What is social value?
Social value is the effect of our impacts on wider economic, social and environmental areas resulting from our actions. So, when we buy a coffee from a local shop, we’re creating social value by supporting the local economy, wider economy (if the person lives further away), the coffee bean industry etc.
We use social value to understand how the work we do, and the work we fund, impacts people’s lives.
So, we measure our social value impact using HACT’s UK social value bank, and we generate additional funding/in-kind measures to improve our communities through our procurement process.
Click below to find out more about each of these.
Measuring social value – how our projects impact lives
We use HACT’s UK social value bank to work out our social value. Using the values within this bank we can calculate the impact of our work on our customers and communities in monetary terms, measuring our social impact through improvements to wellbeing.
For example, by helping local people into employment, training and volunteering; or activities that provide other benefits such as improved health and fitness through group activities and helping those who may be lonely and isolated to get involved and meet others.
Another way to think of it is for every £1 you spend, how many pounds in wider value are created for society?
We aspire to deliver a social value ratio of £1: £12.50 for health and wellbeing. We update where we are with this each year in our Customer Annual Report (check it out here).
Social value procurement funding
Did you know we ask our suppliers to "give something back" by way of a social value return? It’s how we use our buying power to generate additional support for our customers and communities.
So, when we buy things, we make sure that organisation commits to giving back to our communities through social value, either through a monetary donation or in kind. This can be materials, funding, equipment, employment opportunities or volunteering hours.
We’re calling it social value procurement funding. And Abri has a target to achieve £2.5million funding through this route by 2025.
Why do we do this?
The Public Services Act (Social Value Act 2012) requires those who commission or procure services to think about how they can also secure wider social, economic and environmental benefits, beyond those directly related to the goods, services and work.
It encourages organisations to work with suppliers to achieve benefits for local people and communities.
Social Value is extremely important to our organisation and the communities we serve.
It helps us to measure and quantify the social impact of our work on customer’s lives where we can’t usually measure this in monetary terms.
Abri’s Communities Strategy sets a target of achieving £2.5 million in social value from our supply chain by 2025.