Housing Associations: measuring added social value
Because of our work: Associations each used our report to meet their own objectives. For Angell Town, the findings have formed part of a bid for new business sites on the estate to support local employability.
Many housing associations provide a range of services that go beyond housing provisions. They support residents with wellbeing, employability and environmental programmes that often go unmeasured and under-valued. By recognising and evaluating the social value of such work, associations can make better informed decisions about investment, planning, funding and service development.
Newport City Homes, Pwllgwenny : Coastline Housing, Cornwall; Salix Homes, Salford and Angell Town Resident Management Association, and Brixton Housing Association asked Hall Aitken to evaluate the extent and nature of the social value they added to their communities.
Stage one: understanding our client’s objectives. Initial discussions revealed that each housing association had different reasons for measuring their additional social value. Coastline Housing wanted to calculate the return on investment from an energy efficiency project. Newport City Homes saw social value as an extra tool to support investment decisions. Salix Homes wanted to explore the impact of specific projects. Angell Town RMO wanted to explore the potential using of social value to engage its community.
We used the principles of Social Return on Investment to offer a recognised framework and comparable data for each study. We began each study with a Theory of Change workshop to determine the scope of our work.
Stage two: asking the stakeholders. Stakeholder engagement was key to success and so we conducted surveys, focus groups and interviews with a range of stakeholder in each association’s area. We reviewed and analysed current data and examined investment in key delivery themes; specifically, employability, environmental benefits and perceptions of the estate.
Stage three: reporting. Each Housing Association received an evaluation report in which social value played a central part. For each scheme we identified a projected return on investment.
Thanks for this work, it poses questions we need to consider for future investment