Scottish Local Authority
Fife Council
Using social value measurement to articulate the impact of physical activity
Fife Council's Active Communities team used the Social Value Engine to translate physical activity programme outcomes into evidence-based monetary values, making the case for investment to senior decision-makers.
Fife Council's Active Communities team works across the region to support physical activity and sport as a means of addressing health inequalities, community need, and wider social outcomes. The team delivers targeted programmes directly and works in partnership with third-sector organisations, community sports clubs, and community sport hubs to increase participation and improve wellbeing across Fife. While the team was confident about the positive impact of its work, articulating that impact in a way that resonated with senior decision-makers proved challenging. Traditional case studies, testimonials, and participation numbers did not fully reflect the scale or significance of the change being achieved, particularly for targeted programmes serving smaller or more specific populations.
"We always knew our programmes made a real difference. Now we can prove it in a language that resonates with senior decision-makers."
Jamie Moffatt
Active Communities Officer, Fife Council
The challenge
Like many local authority teams, Active Communities operates in a financially constrained environment. As funding pressures increased, the need to clearly evidence impact became more urgent. The team identified several key challenges: demonstrating the value of physical activity beyond participation figures; translating social and health outcomes into a language understood by senior management and elected members; making the case for investment in programmes where participant numbers were relatively small but impact was significant; and aligning physical activity outcomes with wider council and health priorities. Existing SROI examples within sport tended to focus on economic impact rather than community, health, and wellbeing outcomes, leaving a gap in how the team could evidence the true value of its work.
The solution
In February 2025, Fife Council's Active Communities team began using the Social Value Engine to support impact measurement and reporting. The decision followed exploratory discussions and research into alternative approaches, with a focus on finding a tool that could quantify social outcomes in a credible and evidence-based way, align programme impacts with recognised strategies and policy objectives, and support both retrospective evaluation and forward-looking investment cases. The Social Value Engine provided a structured framework for measuring outcomes using validated proxies, allowing the team to place monetary values against social, health, and community benefits without reducing impact to purely financial terms.
Key outcomes
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