SROI, wellbeing or TOMs? How to choose a social value platform that fits your delivery model
Social value platforms are built on different methodologies and assume different evidence-collection models. Choosing by how the dashboard looks rather than how your team works is the most common reason platforms fail to produce defensible figures twelve months in.
Output-counting, wellbeing valuation and SROI each carry different assumptions about how evidence is collected. We explain the differences and what to ask before committing to a platform.
Social value and the Procurement Act: part two of three.
Social value platforms are not interchangeable. They are built on different methodologies, and each one assumes a particular way of collecting evidence. A tool designed around large works contracts behaves differently from one designed around individual wellbeing, and an association that picks on the strength of a demonstration can find months later that the platform assumes a delivery model it does not have.
Three approaches, three sets of assumptions
Output-counting
The output-counting approach uses a standardised library of metrics with fixed proxy values, so that a defined activity (ten apprenticeships, fifty volunteering hours) equates to a defined sum. This works cleanly for large capital and works contracts where activities map onto standard measures. It is less comfortable for small, place-based initiatives where the work does not sit neatly inside a limited set of predefined proxies, and where forcing it to fit means losing the detail that makes the evidence meaningful.
Wellbeing valuation
The wellbeing-valuation approach measures change at the individual level, typically through before-and-after surveys of service users. It is rigorous when the surveys are completed, but that rigour depends on having the internal resource to design, distribute and chase questionnaires across participant groups. For an association with a large in-house community team seeing the same residents regularly, that is achievable. For one delivering through neighbourhood coaches or commissioned delivery partners, survey return rates are much harder to control, and the measurement model starts to produce gaps rather than evidence.
SROI
The SROI approach, which is what the Social Value Engine uses, also draws on before-and-after evidence, including surveys, but it is not locked to a single data-collection model. The platform applies SROI methodology accredited by Social Value International, drawing on more than 650 research-backed financial proxies from over 100 sources to match valuations to the specifics of a local initiative. The breadth of the proxy library means place-based work can be measured as it is, rather than being translated into the nearest available standard category.
At a glance: how the three approaches compare
| Approach | Evidence model | Best fit |
|---|---|---|
| Output-counting (TOMs) | Fixed proxy values for standardised activities | Large capital and works contracts with predictable activity types |
| Wellbeing valuation | Before-and-after surveys of individual service users | Organisations with the resource to gather consistent survey returns |
| SROI | Before-and-after evidence matched to a broad proxy library | Place-based delivery where activities vary and survey capacity may be limited |
Match the platform to the delivery model, not the other way round
The question most housing associations skip is whether the platform assumes a delivery model they have. A tool that requires consistent, high-volume survey returns from participants will produce strong results in an organisation structured to deliver that. In one that is not, it will produce gaps, and those gaps show up in exactly the place they do the most damage: the reported figures that procurement and finance teams are now accountable for under the Procurement Act.
Before-and-after surveys are valuable evidence. We use them and recommend them. The difference is whether the entire measurement model collapses without them or whether the platform can work with the evidence your structure can reliably produce. For most housing associations, the evidence arrives through partners, suppliers and community organisations rather than through a centralised data-collection operation. The platform has to accommodate that reality.
Moving data collection closer to delivery
SVE Connect allows delivery partners and suppliers to report and evidence progress directly against their commitments, rather than feeding everything back through a central team to be re-entered. The organisations closest to the residents record what they deliver, the data arrives in a consistent structure, and the central team's role shifts from chasing and collating to assuring and reporting. The evidence trail is stronger because the record is captured at source rather than reconstructed from notes or verbal updates after the fact.
For associations that operate as a parent or anchor body providing measurement capability to member organisations, the Network model extends platform licences across a group, so that a consistent methodology runs from the centre out to delivery partners and back.
The takeaway
Choose for how your team works on the ground, not for how the dashboard looks in a demo. The methodology you can sustain, the proxy library that fits your place-based work, and a data-collection approach your structure can support are the decisions that determine whether the platform produces defensible figures twelve months in, or a headline number nobody trusts.
Part three looks at how robust social value data supports sustainability-linked loans, planning and ESG reporting.
Frequently asked questions
Expand a question to read the answer.
Output-counting assigns fixed proxy values to standardised activities such as apprenticeships or volunteering hours. Wellbeing valuation measures change at the individual level through before-and-after surveys of service users. SROI also uses before-and-after evidence but applies a broader library of research-backed financial proxies matched to the specifics of a local initiative, so place-based work can be measured as it is rather than forced into predefined categories.
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