Governments make expenditure decisions on items ranging from roads and rail lines to hospitals and schools to welfare benefits and social insurance schemes. Yet there is no common “language” for evaluating the social return of these different expenditures. The lack of such a language makes it impossible to prioritise these expenditures in a principled manner. Furthermore, physical infrastructure which is more amenable to traditional financial analysis is often privileged over social infrastructure. 

This report provides a method – Social Return Accounting – for evaluating all government expenditures on a level playing field. Social Return Accounting provides a method of doing so using rigorous, modern social scientific techniques. It provides a bridge from social science to social benefits.

This report outlines the Social Return Accounting approach and illustrates it through two detailed examples of large Australian government expenditures: the National Broadband Network and the National Disability Insurance Scheme.

Social Return Accounting does not do away with the need to make assumptions. What it does do is deliver a principled way to measure the return on social investments of all kinds – ranging from physical infrastructure to social insurance schemes. By putting all government investments on a level playing field it permits a clearer assessment of how to prioritise government investments.