The social impact of advice during disability welfare reform: from social return on investment to evidencing public value through realism and complexity

Abstract

This article illustrates how advice services create diverse public values within welfare reform. It develops a social impact framework using public value, realism and complexity literature. Starting from a social return on investment study of advice, qualitative interviews are analysed with twenty-two clients, who sought advice for welfare benefits, and had disabilities, or physical or mental health conditions. Integrating these clients' experiences with wider evidence, illustrates how advice services advocated for people's needs within a complicated (and controversial) welfare system. However advice services face funding cuts, benefit assessment costs have risen, and welfare reforms have yet to meet their aims.

SROI Methodology for Public Administration Decisions about Financing with Social Criteria. A Case Study

“…That information helps the administrators to better understand how these organizations contribute to the fulfilment of their goals. The monetarization of impacts improves the public value accounting and the public's understanding of policies becomes more visible [2]. Finally, this methodology can help managers of social organizations to evaluate and maximize social benefits; moreover, it can be a tool to compare the performance of different managers, allowing them to make more justifiable decisions.…”

“…Following the type of analysis previously carried out by Mook et al [16], the following three types of impacts were considered: economic, socioeconomic, and social, since it is sometimes difficult to separate some impacts from others. Likewise, the categories suggested in the study by Farr and Cressey [2] on the impacts of disability care programs were considered, which were as follows: individual impacts and impacts on interpersonal relationships, on institutional relationships, and on policies related to well-being.…”

“…In the current environment, in which social challenges such as dependency, handicaps, or inequality are demanding a huge quantity of public resources, the analysis of public policies' efficiency and effectiveness becomes increasingly meaningful. Frequently, the public sector delegates attention to these issues to social organizations working to give solutions to the most vulnerable groups [2]. In order to justify public subsidies to social entities, work is frequently done to relate the cost of the interventions with their results [2].…”

“…Frequently, the public sector delegates attention to these issues to social organizations working to give solutions to the most vulnerable groups [2]. In order to justify public subsidies to social entities, work is frequently done to relate the cost of the interventions with their results [2]. However, these investigations do not fully reflect the social value generated by these organizations, since the analysis is dominated by an eminently economic approach, despite the fact that many nonprofits prioritize social objectives of an intangible nature over monetary objectives [3][4][5].…”

“…However, these investigations do not fully reflect the social value generated by these organizations, since the analysis is dominated by an eminently economic approach, despite the fact that many nonprofits prioritize social objectives of an intangible nature over monetary objectives [3][4][5]. In addition, all the stakeholders involved are not always included in the analysis, so the effects studied are limited to the direct beneficiaries [2].…”