Successful, high impact, social value projects need to be rooted in communities.
They need to follow Social Value UK’s eight principles – bookended by involving stakeholders and being responsive.
Impact measurement reporting has to be flexible enough to report at local, regional, national and global level to justify funding.
What is social value?
UN Sustainability Goals
The Bristol Accord
Social value is the quantification of the relative importance that people place on the changes they experience in their lives. Some, but not all 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.
Social value is the description of how a project creates value and a ratio that states how much social value in monetary terms is created for every £1 of funding
‘If £1 is spent on the delivery of services, can that same £1 be used to also produce wider benefit to the community?’
Public services (Social Value Act) 2012
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The key features of the Social Value Engine (SVE)
AGILE
The SVE has a ‘front end’ to allow you to quickly enter the minimum amount of data required to conduct an options appraisal on competing projects. For successful projects the data entered in Agile is carried forward into Extensive.
EXTENSIVE
This is the core of the SVE. It allows you to forecast, measure, and report on your Social Return on Investments (SROI). It is an extensive suite of software that supports the SROI aspects during the full lifecycle of your investment project. It includes ‘deflators’, to ensure you do not overclaim. The functionality provided is re-accredited every two years by Social Value International.
FORECASTING
This facility allows the generation of a ‘locked down’ version of your project that has been approved and signed off. At this point you will move the project to ‘evaluation’ to allow you to track its projects over time, monitoring and managing the outcomes you expect to realise for your stakeholders.
EVALUATION
This allows you to enter the ‘real life’ data you collect and to compare it with your forecast on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis. It allows narrative entry to explain both variances: both where expected outcomes are not being achieve and where unforeseen benefits, or dis-benefits, are being realised.
PROGRAMME
This function allows individual projects to be dynamically combined into programmes. This might be my geography (regional, national, global), by organisation (within your supply chain) or by theme (mental health, employment or disability).
The benefits of using the SVE
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Assurance:
The SVE is the only UK Software product accredited by Social Value International (SVI). SVI spans 25 countries, including the UK. This provides confidence that the software has been rigorously validated by an independent authority and it will be kept aligned with emerging good practice.
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Transparency:
The SVE curate and provide access to ~350 academically, peer-reviewed, financial proxies. They are regularly reviewed updated. Hyperlinks are provided to the original research to allow complete transparency.
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Localisation:
The SVE allows you to add your own financial proxies. As SVUK says: “The process of adding your own custom Inputs, outputs, outcomes, indicators and valuations is integral to conducting impact management in line with the SVI Principles”. For example, valuations derived from involving stakeholders, allows projects to be deeply rooted in local communities.
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Ease of use:
Because the SVE is fully aligned with SVUK’s principles your SVUK accredited consultants will find it entirely congruent with the best practice training they have received in achieving accreditation. Aligning the technology with the experienced professionals who use it is of critical importance in moving social value to the mainstream.
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Access to skilled resources:
The SVE team are skilled professionals with decades of experience in this field. They can train and support you in the best use of the SVE. Our objective is that certified social value practitioners are able to use the SVE effectively without external support. However, where resources are scarce, or for large / complex projects, SVUK have 60 certified consultants, spread across the UK, available to help.
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Ease of reporting:
The SVE can report using two globally recognised frameworks, and projects can flip-flop between the two. One is the UN’s 17 Sustainability Goals, the other is the Bristol Accord. The SVE can flex to incorporate other, local, regional, or national reporting frameworks.
The Engine Room
The Social Value Engine (SVE) is not just a tool to calculate the social value you are generating. When you join the SVE, you gain access to The Engine Room, where we help you get the most out of your social value journey.
Free attendance at themed workshops on key aspects of social value practice, e.g. data audits, outcome setting
Regular refresher training for licence holders
Blogs and thought pieces
Our tailored offers
For individuals in small organisations
£1,250 PA
One year agreement
£1,125 PA
Two year agreement
£1,000 PA
Three year agreement
Individual licences are provided to named individuals who work within the purchasing organisation. These named individuals can be changed up to three times during any one contractual year through notification by e-mail, for example where a licence holder changes role or leaves the organisation.
- Secure access to your account on the Social Value Engine
- Full training and access to our user guides and all the resources in our Engine Room
- Ongoing telephone and email support tailored to your needs
- Collate all your social value activities together to calculate your overall social value return
- Export evaluations into MS Excel and create attractive PDF reports of all your social value assessments
- Support to create unique impact cards that effectively communicate your impact to stakeholders
Licence fees to be paid in advance
Further discounts may be available for smaller organisations in the VCSE sector
For Enterprise
LICENSES
£6,000 pa (Cost per License £1,250)
LICENSES
£10,000 pa (Cost per License £1,000)
LICENSES
£11,250 pa (Cost per License £750)
Services include all the features described for individuals in small organisations. In addition – batches of licences are provided where the Enterprise can deploy, and re-deploy, licences to users as they see fit – both inside and outside of their organisation
Our pricing approach for Enterprises is designed to promote collaborative working. Significant social investment projects generally require a catalyst or ‘convenor’. That might be a Purchasing Authority, a Council, a group of NHS Trusts, a public sector supplier or a large government department. These convenors require:
- Close collaboration between the different stakeholders involved in the investment – often from different organisations and from different sectors in the economy
- Such an approach allows better, more integrated, investment decisions to be made
- This in turn provides a clearer understanding of the achievement of outcomes, individually and collectively, and a fuller understanding of what works best over time.
These benefits can only be realised by stakeholders having a common understanding, vocabulary, methodology and set of measures to forecast and evaluate the impact of investments and the social value they deliver. The SVE facilitates such an approach to achieve these benefits.
Licence fees payable in advance
A 10% reduction is available for a two-year agreement
A 20% reduction is available for a three-year agreement
Free for one year and for a single project. Then £250 plus VAT paid once, monthly in arrears, for subsequent projects.
We are keen to support Independent Social Value Consultants who have taken the time and trouble to achieve professional certification through SVUK. We believe we can offer you a number of benefits:
- Providing your customers with 'double level' confidence in their projects, a UK-based SVI Practitioner using SVI certified software.
- Low risk: free training on the SVE, the opportunity to test that the software meets your needs for some of your projects, and an opportunity to deploy it commercially for one year with one project - at no cost.
- Cost effective: A set price for any additional projects with a one-month payment window from project inception to preserve your cash flow.
- A growth opportunity: The opportunity to secure additional, pre-qualified business in your local area without the need for sales and marketing investment.
Accreditations
To measure social value, the eight principles of Social Value as set out by Social Value UK and Social Value International need to be heeded. The Social Value Engine has been designed to take each principle into consideration and has been accredited by Social Value International. Download our accreditation certificate. Social Value Engine is also proud to be a ‘Social Value UK Pioneer’ and ‘Social Value UK Partner’, reflecting our commitment to promoting transparent, responsible and reliable social value accounting. Download our accreditation certificate.
Our Clients
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Meet the Team
Ivan Annibal
Ivan invented the Social Value Engine. He runs a social business which focuses on planning things, doing things and measuring whether they have happened. He has worked in economic development for over 30 years. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Economic Development and a Senior Visiting Fellow at the Lincoln International Business School.
Rab Campbell
Rab is responsible for growing the use of the SVE and creating a vibrant user community that influences its future development. He is a multi-decade experienced digital professional and has served as the elected chair of the trade body in Scotland, ScotlandIS. He has worked in a variety of leadership roles in large corporations and digital start-ups. Rab is a strong supporter of "tech for good", in particular empowering disadvantage young people to use tech effectively to live fulfilling lives.
Joanne Bannister
Joanne is an accredited Social Value Practitioner who assists and supports organisations of all sizes to undertake the Social Value process, with extensive experience working in the private sector managing web-based products and account management to meet the needs of clients.
Conor McGale
Conor works with organisations on the island of Ireland in helping them measure their Social Value, irrespective of the size or type of organisation. He has nearly 30 years of Project Management, Evaluation and Strategic Planning experience in a wide range of industries. He has also worked with a number of key funders in evaluating their programmes and groups they support. Conor is a firm advocate of the Community & Voluntary sector’s work, particularly how organisations can demonstrate their impact & effectiveness working with some of the most disadvantaged communities and client groups in today’s society.
Dr Hayden Bird
Hayden' s role is working with clients to promote the practical application of the Social Value Engine. He has over 16 years’ experience in applied evaluation and consultancy, with an overarching interest in community development. His earlier projects involved research within the criminal justice system, but more recent interests include regeneration in rural and coastal places, ageing, social prescribing, and mental health recovery. Hayden also volunteers with Lincolnshire Rural Support Network, a service which supports farming communities and contributes to a service user forum for Lincolnshire’s talking therapies service. In his spare time, he enjoys walking by the sea.
Our Story
The Social Value Engine was jointly developed by Rose Regeneration and East Riding of Yorkshire Council in response to the Public Services (Social Value Act 2012), which requires public bodies to think about how they can secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits. The engine works alongside and has incorporated Social Return on Investment (SROI) methodology and the seven Social Value UK principles.
The Social Value Engine has been developed to give our clients complete control of their social value calculations. Behind the tool is a team whose collective experience in social value totals more than 30 years. We are passionate about measuring social value for its own sake and recording those so-called intangible benefits. We also embed the theory and best practice of social value into every aspect of our training and support offer.
