Misconceptions Holding Social Value Back

SOCIAL VALUE HAS COME A LONG WAY. It now sits in most tender questions, project dashboards, and business cases. Clients, contractors and consultants have the language and, often, the intent. Yet for all that progress, the same three misconceptions keep surfacing—ideas that take up space and quietly stop us from turning ambition into impact.

If we really want to move the dial, we have to stop treating social value like a competition between methods, tools or sectors.

1. Digital tools aren’t the silver bullet or the enemy of effective social value measurement

There’s a familiar story that digital measurement tools strip the heart out of social value, that turning impact into data points somehow makes it less human. And most consistently, that social value monetisation is incomprehensible. I understand that instinct. When the dashboard becomes the destination and the headline figure is all anyone reads, it can feel like the people behind the numbers have been forgotten.

But the problem isn’t the tool. It’s the intent, the design and the system it sits within.

Setting aside the rights and wrongs of monetising social value, a digital platform can open up shared learning, or it can trap us in measuring the wrong things, for measurement’s sake. The difference lies in the questions we ask of it. What do we want to understand? Who for? And how will we use that information to make things better next time?

In construction, where frameworks or funders often require reporting, digital tools can be powerful when used to guide delivery, not just to meet tick box requirements. When purpose comes first, they can bring consistency and efficiency. When it doesn’t, they create noise and confusion.

2. Working with the voluntary, charitable, faith and social enterprise sectors is not the answer to every (last minute) question

Just as digital tools can distract us from purpose, so too can last-minute partnerships with the voluntary, charitable, faith and social enterprise sectors (VCFSE). Let me be clear, VCFSEs are vital to delivering social value. They hold the relationships, trust and insight that corporate and public sector organisations often can’t reach. Yet they’ve become the default response to last-minute challenges, a handover of responsibility disguised as collaboration. That doesn’t empower anyone. It just shifts the burden.

When VCFSEs are asked to deliver beyond their capacity or core purpose, they risk being stretched too thinly and losing what makes them effective. The solution isn’t to involve and engage VCFSEs less, but to involve them earlier and better.

We need to understand the local place first, who is already active, what’s missing, and where partnership genuinely adds value. Sometimes that means VCFSEs lead; sometimes they support. Either way, the focus should be on sharing power, not just workload.

In development and regeneration projects, this means co-designing community outcomes and equipping VCFSEs to understand the opportunity, while building capacity and capability to engage effectively.

3. Having a social value plan is not the same as creating social impact

A great plan can look impressive and serve as a crucial foundation, but it doesn’t deliver impact by itself. Impact only happens when the plan starts to breathe: when data changes decisions, when people are given the time and resources to deliver what’s promised and when learning feeds into the next phase of the project.

The best projects treat their social value plans as living frameworks, not static documents. They leave space to adapt, to learn and to stay accountable. Because a plan is just a map. The journey is what matters.

In construction, the gap between promise and delivery is where credibility is won or lost. Plans should help bridge that gap, not widen it.

So where do we go from here?

Social value doesn’t need another debate about which tool, model or sector has the right answer. It needs coherent systems that connect intention, evidence and delivery in ways that make sense for the people and places affected.

That means:

• Starting with understanding community need and clarity of which outcomes are key before choosing any measurement approach.
• Designing collaboration across public, private and VCSE sectors from the beginning, which includes building capability and capacity.
• Being transparent about the assumptions behind monetised social value: if you don’t understand how a tool is calculating monetised social value, think carefully about whether it helps or hinders.
• Applying proportionality, recognising that not every project needs the same level of measurement.
• Creating costed social value plans, with clear governance structures attached and resource committed to them.

The future of social value won’t be built on perfect plans or tools. It will come from joined-up systems that make impact visible, credible and meaningful.

PS – At Akerlof, we see social value as something you design in, not something you decorate a project with. The most lasting change happens when intention, delivery and evidence align, and when organisations are willing to learn as they go.