Adding value to social value

National Inclusion Week 2024 focusses on understanding, identifying and measuring impact on marginalised groups of people. Here, Dean Carville, Chief Operating and Technology Officer of ICONI Software looks at the interplay of inclusion and social value and debates how technology can play an important part in the meaningful measurement of highly people-focussed services.

Every day, workers across the people services sector make profound and positive changes to other individual’s lives. Some of it is easily quantifiable, yet much falls through the cracks into the intangible maelstrom of ‘wellbeing’.

For skills and employability organisations, that wellbeing is generally centred around their participants’ health, work, skills, finances, and relationships. Changes in any of these will impact wellbeing and will also hold a social value. Its measurement tries to record the importance of these wellbeing changes to guide decision making and create more good experiences.

Social value and inclusion are closely linked. Both aim to reduce inequalities, allowing everyone to participate in society, particularly marginalised or disadvantaged groups. Inclusion drives social value by ensuring broader access to resources and opportunities for this to happen.

Understandably, social value is an area of close scrutiny for businesses, and the commissioners that purchase their services. Our customers increasingly want solutions that can help them demonstrate their impact at all levels.

Hidden gems

It could be argued that any robust case management platform brings its own degree of social value. By easing the administrative burden of advisors and making their working lives better, systems are freeing up time for that all-important face to face interaction with participants.

Clearly, case management solutions are also a rich source of data related to social value, able to track, analyse and report on common indicators.

• Demographic data of people being supported can be quickly compiled: age, ethnicity, disability, care leavers, ex-offenders, and refugee status are all common requirements.
• Positive outcomes, the holy grail of reporting, comes in many forms: Sustained job outcomes, qualifications attained, accommodation status, health improvements (smoking cessation, weight loss, blood sugar level are all positive examples of outcomes captured).
• Referrals to services such as language classes, mental health, and addiction services, can be hugely valuable social value metrics. Case management software can monitor how different groups use services, how frequently they’re referred and, in the case of the ICONI platform, how effective that intervention was in addressing their needs. This is also valuable data in assessing supply chain effectiveness and again, informs future delivery models. As organisations seek to offer holistic support involving multiple services, collaboration features that allow different organisations to share information and resources, provide seamless, comprehensive support. 
• Identifying barriers and interventions is a feature we are incredibly proud of, helping advisors, and indeed participants themselves, highlight their barriers to inclusion. Intelligent systems can then navigate the advisor to the most appropriate available resource, intervention, or service, aiding swift and effective support. Creating and monitoring subsequent support plans, ensures services are personalised and responsive to the needs of diverse users.
• Distance travelled is a term we use repeatedly in our sector to describe the often small but mighty steps people take toward their goal. An effective case management system can quickly capture and retain both quantitative and anecdotal evidence – an advisor voice dictating the instance of an anxious participant travelling on public transport for the first time following a confidence building session for instance – or hold case studies for future reference. Behind all the stats sit real people; tech in our industry should prioritise capturing both sides of the story.
• Feedback is the lifeblood of any type of measurement. Case management platforms can host surveys and feedback forms to measure both satisfaction and progression. Percentage improvement points are literally at your fingertips.
• Customisable case management platforms ensure inclusion of even the most niche requirements, including compliance touchpoints. No one size fits all. A customisable system can ensure support is tailored to each individual and provide bespoke reports. These are often areas to really showcase your organisation’s people-centred, above-and-beyond social value.
• Involving stakeholders is the first principle of social value and case management systems are no different. Those that expand beyond the advisor’s screen can offer participants ownership of their own journeys. Accessible participant portals allow equitable access to resources, support, goal setting, and feedback mechanisms that sit at the heart of providing social value.

Added value

In our fast moving world of societal change, as commissioning evolves and technology advances, we are working alongside our customers to crack the conundrum of effectively measuring social value. Just some of the items for consideration in the ICONI inbox currently include social tracking tools including established, and new, scoring systems, and adding functionality to capture organisations’ volunteering and fundraising efforts. We hope to share these with you soon.    

Technology is not the enemy of highly people-focussed services. It has the potential to be a proactive and responsive partner, adding and measuring social value and enriching people’s lives.

By Dean Carville, Chief Operating and Technology Officer of ICONI Software