On this fifth day of National Family Week, Relationships Foundation is calling on the Government to price nurture, just as it has priced nature.
Following the success of our 2009 Triple Test pamphlet, Relationships Foundation is campaigning for the Government to adopt triple-bottom-line accounting in all its policy pricing and evaluation.
Triple-bottom-line accounting adds the environmental and the social impact of a business or policy to the economic one. As such, it gives a truer price of the impact of any policy on society.
It is increasingly being adopted in the private sector and embraced by governments across the world. The Australian Government recently commissioned a report to analyse and promote it. The South African Government has added a measurement of stakeholder relations to its regulatory framework. During its six month presidency of the European Council, Belgium produced a report on Social Impact Assessment. Both the Canadian and US governments have similar frameworks.
Currently the Green Book, the UK Government’s policy handbook, does promote social impact assessments. But, unlike the US equivalent, it offers no help in pricing the value of strengthened families and communities. As such, it does not reflect the stated priorities of the current Government, partly because it was last updated in 2003.
Now that DEFRA has priced nature, the Government should also price nurture. This would help civil servants and private businesses assess the social costs of their actions.
Work by the Relationships Foundation has found that family breakdown alone costs the UK taxpayer £42 billion a year – more than the defence budget. David Cameron himself said at the launch of the wellbeing consultation “People’s wellbeing often depends on the quality of their relationships, so we should ask as a country, why do we spend billions and billions on the consequences of family breakdown, but so little on trying to help families stay together?” One government source has also said “Next time we have a comprehensive spending review, let’s not just guess what effect various policies will have on people’s well-being. Let’s actually know.”
Commenting, Michael Trend, Executive Director of the Relationships Foundation, said:
“Caroline Spelman is convinced of the value of understanding what we get free from nature: the Government needs now to price what we get free from nurture.
“Governments worldwide are using triple testing as they seek to stimulate economies without stoking societal collapse. Yet our figures show that the UK taxpayer loses £42 billion a year to the consequences of family breakdown, and still the Coalition drags its feet.
“If parks are worth £300, how much more the families who play in them?”
Notes to Editors
• See the Triple Test here and the Cost of Family Failure Index here.
Pricing Nature
• On Thursday DEFRA launched its National Ecosystem Assessment. This attempted to put a cash value on the environment, for example it suggests living close to a green space saves the NHS £300 per person per year.
o Caroline Spelman, the Secretary of State, called it a “vital step forward in our ability to understand the true value of nature.” She said “We are the first country to do this and get a full understanding of what we get free from nature and to factor that into our decision-making.”
o Professor Ian Bateman, of the University of East Anglia and one of the study’s lead authors, said: “Why would we want to put economic values on environmental goods and services? It’s very simple, it’s to ensure their incorporation on equal footing with the market-priced goods which currently dominate decision-making. Without such representation we will get a persistence of the situation where we have these services being used as if they were free and had no value.”
The Green Book
• The Green Book says: “Wider social and environmental costs and benefits for which there is no market price also need to be brought into any assessment. They will often be more difficult to assess but are often important and should not be ignored simply because they cannot easily be costed.” (p19)
• It goes on to note “Where a direct assessment of the value of a benefit or cost is particularly uncertain, reference can be made to the costs of preventing the loss of, or replacing, a non-marketed good (such as a natural habitat or recreational facility). This does not provide a measure of its value but can provide a figure to focus discussion upon whether the good is worth as much as this expenditure… In the absence of an existing reliable and accurate monetary valuation of an impact, a decision must be made whether to commission a study, and if so, how much resource to devote to the exercise.” (p. 58)
• It lists research evidence to assist valuing time, health benefits, preventing fatality or fatal injury, and design quality, as well as environmental impacts such as greenhouse gas, vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, air quality, landscape, water, biodiversity, noise, recreational and amenity value for forests and disamenity (Annex 2).
• The Government currently conducts ten specific regulatory impact assessments. They are: Competition Assessment, Wider Environmental Impact Test, Greenhouse Gas Impact Test, Health Impact Assessment, Human Rights Impact Assessment, Justice Impact Test, Rural Proofing Impact Test, Small Firms Impact Test, Equalities Impact Assessment, Sustainable Development Impact Test.
The Triple Test Internationally
• The ‘Triple bottom line’ was coined by John Elkingham in the 1980’s: “The triple bottom line focuses corporations not just on the economic value they add, but also on the environmental and social value they add – and destroy. At its narrowest, the term ‘triple bottom line’ is used as a framework for measuring and reporting corporate performance against economic, social and environmental parameters. Elkington, J. (1980). The Ecology of Tomorrow’s World.
• It resonates with the famous Robert Kennedy quotation from 1968: Too much and too long, we seem to have surrendered community excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things…. Gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages; the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage; neither our wisdom nor our learning; neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country; it measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.
• The Report for the Australian Government is here; Triple testing guidelines set out by the Government of British Colombia can be found here; The Belgian Presidency Summary on Social Impact Assessment is here; and the US principles and Guidelines of the Social Impact Assessment are here. They note:
o ‘SIA variables point to measurable change in human populations, communities, and social relationships resulting from a proposed action. Social impact assessment variables can be grouped under the general headings of: population change; community and institutional structures; political and social resources; community and family changes; and community resources.’ (p.235)
o Community and family changes refer to factors that influence the daily life of individuals and families, including family living and work arrangements, attitudes, perceptions, family characteristics and friendship networks. These changes range from attitudes toward the policy to an alteration in family and friendship networks and perceptions of risk, health, and safety. (p.242)
o Kristi Branch, Douglas A Hooper, James Thompson and James C Creighton (1984), in their Guide to Social Impact Assessment (Westview Press, Boulder CO) use the categories of social impact assessment variables in their social organization model: direct project inputs; community resources; community social organization; and indicators of individual and family well-being (p.243).
Government statements
• The Coalition government has suggested that it wants to price in wider impacts. Last autumn, one source said “Next time we have a comprehensive spending review, let’s not just guess what effect various policies will have on people’s well-being. Let’s actually know.” Quoted in Stratton, A. (2010, November 15). UK happiness index to gauge national mood. The Guardian, p1.
• David Cameron, in his speech launching the wellbeing consultation said:
o “First, it will open up a national debate about what really matters, not just in government but amongst people who influence our lives: in the media; in business; the people who develop the products we use, who build the towns we live in, who shape the culture we enjoy. And second, this information will help government work out, with evidence, the best ways of trying to help to improve people’s wellbeing.”
o “I’ve said before that I want every decision we take to be judged on whether it makes our country more or less family-friendly, and this new focus on wellbeing I believe will be an important part of that. Parents need to know that the concerns they feel about the sort of country their children are growing up in are felt and acted on by their government too. That’s why anyone who cares about community, about civility, about making this country more family-friendly I think should welcome what the Office for National Statistics is doing.”
o “The second one was mentioned – relationships. It is absolutely right that people’s wellbeing often depends on the quality of their relationships, so we should ask as a country, why do we spend billions and billions on the consequences of family breakdown, but so little on trying to help families stay together? £20 million on the budget of Relate, but £20 billion on the consequences of social breakdown, so again if we think about wellbeing, rather than just GDP, we might actually change that.”
• However, much of this has been directed at using the new Wellbeing index, rather than pricing happiness and relationships directly.
Our colleague Sam Barker spoke about National Family Week and the new research we made into the pressures that affect British families on BBC Radio Tees, Solent, Bristol, Leicester, Merseyside, Nottingham, Cumbria, Leeds, Lancashire, Gloucester and Three Counties.