Scottish Local Authority
Dumfries and Galloway Council
Justifying community asset transfers with independent social value evidence
Dumfries and Galloway Council's Community Empowerment Service uses the Social Value Engine to support Community Asset Transfer decisions, giving elected committees an independent, quantified figure alongside the financial cost of transferring publicly owned assets to community groups at below market value.
Dumfries and Galloway Council covers one of Scotland's largest and most rural council areas. The Community Empowerment Service works with local groups and voluntary organisations to support the transfer of publicly owned assets into community ownership, a process known as Community Asset Transfer (CAT). Under Scottish legislation, community bodies can apply to purchase or lease public sector assets at significantly below market value, in some cases for a nominal payment of £1. In practice, transfers typically involve surplus or underused assets that the council does not need for its own purposes. James Parker has been leading this work within the Community Empowerment Service for several years, and The Social Value Engine has been part of his process from early on.
"Before we were using The Social Value Engine, we didn't really have a number to put on this. We could say we are very confident this will provide value for money, but that was just our opinion."
James Parker
Community Empowerment Service, Dumfries and Galloway Council
The challenge
When a council transfers an asset at well below market value, elected members need to understand why that is a sound use of public resources. Before using the Social Value Engine, the team could offer officer judgement: a confident assessment that a transfer represented good value. But as James Parker puts it, that was just their opinion. There was no independent figure to put in front of a committee. Social value had long been recognised as important, but translating outcomes like health, community wellbeing and environmental benefit into a figure comparable to a capital loss remained a different challenge.
The solution
James Parker works with applicant groups to test and refine the projections in their business plans before running the assessment himself through the Social Value Engine. Rather than using the social value figure to set a precise discount price — an approach he considers unfair, given that assessments are built on estimates and proxies — the council asks groups to make an offer and uses the social value figure as supporting evidence: does the projected social value significantly exceed the discount being requested? The tool's category structure maps onto council strategic priorities, making it straightforward to show that transfers are actively delivering against the council's goals. Local knowledge is central to the process, with James consulting community-based officers and adjusting deflator values to reflect Dumfries and Galloway's rural context.
Key outcomes
"We use the social value figure to say: does the offer justify the discount? Is the social value generated going to offset what we're giving away? That's a fairer way of doing it than treating it as an exact calculation."
James Parker
Community Empowerment Service, Dumfries and Galloway Council
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