Raising the bar

NPC’s response to BSC’s transparency consultation

Transparency is paramount to Big Society Capital (BSC) achieving its objective of growing a new market. We therefore welcome BSC’s positive response to our call for greater transparency. While we acknowledge that BSC has already done a great deal in this area, and the consultation is a further step forward, we believe it can and must go further if it is to be successful in achieving its mission.

In particular, we think BSC must:

  • Publish its framework for measuring social returns.
  • Assess the impact of its funds and its own impact as an organisation, including its investment process and financial and social return requirements.
  • Publish not just the names of their investees and the rationale for these investments, but the amount of investment, the type of investment, and expectations of either social or financial impact to be achieved.
  • Raise the bar on financial reporting and social impact reporting undertaken by the SIFIs it works with.
  • Be transparent in how it plans to build towards a future in which investors have comparable data on both social impact and financial returns within sub-sectors like education or housing.

We look forward to seeing the outcome of the consultation and working further with BSC and other partners to try and make the proposals a reality.

  • You can read all the responses in the comments on this page and via the Twitter hashtag #OpenBSC.
  • Read our press release here.

 

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