Social Impact Report 2014/15

As a provider of enterprise support to social, charitable, public, and other types of

organisations, Adrian offers a range of services and activities to a wide variety of clients organisations, government bodies, individual enterprises, residents in local communities,
and thematic communities experiencing disadvantage.
However, underpinning all these different services and support are a set of core values
values which Adrian is keen to be open and transparent about how well he is living up to
them across all of his professional activities.
Having been involved in supporting groups and sector bodies to understand, identify, and
report on their social impact since the last 1990s through national programmes, individual
consultancy, and the development of sector-specific toolkits, Adrian has created a bespoke
reporting framework to report against, having not been able to identify any existing
standards that are suitable for sole traders, or that would allow him to consistently report
against his performance overall not just in respect of a specific activity or service.
This framework was originally created in 2005, and each year has been subject to an open
and invited peer review, leading to its expansion with each reporting cycle. It is also
structured to identify and report on themes in ways that allow for external benchmarking: it
is felt that unless this is possible, social impact reporting has limited value in not
understanding how representative its findings are against wider market norms and so be
able to appropriately influence strategic and operational decision-making. And as well as
including comparison with the previous years findings, it also includes the average score for
each indicator since he started reporting against it to better identity relative impact and
performance over the longer-term as well.
Anecdotally, Adrian has not been able to identify any other freelance consultants who
openly report on their performance in this way, although has attracted global interest and
acclaim for his approach in doing so.
Reflections and narratives on previous years reports can be found posted on his blog at:
http://thirdsectorexpert.blogspot.co.uk

w: http://about.me/adrianashton
t: 07786 492313

e: adrian_ashton2@yahoo.co.uk
twitter: @AdrianAshton2

Values in Action':
As someone who believes in the value of social impact reporting and strives to be transparent in
how I conduct my professional work, I have committed myself to monitoring and reporting
openly on my impact and the extent to which I have been able to generate benefits in relation to
my values:
2014/5

2013/4

Average over
last 9 years

journeys by public transport, bicycle or foot

88%

67%

67%

turnover invested in continuing development of

skills & knowledge

4%

2%

5%

proportion of supply chain purchases made within

the 'local economy'

33%

39%

43%

29%

26%

31%

100%

97%

99%

100%

98%

98%

impact of training on knowledge and confident of

participants

+32.1%

+64.2%

+47.3%

value of pro bono support given*

8,611

7,362

7,451

(within 10mile radius of registered place of business)

proportion of supply chain purchases made within

the social economy
(from co-ops, social enterprises and charities)

feedback on all training delivered

(rating: excellent- very good)

feedback on all training courses developed

(rating: excellent- very good)

* calculated from national day rate benchmark calculated by Skilllfair.co.uk

Social accounts for previous years are available on request