
The London Social Value Meet Up: Metrics Special, Part One
The London Social Value Meet Up took place on Wednesday 30 October at Multiplex’s offices in the City of London. As hosts, the Social Value Exchange and Multiplex were joined by a number of government suppliers, community organisations and public sector bodies. This is the mix we’re after at the Meet Up; it’s the connections between these stakeholders that are necessary to get the most out of Social Value.
Meet Up Metrics Special #1: Cost Benefit Analysis
This session — with its focus on Cost Benefit Analysis — was the first of a series of three scheduled Meet Ups focused on metrics. It’s our view at the Social Value Exchange that the question of how best to measure Social Value has taken up rather too much time in the debate and perhaps crowded out attention on ways to innovate. For example, in the previous two Meet Ups the group has had a look at the Social Value Exchange and Supply Change, two products that, while they incorporate metrics, are driven by a focus on matching resources with local community projects (Social Value Exchange) and matching government contracts with local social enterprises (Supply Change).
However, if you want to make Social Value work for your local communities, there has to be a conversation about metrics. To encourage debate, we have put two approaches under the microscope — Cost Benefit Analysis and Theory of Change. We chose two approaches that, in some important ways, have very different methodological underpinnings. We did this deliberately, hoping it would kick-start a more nuanced debate within our Meet Up community.
We invited Lizzie Trotter from Jump to talk about Cost Benefit Analysis and to introduce us to the latest work she’s doing called ‘State of Life’. Her presentation to the Meet Up is shared here.
There was an interesting and useful comparison between CBA and Social Return on Investment (SROI); the latter is used frequently when trying to assess the social impact of local interventions made by government suppliers in the Social Value context. According to Social Value UK, ‘SROI borrows from the principles of CBA — along with some sustainability accounting and financial accounting’. Lizzie noted that SROI is more narrative driven, requiring a strong theory of change and engagement with beneficiaries, where CBA does not and is more focused on statistical technique.

The next London Social Value Meet Up… Theory of Change
The next Meet Up is in early December — we’ll confirm details ASAP, but watch this space. We’ll be hearing about Theory of Change from James Noble at NPC.
We’ll then be bringing Lizzie and James together in the New Year for a compare and contrast session.
We’re hoping that while we’re running these sessions, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport will release their findings from the national consultation they delivered over the Summer. Within these findings we’re hoping to get some steer in terms of the metrics that can and should be used to support better application of Social Value and greater delivery of community benefits.
Thanks again to our friends at Multiplex and, of course, to our Meet Up community for their participation and fantastic contributions to the debate.
The London Social Value Meet Up is open to all — practitioners, policy makers and social entrepreneurs across the private, public and VCSE sector.
We meet roughly every 6 weeks in central London.
Keep up to speed with the Social Value Meet Up by becoming a Friend of Firesouls (the team behind the Social Value Exchange).

