Reports Database

“The investment of $10 million funded wildlife and land conservation, job creation and social transformation in a region of 70% adult unemployment. This money has been a catalyst for economic growth in the region resulting from eco-tourism. Eighty permanent jobs have been directly created through Kuzuko, while another 420 jobs are estimated to have been created indirectly through the tourism industry. Additionally, 75 endangered animals have been released and 39,000 acres rehabilitated to its natural ecology and incorporated into the reserve.”

“The period between the ages of 16 and 25 is typically one of self-exploration, experimentation and personal growth. Most young people emerge ready and equipped for adulthood. However, for a minority, this period can be turbulent – hindering rather than aiding their transition to adulthood.

Currently, public services do not deal effectively with this life stage. At the ages of 16, 17 and 18 many of the better targeted and coordinated services for children fall away, often leaving young people who lack support from their families both vulnerable and struggling. An estimated 200,000 young people find themselves locked into destructive cycles, with long-term consequences for their economic, physical and emotional wellbeing and substantial costs for the state as a result of their ill-health and their dependence on welfare.

In light of this, Catch22 launched the Ready or Not campaign in 2010, calling for a radical overhaul in our approach to young adulthood, through formally recognising this transition period as a life stage and making services more coherent and accessible for the 16–25 age group.

To identify and measure potential outcomes from a new and more coherent approach, Catch22 commissioned nef (the new economics foundation) to produce a costing study using the Social Return on Investment (SROI) cost-benefit tool.”

“Libraries for Life (LfL) is the Welsh Assembly Government’s (WAG) strategic development programme to improve library and information services in Wales. It is managed and delivered by CyMAL: Museums Archives and Libraries Wales, a policy division of the Welsh Assembly Government. The development of Libraries for Life was informed by the results of the @your library Development Programme 2005-2007, the first official libraries initiative funded by the Welsh Assembly Government and administered through CyMAL.

The LfL strategy recognised the important role that the library sector plays in achieving a number of the key priorities set out by WAG in its One Wales strategy. In addition, libraries were identified as playing a critical role in placing the citizen at the heart of service delivery and contributing to meeting the aims described in the Making the Connections programme (2005) for public service reform and Delivering Beyond Boundaries action plan. LfL has a £10.5 million budget over three years (2008-2011). It uses a mix of all-Wales initiatives, regional activities and local projects to benefit library services: this approach means that the programme can provide targeted activities and support at different levels, ensuring that local and regional needs are met whilst also working to meet national objectives.

“This report is an evaluation of the social return generated by the employability pilot collaboration between Registers of Scotland and Haven Products as part of the Scottish Government funded Public Social Partnerships Project.

This pilot aims to expand an existing employability scheme for people with disabilities, who are trained by Haven Products, to create a ‘complementary workforce’. Registers of Scotland is the first Government agency to participate in this scheme and benefit from the additional skills of the new employees.

The analysis in this report was carried out using Social Return on Investment which tells the story of the change affected by our activities, told from the perspective of our stakeholders. SROI places a monetary value on outcomes, so that they can be added up and compared with the investment made.”

“This report from nef (the new economics foundation) asks why inequality is increasing when investment in deprived areas is growing. It is not only an important question to ask but also a timely one as the Government is pumping significant funding into regeneration initiatives in the build-up to the 2012 Olympic Games.

Focusing on the experience of St Helens metropolitan borough on Merseyside, our research suggests that the methods used by policy makers to measure the success of Local Economic Growth Initiatives (LEGIs) , although an improvement on what went before, are still inadequate. A more sophisticated approach is needed for the shortcomings of successive regeneration programmes to be understood and overcome.”

“Residential child care is often in the news, and nearly always for the wrong reasons. Good residential care services can still be found behind the dramatic headlines about ‘failing’ care homes and ‘delinquent’ young people. But the best work in this area is going unnoticed or has been undermined by a preoccupation with inappropriate performance targets and cost cutting.

This is one of the key conclusions reached by nef (the new economics foundation) which has used the concept of Social Return on Investment (SROI) to examine closely how young people are benefiting from the work of two of the UK’s well-regarded care homes – Bryn Melyn Care Ltd and Shaftesbury Young People.

SROI analysis is a process for understanding, measuring and reporting on the social, environmental and economic value created by an intervention, and provides a valuable framework for measuring the long-term change created by public policy. In applying this form of analysis to residential care, nef has found that policy-makers are putting some of society’s most vulnerable young people at even greater risk of exclusion because they are failing to grasp the benefits that high-quality care homes bring to children and to wider society.

The Commission for Social Care Inspection reported in 2005 that the performance of the UK’s residential care homes was improving. But it also found that the improvements made were not translating into better outcomes for children. nef’s research suggests that the Government and some local authorities are paying lip service to a ‘child-centred’ approach while making cuts that betray a lack of understanding of what young people in care really need and value. How we care for the young and old in the future is arguably one of the greatest challenges the public sector faces; although focussed on residential child care the findings from this research have more far-reaching implications.”

“In this report nef (the new economics foundation) presents the findings from SROI analyses of seven voluntary-sector projects across England, from Northumberland to Bristol. All seven have received support from Adventure Capital Fund (ACF), an investment fund that is keen to explore new ways of measuring and improving the value of its investments.

The projects evaluated include a social enterprise that composts green waste; a community childcare service; an organisation providing inner-city workspaces and training; a trust set up to regenerate a former mining town; and a charity that provides barrier-free workplaces for individuals with disabilities. nef has examined these initiatives both to quantify their social value and to test the potential use of SROI analysis by other third sector organisations and social investors.

Overall, the participating organisations found the experience of SROI evaluation to be a positive one. The process enabled them to identify areas where they were performing well, to highlight where improvement was needed and to communicate their impact powerfully to funders and other stakeholders.

A number of obstacles also came to light – notably the difficulty in understanding and establishing new concepts and evaluation processes and freeing up capacity to undertake the SROI.”

Author: NEF

Date: 11.13.2013

“The Dame Kelly Holmes Trust aims to get lives on track by using World Class athletes to engage, enable and empower disadvantaged young people.

By developing World Class athletes following a challenging period of transition after sport, the Trust in turn is able to support disadvantaged young people utilising the unique skills and inspiration of the athletes.

Our young people come from a range of backgrounds. Some may have been in care, are homeless, have previously had criminal convictions and some are just increasingly facing challenges in finding employment or engaging in education.”

Based in Cardiff, Pack-IT is a social firm that provides mailing, storage and distribution, and on-line fulfilment services to a variety of customers. Approximately half of the company’s employees have a severe learning disability. Moreover, the company tends to take on those who are especially disadvantaged and who have the greatest difficulty obtaining and sustaining employment.

This SROI analysis of Pack-IT, commissioned by Social Firms UK, focuses on the incremental social value created by the company by employing people with disabilities, over and above what would be expected if all of its employees were non-disabled. The returns are calculated annually due to the nature of social firms, in that their ‘output’ is the ongoing employment of people with disabilities. Therefore, no benefits are projected forward.

The Wise Group is one of the UK’s largest providers of employment and training opportunities for unemployed people. It works across a range of sectors, and runs programmes in a variety of occupational areas, and uses different models in working with its client groups.

This report presents an analysis of the social added value delivered through the funding investment in one of the Wise Group’s projects in their community regeneration programme, in Cadder, Glasgow.

Gateway2Media is one of the programmes developed by Subliminal Directions, a social enterprise which specialises in multimedia work with young people in their community who are at risk of offending or involvement in anti-social behaviour or drugs, or who would not otherwise have the chance to get involved in this type of activity.

The course was commissioned by Lochgelly High School’s Special Educational Needs Unit. It presents an analysis of the value created by the investment in this course for 8 young people attending the unit who were at risk of joining the NEET group, i.e. young people not in education, employment or training.

The Gateway2Media course aimed to provide a new opportunity for the participants, to enhance their skills, but mainly to support their motivation and personal development. All participants were in S3 at school.