On 8 May 2024, Stuart Astill delivered a sold-out session, “What’s Better Than Value for Money?”, as part of Sheffield’s Festival of Debate.
About the Festival of Debate
The Festival of Debate is one of the UK’s largest festivals of politics and ideas, bringing together leading thinkers, practitioners, campaigners, academics, artists and members of the public to explore some of the most important questions facing society.
Based in Sheffield and rooted in the civic and political life of South Yorkshire, the festival creates a space for serious ideas to be tested through public discussion. The Festival of Debate then, was an incredibly valuable setting for a conversation about how we define value and how this definition sites behind many of the decisions made by governments, businesses and public institutions.
On this day we explored what should be funded, what counts as a successful outcome, whose interests should be prioritised, and how we should compare benefits that cannot easily be expressed in pounds and pence. Crucially this event challenged the familiar concept of “value for money” and explored whether our existing approaches to decision-making capture everything that matters.
Through audience polling, group discussions and interactive Q&A, participants were invited to question conventional approaches to appraisal and contribute their own ideas about what a more meaningful understanding of value could look like.
Keynote from Stuart
Stuart Astill opened the session with a keynote exploring the theoretical foundations of value beyond purely monetary measures. He introduced some of the standard frameworks used to assess value and then highlighted five fundamental challenges that arise when we attempt to measure what really matters:
These challenges demonstrated why apparently straightforward questions about whether something represents “value for money” can become considerably more complicated once the full range of costs, benefits and stakeholders is considered.
From economic theory to real-world practice
The theoretical discussion was followed by a practical case study from David Gray, Director of the River Stewardship Company and social enterprise Riverlution.
David described the practical realities of balancing commercial competitiveness with wider social and environmental objectives. His experience showed how these issues play out in real procurement.
Audience discussion
The event then moved from presentation to participation.
Stuart asked attendees to consider two questions: What are the essential elements of a meaningful evaluation of value? and What could we call it instead of “Value for Money”?
Participants discussed the questions in groups before submitting their ideas through a live digital form. The exercise brought together perspectives from people working across local government, healthcare, education, charities and social enterprises.
This participatory approach was central to the session. Rather than presenting a single alternative definition of value, the workshop gave participants the opportunity to test the ideas against their own experiences and collectively identify the factors that should matter when evaluating decisions.
Wider Q&A
The final section of the event was an extended Q&A and discussion exploring how organisations can evaluate impact beyond conventional financial metrics.
Major themes included subjective wellbeing, time as a resource, aggregating individual values into collective decisions., Multi-Criteria Analysis and ethics, consumer choice and trust.
The discussion at the Festival of Debate demonstrated that the challenge is not simply to find a better number to replace “value for money”. It is to develop better ways of thinking about value, giving decision-makers the evidence and frameworks they need while leaving space for judgement, context and the values of the people affected by their decisions.