We don’t believe claims of social value

Apparently Help to Buy was a grand success:

George Osborne’s scheme to reduce costs for first-time buyers represented “very high value for money”, according to a government review, bolstering the case of senior government figures who have been arguing to resurrect the idea.

An official audit of the Help-to-Buy programme has calculated it provided £25bn of social value to the UK in the last financial year, despite criticisms it was overly expensive and only served to inflate house prices.

Not that we’d trust all that much from Sheffield Hallam either.

Help to Buy was the idea that houses are expensive - there’s a shortage of them, see? - so the solution is to stoke demand by giving people more money to buy houses with. We’d not expect this to be a success, no. But here we’ve this claim of social value created.

‍ The report did not take into account the effect on house prices

That’s the problem with the very idea of social value. It allows anyone to claim whatever by simply ignoring inconveniences. Stoking demand by giving people to buy what is in short supply will indeed increase prices of that item. It’s an obvious and clear effect. Being able to not include that cost - effect if you prefer - means that you are, indeed, just claiming whatever.

We do not believe estimates, calculations or claims of “social value”. You shouldn’t either.

Tim Worstall