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Supporting Scotland's vibrant voluntary sector

Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Caledonian Exchange, 19A Canning Street, Edinburgh EH3 8EG.

Evidence library

Measuring Social Value - the gap between policy and practice

This report provides a snapshot of the third sector's ability to measure and communicate the social value of the services it provides. It also investigates the range of frameworks available for measuring social value and assesses progress made towards using these frameworks, particularly the Social Return on Investment (SROI) model currently being promoted by Government. Based on a review of 30 charities and social enterprises of different sizes and working in different sectors, Measuring Social Value reveals a gap between the aspirations of policy-makers for quantifiable measures of social value, and the ability of third sector organisations to measure and capture basic social outcomes. It argues that the sector as a whole must achieve a basic and universal standard of outcome measurement before attempting to implement more complex and rigorous models such as SROI; and that such a universal standard would be both more viable and equitable for charities and useful to funders. For information on SROI in Scotland, please visit: http://www.scotland.gov.uk/Topics/People/15300/SROI

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Last modified on 6 June 2017