas too) – after all, their demands are motivated by accountability. So, rather than get angry with funders this Christmas, let’s turn this into a positive. The organisations that are successful are the ones that set the data agenda with their funders. Organisations that can show they are in control of their data will soon earn the respect and trust of a funder.

    My wish for 2018 is that organisations prioritise the data they need to improve their programmes. That means creating a system that works for them. A system that collects all types of data and tracks how it informs decision making. The system needs to be proportionate and by that I mean the data collected is good enough for the decision it informs. An organisation that can do this has put the data sleigh firmly in place and the reindeers are dashing merrily through the snow, and I didn’t even mention the man with the white beard.

    Equally, we have more reasons to be cheerful;

    • SVUK have published an incredibly useful and timely guide called Maximise your Impact, which you can download here
    • SVUK have been involved in developing Impact Management from an investors perspective taking shape in the form of this project
    • This blog is also posted on the Impact Management Project blog

     

  • SAMETRICA Renews Software Assurance

    SAMETRICA Renews Software Assurance

    SAMETRICA (Incorporated as Social Asset Measurements Inc.) and Social Value International announce the renewal of SAMETRICA’s software compliance certification from Social Value International. SAMETRICA is a Software-as-a-Service platform founded in 2011 that enables enterprises to demonstrate the value of their social spend. Based out of Toronto, Canada, SAMETRICA meets the needs of large-scale clients, working with public sector clients including at all levels.  

    SAMETRICA was the first to complete compliance testing of its product with Social Value International (formerly The SROI Network) in 2013. This third party compliance testing ensures that SAMETRICA enables a user to capture the information required to complete a Social Value analysis in line with the framework for accounting for value (Value Map) which is used to facilitate the application of the Principles of Social Value.

    The accreditation process seeks to assess whether or not software demonstrates a satisfactory understanding of, and is consistent with, the Principles of Social Value. Software is reviewed by Social Value UK on behalf of Social Value International and must demonstrate compliance with the Social Value Software assessment criteria in order to be certified. The Social Value Software assessment criteria document can be downloaded from the website here and a full list of software can be found here.

     

    Press Contacts

    Social Value UK

    Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Membership and Communications Coordinator, Social Value UK

    E: christina.moorcroft@sv-test.wp-support.team                       T: 0151 703 9229

     

    Social Value UK is the national network for anyone interested in social value and social impact. We work with our members to increase the accounting, measuring and maximising of social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s activities, through our Social Value Principles. We believe in a world where a broader definition of value will change decision making and ultimately decrease inequality and environmental degradation. To achieve our mission, Social Value UK provides training and assurance services, as well as hosting regular meetings and events, creating new tools and resources, and running campaigns. Through supporting and working with our members, and as a National Member Network of Social Value International, we are creating an international movement for change.

     

  • Social Value Videos

    Social Value Videos

    Social value is the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices. It is important to consider and measure this social value from the perspective of those affected by an organisation’s work. Examples of social value might be the value we experience from increasing our confidence, or from living next to a community park. These things are important to us, but are not commonly expressed or measured in the same way that financial value is. At Social Value UK, we believe that social value has a huge potential to help us change the way we understand the world around us, and make decisions about where to invest resources. By changing the way we account for value, we believe that we will end up with a world with more equality and a more sustainable environment.

    Recently we have began sharing interesting and inspiring talks and presentations that relate to the Principles of Social Value, and our mission to improve equality and reduce environmental degradation. These videos span interests, sectors and topics but they’re all under 20 minutes and should be added to your “to watch” list. We have been sharing these videos on Twitter using the hashtag #socvalvid and will continue to do so in the weeks to come, so keep an eye out each Monday and Friday! Please search the hashtag for an enjoyable and informative afternoon distraction and share your own finds using #socvalvid.

    We have included a talk to get you started below, let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    You might not expect the chief operating officer of a major global corporation to look too far beyond either the balance sheet or the bottom line. But Harish Manwani, COO of Unilever, makes a passionate argument that doing so to include value, purpose and sustainability in top-level decision-making is not just savvy, it’s the only way to run a 21st century business responsibly.

  • Impact Reports – Must Haves!

    Impact Reports – Must Haves!

    Ten things you should be looking for when reading an impact report.  A blog by Christina Berry-Moorcroft, Social Value UK Communications and Membership Coordinator.

    Here at Social Value UK we are incredibly proud of our Reports Database, at last count it had nearly 700 reports relating to social value in there for you to peruse and learn from. The reports database is made up of SROI reports, assured and non-assured, social impact reports and cost benefit analysis reports. So whatever sector you work in, whatever level of riguer you’re working at and whatever you need examples of, you can find it in one place. But, what if you’re not sure what you’re looking for, or at? We know that many people like to read impact reports before setting off on their own, so to make the process easier we’ve compiled a handy list of ten things you should be looking for. We hope it helps!

     

    What is it for?
    What is the report you are reading for? Who’s the intended audience? What are they hoping to communicate and/or achieve with this report? If this is immediately clear, then great, keep this in mind throughout the rest of the report. If it isn’t, then this may not be the end of the transparency issues…

    What has and has not been included?
    Have the authors been completely transparent about what has and hasn’t been included? Have they also explained how they came to their decisions about what was and was not material? At this point, it’s also wise to check that the report uses enough data, that it’s representative and that the authors have considered all possible biases. If a report isn’t inclusive of all of these things then there’s a fear the authors of the report are over-claiming, meaning they may be claiming the value of activities they were not a part of creating.

    Is this an output or outcome?

    What’s an outcome? What’s an output? What’s the difference? This can all too often be confused when people start measuring their impact but it’s vital that we aren’t claiming outputs as outcomes if we are to avoid over claiming. An output is a way of describing the activity in relation to each stakeholder’s inputs in quantitative terms, for example the staff who work on the project or the hours a volunteer put into the project. Outcomes are the changes resulting from an activity. The main types of change from the perspective of stakeholders are unintended (unexpected) and intended (expected), but more on that later. For now, ask yourself, has the report you’re reading made clear the difference between outputs and outcomes? We have produced some supplementary guidance on well-defined outcomes that will help.

    Who decides what?
    The Principles of Social Value provide the basic building blocks for anyone who wants to make decisions that take this wider definition of value into account, in order to increase equality, improve wellbeing and increase environmental sustainability. The first principle is the underpinning for all of the following six, and one that you must not forget when reading or writing an impact report! Principle One is Involve Stakeholders and we define stakeholders as people, organisations or entities that experience change, whether positive or negative, as a result of the activity that is being analysed. Were stakeholders involved? And importantly, were they involved in identifying and valuing outcomes? No two outcomes are equal to stakeholders, have the authors shown how they decided which outcomes were more valuable?

    What about stakeholder segmentation?
    Unless the only people impacted by your activities are the exact same in every way: age, gender, socio-economic status, health, relationship status, family set-up, and so on, and that’s highly unlikely, then not including stakeholder segmentation is a massive flaw. Segmentation is the process of looking at different groups of stakeholders, based on anything that makes them different from another group of stakeholders. Each type of stakeholder will have different outcomes, and indeed different valuations for those outcomes, and if the report you are reading hasn’t taken that into account then they could be over-claiming!

    Is it all positive impacts?
    The report you’re reading may be full of positive impacts, in fact we hope it is, we fully believe that measuring and maximising social value will lead to a more equal, more just and more sustainable planet for us all. However, every project, despite how great it’s theory of change is, will have negative impacts, it’s unavoidable. So has the report you’re looking at made allowances for that? Have they asked stakeholders what those were? Have they put measures in place to reduce these? Are they improving their work next time based on this? These are all questions you should be looking for the answers to when reading an impact report.

    And what about the change we didn’t mean to cause?
    Much like with point four, another key thing to look out for is whether the report lists the unintended outcomes of the project. If a report just states the intended outcomes, then they have only looked at, and asked stakeholders about the project objectives. This doesn’t give a full overview of the project, could be neglecting significant impact and is stunting future project improvement based on impact data. Examples of intended outcomes could be increased confidence, a secure job or reduced isolation, whereas as an unintended outcome could be that attendees on a course suffer a reduction in self worth for not doing as well as their classmates. That’s not to say that unintended outcomes are always negative, organisations often create lots of social value that they aren’t accounting for, listing unintended outcomes makes sure this isn’t happening and allows for project design based on all of the information.

    How much of this change can they claim?
    So the authors of the report have considered all of the outcomes, based on the opinions of their segmented stakeholders, they’ve looked at intended and unintended outcomes and considered both positive and negative change, that’s all right? Well, not quite. In order to not overclaim (Principle 5) and be transparent  (Principle 6) then the authors should have also calculated the likelihood of what would have happened to the stakeholders anyway, without their action and what other actors (organisations, people, interventions) may have played a part in the change experienced by a stakeholder. We call this considering the counterfactual and attribution. If 100% of a change is claimed it’s not only not true, it’s a little foolish and means the author is over-claiming, which means their project isn’t as successful as they claim it is, which means they are missing valuable opportunities to make it better!

    Is this important?
    Have the authors of this report demonstrated that they undertook a process of determining what information and evidence must be included in the accounts to give a true and fair picture? Some information is important is material and some is not, has this been considered? Enough information should be included so that stakeholders can draw reasonable conclusions about impact. On top of this, has the information been ranked with relative importance, and importantly, were stakeholders consulted on this?

    Can I trust this logic?
    One thing to consistently consider with impact reports is transparency (Principle 6), authors of impact reports should demonstrate the basis on which the analysis may be considered accurate and honest, and show that it will be reported to and discussed with stakeholders. Have they? And finally, but crucially, have they sought independent assurance of their impact data, assumptions and reports? Verifying the result (Principle 7) is crucial, and shows a mark of quality. You can search our Reports Database for only assured reports, to ensure you are reading reports that have met the standards we require, and find information on the assurance and accreditation services we offer on our website.


    For further information on conducting social value measurement please see     ‘The Guide to SROI’ and supplementary guidance. We offer a range of support services, including mentoring, that can support you further.

    What are your top tips for reading, or writing impact reports? Do you have advice for other community members? We would love to hear your thoughts!

  • Social Value Matters 2017

    Social Value Matters 2017

     

    Today Ben Carpenter, Operations Manager, Social Value UK shares updates from Social Value Matters 2017.

    On the 10th-11th April Social Value International (SVI) teamed up with Turkish member Koç University Social Impact Forum (KUSIF) to deliver their annual conference; “Social Value Matters” in Istanbul. This year the conference title Social Value Matters (SVM17) carried the tag line “More Than Ever”. The backdrop being a world with rising inequality and a collective feeling that we must all act now and quickly to reverse this trend. The conference had a distinct emphasis on Maximising Social Value and Amplifying Stakeholder Voices; empowering the views of the vulnerable – the very people that many of us are providing service or products for. How can we make sure that we are maximising the value we create for these people? I was delighted to see that these themes ran deeply through all the sessions I attended.

    This was the third SVI conference I have attended and each one leaves me feeling motivated and inspired. They bring together talented professionals from diverse spheres – united in their desire to see social impact information being used to inform decision making and make the world a better place. SVM17 was no exception; over 250 delegates came from over 25 countries representing the public sector, private sector, academia and civil society. Cross cutting these sectors there were investors, delivery organisations and advisors. Throw in the stunning setting of Koç University overlooking the banks of the Bosphorus and it’s a heady mix.

     “It’s great to have so many people from all over the world working together to improve the way in which managing impact can reduce inequality.”

    Jeremy Nicholls, CEO Social Value UK and Social Value International

    The format of Social Value Matters was extremely participatory – there were no lectures or ‘expert panels’, instead there was always several workshop options, interactive in their delivery and the majority of the conference consisted of small roundtable discussions. Plenary sessions were kept to a minimum with high quality keynote speeches to start both days and then delegates taking to the stage with an open mic session to reflect and summarise at the close of each day (with a live jazz sound-track too!). You can check out some conference highlights and the conversations attendees were having on social media on this STORIFY.

     

    What I personally learned from the conference?

    The one thing that struck me was that, we should all (regularly) take a step back and ask ourselves why we are collecting this information about social value in the first place? The answer is surely: “So that we can maximise the social value we create”. So, rather than focussing on the measurement of impact as an exercise in itself – and getting caught up in the complexities of ‘empirical evidence’ or ‘formative evaluation’ – we should focus on collecting the information we need to improve our products and services. Or, in the case of investors/governance; “Is that organisation collecting the information it needs to improve it’s products or services?”

    I have written before about an emerging shift from impact measurement to maximising impact. This conference reaffirmed that it is definitely time to stop nit-picking about methodologies or metrics. More important is creating an organisational culture of listening to stakeholders and responding which means designing services or products to meet their preferences. This involves all of the complex and geeky things we love to discuss and are necessary to practice (such as stakeholder involvement, valuation techniques, counterfactual, materiality) but doing it proportionately and with a clear raison d’etre: to maximise the social value of our activities.

    As our conversations shift more towards ‘managing impact’ and ‘maximising value’ there are more references to subjects such as ‘design thinking’, ‘social innovation’ and ‘customer profiling techniques’. These are exciting topics and practices – arguably more exciting than ‘measurement’ and ‘accounting’ (but ssshh don’t tell the accountants I said that!). The truth is, accountability and maximising value are two sides of the same coin; if you are being accountable to your stakeholders then you are relentlessly innovating to provide the best services for them. I can’t wait to bring in more experts from these fields to help develop our movement!

    What happens next, ACTIONS?

    • SVI will soon be publishing some write-ups of all workshops and roundtables, many of which have some clear actions for the community moving forward.
    • We will be analysing feedback from the conference that will give us a NPS and some qualitative data on what impact the conference has had on attendees!
    • SVI will be launching a campaign for maximising value, which was also a need highlighted by SVI’s annual survey
    • The turkish chapter of Social Value International was officially launched at the conference and we expect more national networks to emerge or continue to grow. If you would like to join a national network or form one please contact SVI.

    We hope all attendees and also people who couldn’t attend can stay in touch using Social Value International social media.

    Join the movement, by becoming a member today, and see you next year!

  • Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    Capturing All Voices in Impact Assessment

    This is a guest blog by member Clare Hammond on her social value work with The Yard Scotland. Clare works for Rocket Science UK Ltd. Let us know your thoughts in the comments.

    We have been working with The Yard Scotland and their community since June 2016. The Yard provides safe play spaces and respite for young people with disabilities and their families. During our time with The Yard, we conducted a Social Return on Investment and Cost Benefit Analysis to be able to evidence and quantify the impact their service has on families and how much they save other service providers such as the Local Authority.

    For Rocket Science, the voice of the service user should be present, loud and clear, and the central driving force for any impact analysis. Social researchers the world around can talk to you about sampling sizes, interview techniques, and running a great focus group to get that voice. However, social impact research gets slightly more complicated when service users are less able to engage with the more traditional research processes.

    Engaging extensively with The Yard’s young people and families as part of this research has been very important to both Rocket Science and The Yard Scotland. To do this we have had to use less conventional methods of social research – and we have learnt a few things along the way: We’ve learnt a few things along the way about how to approach impact analysis using less conventional methods:

    • Co-design with The Yard of all research activities was vital. As consultants, we brought expertise in evaluation disciplines, analytical processes and robustness. However, it’s The Yard that knows its client group inside and out. Bringing together this expertise was vitally important, particularly in designing and delivering the research activities with their young adventurers.
    • Abandoning the traditional – for the young adventurers we knew we couldn’t use traditional research techniques. Instead we embraced what made The Yard so great – play! We kept it simple– we had two questions we needed answering. Then we developed a range of play activities that young people could engage with…ever conducted an interview on a go-kart? It’s exhilarating.
    • Understanding the impact of the service on families was much harder than we expected. Parents and families of these young adventurers are so used to constantly being the advocate for their child. They are some of the most selfless people we have engaged with. For our research – getting parents to think about themselves was difficult. We overcame this in two ways:
    1. We needed to make it clear to parents that this was a space for them to talk about themselves as well as their children. Using colourful post-it notes we put all messages relating to their children on one wall, and messages relating to themselves as individuals on another wall. As expected, the wall of messages about their children filled up fast, while their own wall remained largely empty. We then set them the challenge of filling their wall to be as colourful as the wall about their children. Highlighting their selflessness visually, and colourfully proved to be very effective.
    2. Once again, we embraced The Yard’s motto – fun! We needed to convert outcomes such as friendship and relaxation into monetary values. We chose to use Choice Modelling – which, I promise, is as dull as it sounds if done with no humour. So with fun, laughter and a joke or two we had groups of parents and carers giving us their honest views of what was important to them as individuals as well as their family.

    Our time with The Yard has been rewarding, enlightening and a lot of fun. There aren’t many researchers that get to say they got to play with paints, bikes and swings for work! The Yard are now armed with robust evidence of their impact to use with the policy makers and funders. With this information, they intend to influence the design of services and expand their services further across Scotland.

    For more information on Social Value, and the Social Value Principles see here.

  • What does social value mean to you?

    What does social value mean to you?

    The Social Value International 2016 survey has launched!

    Each year Social Value International try to take a snapshot of how the Principles of Social Value are being used. We use this information to better support our members and the social value community at large through creating new guidance, training and campaigns.

    For more information on the Principles of Social Value, watch our short video below:

     

    The survey should take no longer than 15 minutes to complete and you will be entered in to a prize draw upon completion.

    Thank you from everyone at Social Value International and Social Value UK.

    Survey

  • The Seven Principles of Maximising Social Value

    The Seven Principles of Maximising Social Value

    This month we published a new report “The Seven Principles of Social Value, and why they are important for accountability and maximising social value”, that is available for free on our online resource library.

    Social Value is the value that stakeholders experience through changes in their lives. Some, but not all of this value is captured in market prices.

    The Principles of Social Value provide the basic building blocks for anyone who wants to make decisions that take this wider definition of value into account, in order to increase equality, improve well being and increase environmental sustainability. They are generally accepted social accounting principles.

    The Principles are not individually remarkable; they have been drawn from principles underlying social accounting and audit, sustainability reporting, cost benefit analysis, financial accounting, and evaluation practice. There are other guides available on the process of measuring and reporting social value and impact that also refer to principles, such as the Social Investment Taskforce Guidelines for Good Impact Practice. However, the Principles of Social Value can be distinguished by their focus on what underpins an account of social value, and on the questions that need to be addressed so that the information can be used to better inform decisions.

    The Principles were originally developed in 2009 and were updated in 2015 following the merger of the SROI Network and the Social Impact Analysts Association. This new report from Social Value UK explains the thinking that underpins these Principles.

    Please read the report here and let us know what you think in the comments section.

  • Social Value UK’s response to The Seven Principle Problems of SROI

    Last month, Daniel Fujiwara from Simetrica published ‘The Seven Principle Problems with SROI’ (SPP). The paper runs through seven separate points regarding SROI. The points are based on existing research in economics and policy evaluation and draw in particular on many parallels between challenges that have faced cost benefit analysis (CBA) and those which exist for SROI today. The paper is a welcome contribution to the ongoing development and discussions around SROI, and covers a range of issues within SROI, borrowing from ethics, economics and statistics to do so. Despite what some may infer from the title of the paper, it is not a line-by-line critique of the Seven Principles of Social Value.

    Throughout the paper, Social Value UK (formerly the SROI Network) has been referenced and cited. Below is our response to some of the points arising.

    1. Context – rigour and purpose

    One main issue of concern for us is the potential for confusion between the current Guide to SROI and the Seven Principles of Social Value. When the Guide was originally written there were two audiences in mind. One was an organisation, probably relatively small, seeking to start to understand and manage the value it was creating. The other audience was practitioners, to enable them to use the Principles recognising that they would need to be applied with different levels of complexity depending on the audience and purpose. However, the Guide does not include examples to highlight what this variance of audience and purpose would mean in practice.

    As specific examples, point 6 in the paper is headed ‘Valuation theory and methodology in SROI are outdated and incomplete’ and in point 5: ‘Statistical methods for inferring causality are problematic in SROI’.

    Whilst the points made in SPP may be relevant for some audiences in relation to what is included in the current Guide, the Principles ‘Value what matters’ and ‘Do not overclaim’ are not being fundamentally criticised here. The paper also does not recognise that there are examples of these Principles in practice which are up to date and, whilst not meeting Daniel’s required level of rigour, are more than satisfactory to be useful and helpful to organisations making resource allocation decisions. For example, it can be very helpful for an organisation to ask people ‘what would have happened anyway?’ as this may provide insights that allow more targeted services to specific groups, in essence thinking about customer segmentation as a way of increasing value gained by customers.

    Our major concern would therefore be that an attempt to improve guidance creates an additional barrier to organisations trying to create more value in their work, increases the perception that SROI has to be expensive and complex, and doesn’t recognise the reality that most organisations currently make resource allocation decisions on imperfect information complemented with a healthy dose of ‘gut feeling’. Making decisions which are informed by perhaps equally imperfect information but now also on social value can only increase transparency in the decisions.

    Social Value International (SVI) has recognised for some time that there is a need for the current Guide to cover:

    • the use of Principles for different audiences and purposes (which would include both more and less rigour in their application)
    • more in depth guidance in general

    As a further example Professor Adrian Henriques has also written a recent piece on the Principle of overclaiming in SROI. In it, he argues that for business it is the gross impact rather than the net impact which is more important. This would mean that debates about the level of rigour applied in determining a counterfactual risk miss the point. This discussion raises interesting issues in relation to a specific audience and purpose and although we would still argue that both gross and net impact should be reported, we agree that the issue Adrian raises is important.

    SVI maintains a Methodology Subcommittee which has developed a work plan in consultation with members. In particular, the Subcommittee is preparing guidance by working through the Seven Principles of Social Value. As a result SVI has produced supplements on stakeholder involvement and materiality and the draft supplement on outcomes is currently out for consultation with members. SVI recognises the need for more guidance on valuation and overclaiming and would agree with Daniel’s points that more guidance is required. In September, SVI hosted a three day meeting with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development which brought together 22 experts in valuation to start work on developing this further guidance.

    However, it is important that this is not read as a critique of the Principles and that the processes that SVI has in place should be recognised.  Daniel raises his issues in the context of public policy evaluation, predominantly in central government. The need for more guidance would be useful for any other audience requiring a similar level of rigour. However it should also not be forgotten that policy is sometimes made without recourse to evidence based on a high level of rigour, and so developing an argument based on our existing guidance may still prove useful.

    So whilst SVI acknowledges that this high rigour, more specialist use of SROI would be appropriate for public policy evaluation, we also argue that this is only one of a number of audiences and purposes that SROI is suitable for. There are many organisations who do use SROI, often on a recurring basis, because they find it ‘good enough’ for their purpose and audience. This can be seen from the range of case studies on our website, most recently from BT (British Telecom) and FLUPP, a non profit foundation in Brazil.

    2. Context – the alternatives

    Following on from this our related concern would be that reading the paper as a critique of the Principles of Social Value without the context of considering other approaches for accounting for social value is dangerous. The purpose of these Principles should not be forgotten – to reduce inequality and environmental degradation by taking into account wider value. This wider value is recognised by giving a voice to those affected by an organisation’s work, to enable them to express what those effects are and how important they are, therefore increasing accountability.

    There are many reasons why society does not require organisations to be fully accountable for what happens to people as a result of their activities. The consequence is that organisations are able to decide how accountable they should be and to choose their own approaches, if any, to measuring the wider value they create and destroy. Those methods are variable, they lack the consistency that a principle based approach provides and can include approaches where organisations decide how they have affected people, to only account for intended positive outcomes, not to consider any counterfactual and so on.

    The danger again is not that practise improves but the voluntary nature of managing and reporting on social value allows organisations to fall back onto approaches that have a lower level of rigour than even the existing Guide to SROI, to a level which fails to be accountable and therefore does not result in any changes in resource allocation decisions.

    This point – that SROI is often better than the current practice of most organisations and most alternatives – is especially pertinent for point 2 (‘SROI is silent on the issue of interpersonal comparisons and perversely places greater weight on the outcomes of the rich). Whilst it is acknowledged that interpersonal comparisons can be problematic, and certain valuation techniques can mean that outcomes and interests of richer people are weighted higher, in a world where organisations are not accountable enough to non-financial stakeholders, whose voices go unheard, even current guidance on the principle of ‘Valuing what matters’ has to be a step in the right direction.

    3. The Normative basis for SROI

    Whilst this may seem somewhat abstract to many people seeking to account for and manage the social impact of their organisations, we would agree that this is an important issue. There is a normative positon that underpins the Principles of Social Value and therefore SROI as an example of their application. This is:

    “to reduce inequality and environmental degradation and improve wellbeing by incorporating social, environmental and economic costs and benefits.”1

    We would agree with Daniel that this could usefully be developed so that the basis against which judgements are being made is clearer and we have started to explore this issue with the aim of a more detailed normative position. Some of the approaches that are discussed in Daniel’s paper such as the agency-centred approach and welfarism are relevant to this discussion.

    4. Other issues

    Some of the other points are more semantic. For example in point 3 (‘SROI’s views on stakeholders can be too narrow’),  Daniel argues that ‘non-use value, defined as ‘a value that I might place on an outcome even though I get no direct use or impact out of it’ is not included. Whilst there may be no examples where this has been included, and we haven’t checked, the important point is that if value is material and experienced by stakeholders, it should be included in an account.

    We have written various articles on the risks of bias in the ratio and the danger of the ratio without inclusion of supporting information, which provides transparency in how it was calculated.2 

    Given the ratio is a calculation using underlying information, transparency means it can be calculated and presented in different ways and is then also easy to interpret. However, Daniel is correct that the guidance is to include negative outcomes in the numerator. We think that the guidance is clear on this, both in the calculation and in the discussion on outcomes.

    Finally in relation to point 7 about which costs are included in the calculation, Daniel is correct that the SROI guidance is to include the costs necessary for the activity being considered. However if there are material costs being met by other stakeholders as lost opportunities these could be included as outcomes. We agree that more clarity on this would be helpful.