Social Value 101

With significant Towns Fund investment planned matched with potentially socio-economic challenges exacerbated by the Covid-19 crisis, there is now more than ever a need/opportunity for development and infrastructure projects to create additional social value over their lifecycle and help to rebuild local economies.

This document provides an insight into what social value is in development and infrastructure projects and seeks to answer the following questions:

• What is driving the need to articulate and deliver social value

• How to define social value in the built environment

• How social value links to the Towns Fund’s outcome led approach and the Theory of Change

• How social value can be set out in business cases and embedded in to all stages of a project’s life cycle

• What to consider in social value impact measurement