4.1 Deadweight and displacement
Deadweight is a measure of the amount of outcome that would have happened even
if the activity had not taken place. It is calculated as a percentage. For example, an
evaluation of a regeneration programme found that there has been a 7% increase
in economic activity in the area since the programme began. However, the national
economy grew by 5% during this time. Researchers would need to investigate how
much of the local economic growth was due to wider economic changes and how
much to the specific intervention being analysed.
To calculate deadweight, reference is made to comparison groups or benchmarks.
1
The perfect comparison would be the same group of people that you have affected, but
seeing what happened to them if they had not benefited from the intervention.
Therefore, measuring deadweight will always be an estimate since a perfect
comparison is not possible. Instead, you need to seek out information that is as close
to your population as possible. The more similar the comparison group, the better the
estimate will be.
Ask stakeholders about their services
In an evaluative SROI analysis, information on deadweight can be gathered
during the data collection phase. For example, you may be able to ask
stakeholders what other services they access and how helpful they find them. Or
they may be able to tell you if they could have accessed another similar facility in
Stag the area anyway. Stag
e
However, you will often have to go elsewhere for the kind of information you need.
e
Data on some indicators will be available from government sources, both from
individual departments and from organisations like the Office for National Statistics.
Other information is sometimes available from infrastructure, member, trade or sector
groups that represent the interests of particular stakeholders.
The simplest way to assess deadweight would be to look at the trend in the indicator
over time to see if there is a difference between the trend before the activity started and
the trend after the activity started. Any increase in the trend after the activity started
provides an indication of how much of the outcome was the result of the activity.
There is a risk that the same change in the trend is happening elsewhere in a wider
population of which your stakeholder group is a part. It is therefore better to also
compare the trend in the indicator with trends in the wider population.
There is still a risk that whilst there is a change in the indicator relative to the wider
population, the change happened to similar groups elsewhere, relative to their wider
populations, where a similar intervention or activity was not available. The solution
to this risk would be to calculate and compare the relative changes for both your
stakeholder group and a similar group elsewhere.
1 Sometimes referred to as the counterfactual.
A guide to Social Return on Investment
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108