Buy Social Corporate Challenge Year 8 Report

Our new report, published with the London School of Economics and supported by the Connect Fund, uses elite education as a proxy to investigate aspects of diversity not yet well analysed in the social investment sector: socio-economic inclusion, and the role of power and privilege among those who work for social investors.

Based on a quarterly survey of our members, the latest Insight Paper on our Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre gives us a snapshot of sector conditions and expectations. This new research focused on social enterprises’ ability to increase turnover and generate profit during ongoing economic turmoil but also explored property status, trading with local government and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the sector.

This latest report, published at the Social Value Leaders’ Summit in March 2024, analyses public sector engagement with social value. Based on Freedom of Information requests to all local authorities in England and Wales, it builds on a 2016 research exercise to form the most comprehensive dataset on social value implementation in the country. Results paint a mixed picture, with engagement increasing over the years but progress limited by a lack of clarity and consistency. While the percentage of councils with a social value policy or strategy has more than doubled since 2016, these efforts are often not effectively communicated or measured - a missed opportunity for local government to realise the full potential of this transformative approach.