Assessing the public value of societal resilience to disruption

This report explains the investments that individuals, communities, VCFSE organisations, local/central government, and businesses make in societal resilience. It describes how investing in societal resilience helps to lessen the impacts of a disruption. That saves money and brings additional benefits. It shows how £1 spent on societal resilience saves £35.12 when disruptions hit every 5 years.

This figure suggests that investing £5,000 in community resilience groups brings £176,000 of public value through their work to encourage individual resilience practices and help with making their place more resilient.

Methods:

This 18 month research project conducted a Social Return on Investment analysis to discover the public value of societal resilience. We worked with a range of partners in Cumbria (including Cumbria CVS and the EA/DEFRA-funded CiFR project) to develop a transparent model on what investments are made to build societal resilience and how those investments avoid losses and bring savings when a disruption hits. We consulted 90 people closely associated with disruptions (e.g. from affected households, communities, or organisations that plan for disruptions), that led to the identification and assessment of 74 measures to structure a monetarised model. Widespread consultation of the resilience sector and expert reviews refined the approach and reviewed the £35.12 figure.