How Hertfordshire Community Meals provides social value

Learning points

HCM’s SROI study is particularly significant for other MoWs services around the United Kingdom, which appear to have been victims of short-sighted cuts by local authorities. The study suggests that MoWs services can have a huge impact on local areas, and although are often seen as ‘just a meal’, can actually provide a wide range of indirect benefits to numerous types of stakeholders which otherwise may go unevidenced. The study also highlights the usefulness of SROI and, given that local authorities are now obliged by the Social Value Bill to look at ‘wider social value’ as part of the commissioning process, it is very likely that providers of other services may be tempted to carry out such studies to demonstrate the importance of their own services. 

Re-visiting the original objectives

As stated previously, there were four objectives to establishing HCM:

1. Improved quality of service for clients
2. Financial efficiencies for Local Authorities
3. County-wide consistency of provision
4. Improved social benefits for Hertfordshire’s communities

Firstly, the results from HCM’s annual surveys suggest that clients are much happier with a wide range of aspects of the service (including menu range, driver service, timeliness of delivery etc.).¹

Secondly, the combined cost of the previous approach to MoWs in Hertfordshire was costing local authorities around £3m every year. HCC now spends less than £1m per annum on commissioning HCM. Indeed, HCM is committed to reducing its unit cost and thus lessen its impact on the public purse. 

Thirdly, it is clear that Hertfordshire now has a vastly more consistent service: pre-2007, some rural areas did not have access to MoWs, some districts did not operate on week-ends, and clients in some districts did not have access to special dietary requirements. Fourthly, it is clear from HCM’s SROI study that the organisation has a hugely positive social impact on Hertfordshire’s communities, not just through its core delivery service, but through other initiatives, such as its employment initiatives with the Probation Service and Offender Management teams, security projects with Hertfordshire Constabulary, and fire safety initiatives with Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue.

The future

Interestingly, HCM is now looking at a range of diversification opportunities including homecare, community transport, and community alarms, as part of expanding its core operations to provide a more holistic service offering to its clients, while at the time hoping to achieve further savings for local authorities. HCM is able to do this through utilising its relatively under-used resource base which includes four sites, 62 vehicles, and I.T. infrastructure, all of which is dispersed around Hertfordshire in four key locations (Hemel Hempstead, Letchworth, St Albans, and Ware).

¹ Further information regarding client satisfaction can be found at: www.hertscommunitymeals.co.uk/#!service-benefits/c19x4