The impact measures were developed by HACT and the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment, working in partnership with a coalition of social housing organisations across the UK.

The report will be the final version with these first set of nine impact measures, with social housing organisations moving to a new set of nine key impact measures, that have been developed in collaboration with community investment colleagues.   

“This final set of our initial impact measures demonstrates the impact that the UK social housing sector has made in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic since March,” said Andrew van Doorn, chief executive of HACT. “If we aggregate these figures, it would indicate that the sector has provided almost £4 million in financial assistance, made over two million welfare calls and provided over 440,000 residents with advice and guidance sessions, and over 320,000 food interventions since the COVID-19 pandemic began.”

He added: “This month, we hosted a webinar dedicated to ESG and community investment. The data from these impact measures demonstrates how the social housing sector has been delivering on its social purpose, creating positive social impact for people and their communities. Social housing organisations are realising their roles as community anchors every day and we are proud to be playing a pioneering role in evidencing, measuring and promoting the social impact of the social housing sector.

“As we enter the second national lockdown, the social housing sector is poised to ensure residents can access the support they might need. Whilst we do not expct a return to the levels of engagement seen during the first lockdown, it is certain that social housing organisations will play a crucial role over the next lockdown period. This next set of impact measures will capture the ongoing contributions that social housing organisations make across the UK. We would encourage as many organisations as possible to contribute them, so we can evidence the role the social housing sector plays within local communities.” 

Organisations can submit their measures to the Centre for Excellence in Community Investment using an Excel spreadsheet that is available from the Centre website.