Use social value to deliver innovation and savings: Social Enterprise UK

Local authorities and housing associations should view social value as a route to innovation and cost savings, “not just as the creation of positive social outcomes or, worse, compliance to the Public Services (Social Value) Act”, Social Enterprise UK has argued.

In Communities Count: the Four Steps to Unlocking Social Value, Social Enterprise UK also recommended that councils and housing associations:

  • Adopt a written policy and a nominated lead for social value;
  • Integrate and consider social value across all services, regardless of size;
  • Work with, buy from, start-up and support social enterprises to help deliver social value; and
  • Measure the social value being created – “against a clear sense of what is trying to be achieved, proportionately, and throughout the length of contracts”.

A survey of 77 local authorities and 123 housing associations conducted by Social Enterprise UK for the report found that 71% considered that delivering social value had led to better service delivery.

Half (52%) suggested that it had led to cost savings, while four in five (82%) found that it had led to an improved image of their organisation.

The research found that 80% of councils and housing associations considered employment as the number one social value priority. This was followed by youth employment (54%) and training/volunteering (51%).

But only a third said the 2013 Act had had a high impact. More than half of respondents considered it to have had a low impact, “largely because they were doing it already”, Social Enterprise UK suggested.

The report also found that barriers remained around defining what social value is and how it could be measured.

More than half of respondents reported measurement as the main barrier to implementation: 53% during the commissioning process and 55% post-commissioning.

A copy of the report can be viewed here.

Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK, said: “The findings in this report are very good news and clearly demonstrate that integrating social value can bring a wide range of benefits to local authorities and housing associations and the communities in which they operate.”