Knowledge Base

A practical guide for public-sector buyers who want to set stronger social value requirements without creating unnecessary barriers for SMEs, charities and social enterprises.

A practical guide to designing social value KPIs that are specific, measurable and proportionate, with examples covering targets, evidence, additionality and outcomes.

A practical guide to measuring jobs, apprenticeships and skills outcomes, from contract commitments and job quality to evidence and sustained employment.

Benchmarking can help organisations understand performance, set targets and learn from their peers. Useful comparisons also account for different places, populations and starting points. This guide explains how to combine consistent measures with local data and community voice.

A practical guide for suppliers on turning social value commitments into measurable, auditable evidence for public sector tenders and contract reporting.

Social value is the quantified measure of how much people's lives improve as a result of an activity. This guide explains what it means, how it is calculated, and why it matters across the public, housing, further education and voluntary sectors.

HM Treasury has published a substantially revised edition of the Magenta Book, the government's central guidance on evaluation. Here is what has changed and why it matters for social value practitioners.

Social Return on Investment (SROI) is a methodology for measuring, valuing, and communicating the social, environmental, and economic outcomes that an organisation, project, or service generates.

A poorly designed survey is one of the most common sources of weak social value evidence. It asks too much, captures too little that is useful, and leaves practitioners trying to build a credible SROI case from data that does not hold up to scrutiny.

Proportionality means matching the depth, rigour, and cost of your measurement approach to the scale of the activity, the significance of the decisions it will inform, and the resources available to carry it out.

Public and third sector organisations are increasingly expected to demonstrate that their work improves people’s lives while also making responsible use of public money. As a result, approaches that attempt to measure social impact in a structured way have become more prominent. Two of the most discussed are WELLBYs (Wellbeing-Adjusted Life Years) and Social Return on Investment (SROI).

Articulating impact clearly is a common challenge in social value delivery. The issue is rarely a lack of activity. More often, it is about finding a proportionate way to describe change that is structured, clear, and useful to others.