Social Value Measurement: Principles and Practice

Course Overview

This two day course provides a comprehensive introduction to the theory and methods of social impact and social value measurement covering the ethics of social value and best-practice methodology and latest research in the field.

Course Quick Facts Course Facts

Duration

Two Days

Cost

£840 + VAT

Summary Summary

The past decade has seen a surge in interest in measuring the wider social impacts and value that organisations create. This movement has been global and involves not just the public sector, but also the private and not-for-profit sectors. The UK is taking a leading role in social value: new legislation in the UK, The Social Value Act (2012, 2018), now requires central Government to ensure that all major procurements explicitly evaluate social value, and the HM Treasury Green Book (2018) is the Government best-practice manual for measuring social value. 

Understanding social value requires ethical judgement and appraisal as well as technical analysis and as such the subject requires knowledge and expertise in ethics (philosophy) and key technical areas such as economics and statistics. This course will provide an introduction to the ethics and theory of social value measurement and will demonstrate some of the key methods. The focus of the course is on best-practice methods in academia and official government guidelines as issued, for example, by the UK, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the US and Australia. The course will also discuss a number of case studies.

Location Location

London

Outline Outline

Key topics addressed:

  • Introduction to policy ethics and business ethics and its application to social value: how do we define what is of value to society?
  • Social value theory
  • An introduction to best-practice social value methods: cost-benefit analysis, cost-utility analysis, cost-effectiveness analysis.
  • Other emerging methods – Social Return on Investment (SROI), Six capitals approach.
  • Social value and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
  • Understanding the impact of an organisation (cause and effect analysis) 
  • Introduction to valuing outcomes: monetary and non-monetary valuation methods
  • Using social value results and analysis in decision-making

Prerequisites Prerequisites

Who should attend:

The course is aimed at all professions in government for those who would like a better understanding of how to measure and understand social value and for those whose work is linked to the Social Value Act. It is also a key course for those working in government procurement as it will provide training for commercial buyers to take account of social value when procuring.

This course is taught by Daniel Fujiwara, Director of Simetrica - globally recognised leaders in social value analysis. Daniel is an economist specialising in policy evaluation with extensive experience of working in government and in international organisations. He is also Research Associate at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and lectures in policy ethics and social value at the London School of Economics.

Previously Daniel was head of cost-benefit analysis at the Department for Work and Pensions and has held senior economist positions at the Cabinet Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Ministry of Finance (Tanzania) and research positions at the United Nations. He has overseen evaluations on project and policy investments totaling over £20 billion and is currently leading social value assessments for some of the UK’s largest projects including the Westminster Restoration and Renewal programme, HS2, M60 in Manchester North West Quadrant, and the A303 at Stonehenge World Heritage Site.

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