The ability of a person to achieve a given state of being/functioning (e.g. doing or being). It reflects what the person is capable of and what the real opportunities or positive freedom of choice between different life-styles are. Capabilities might exist even though a person might not have an intention to pursue/exercise them.

Services that aim to mitigate problems which might appear in social or professional life. They range from education and labour market training to child and elder care. Capacitating services are often customized to the needs of each individual or group and thus, draw from different policy domains in order to cover the needs of the receiver.

A person who is receiving care and support, either in the community, in their own home or in a residential aged care facility.

A person providing services to people with long-term care needs. (see also Formal Carer and Informal Carer)

A method to assign values of benefits that uses a survey instrument to ask people to choose/consider simultaneously a range of options, as opposed to a single option (see also Contingent Valuation)

A method to assign values to benefits whereby respondents to surveys are asked how much they would be willing-to-pay (WTP), or willing-to-accept (WTA), for some change in non-marketed output.

A method used to justify or not a specific decision or investment. The benefits generated from this decision/investment are summed up and then the total costs related to this decision/investment are subtracted. It is employed to investigate whether an investment is justified in terms of the extent to which it improves wellbeing given the cost that is incurred.

A method to justify or not a specific decision or investment similar to CBA. The main difference to CBA is that CUA does not require the generation of monetary values for benefits but, instead, it only requires a measurement of the perceived benefits of an/the action.

A negative interest rate which takes into account the riskiness of the investment and the impact of inflation. This discount rate can be found in the market. It is used to reduce a stream of benefits or a future, one-off benefit to a Present Value. Usually it is used in order to discount future payoffs. (see also Ramsey Equation)

A process that gives more weight to increasing the wellbeing of a disadvantaged person than to increasing the wellbeing of an advantaged person. (see also Utility)

A method that informs policy makers with a scientific approach about some or all of the consequences that their decision might have.

An economic/social intervention (or lack of it) might produce benefits (or costs) to society as a whole, as well as for those directly impacted. (see also Option Value)

A Person providing care services through some form of contracted and paid for doing so (see also Informal Carer)

A measure of  how a health-care/medical related action will affect the life of the  recipient.

A method of pricing based on the principle that, the price of a marketed good is affected by certain external environmental or perceptual factors that can raise or lower the “base” price of that good.

Despite the fact that information is perceived as public good in economic models, in real life there are differences between the information that some agents have in comparison with others.

A method to generate values of benefits that entails estimating (micro-)econometric models in which life satisfaction is the dependent variable and the holding of some non-market good, together with the income and other relevant covariates, is one of explanatory variables.

A variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical needs of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods of time.

The information that should be the building block for decision making. Information is material if its omission or misstatement could influence the economic decisions of users taken on the basis of this information. (see also Externalities)

A form of public service whereby is delegated to external bodies and paid on the basis of the results they achieve.

The value an individual assigns to the availability, but not necessarily the direct or immediate use by him/her of various different options.

Care provided for people of all ages who have a life-limiting illness, with little or no prospect of cure and for whom the primary, treatment goals is quality of life. It focuses on ‘living well’ until death.

A policy/intervention that has as its main target to reduce, postpone or mitigate the incidence of some occurrence. (see also Palliative Care)

A metric used to measure the consequences of any medical/health intervention or action. It takes into account improvements in Health-related Quality of Life (HrQoL) and the duration for which these persist.

An overall measurement of how people feel about their situation, capability or wellbeing.

A commonly accepted method for calculating the social discount rate that takes into account the rate of growth of consumption, the marginal utility of consumption and time preference (capturing the impatience).

A utility valuation model that involves presenting people with a line that is bounded by the best and worst state of affairs. Its strength lies in the fact that it requires people neither to make choices nor to take decisions in a condition of uncertainty.

Benefits to the wider public stemming by externalities/policy interventions.

An indicator used to assess service benefits. It refers to the QoL of the individual receiving care services but not to the QoL of family members, or of others, who might be providing informal care; and provides no algorithm that seeks to translate satisfaction scores into monetary values.

Any cost benefit analysis that takes into account social costs and social benefits as well as those experienced solely by individuals.

Costs to the wider public stemming by externalities/policy interventions.

A discount rate in assessing the welfare value of funds in a social investment. (see also Ramsey Equation)

Businesses with social objectives and where surpluses are usually reinvested into business or in the community, rather than maximising profits for owners or shareholders.

Bonds given as an incentive to private investors in order to finance social programmes. They offer returns (reimbursement of the initial investment at some rate) from the public sector only if the programmes achieve specific social outcomes.

An investment that creates both financial return and a positive social or environmental impact that is actively measured. (see also Social Impact Measurement)

A formal evaluation method/explanation of the social impact that results from an investment. It is used by some organisations measure their social impact/social return or social value.

The development and testing of new models of delivering product and services.

Investment that is used to advance the present and future skills and capacities of people and that can be both supportive and preventative. Investment that is aimed to enhance Social Investment is often considered as a function of a modern welfare systems and depends on design features, context and circumstances in time.

A model to evaluate policies by governments or other policy makers. It uses elements from Cost Benefit Analysis (CBA) and modern accounting principles. The role of stakeholders is emphasized and the valuation of outcomes in monetary terms is integral to the approach.

People or organisations that experience change or affect by the activity, whether positive or negative, as a result of the activity being analysed. (see also Externalities)

A utility valuation model which involves presenting people with a choice between two alternatives.

A utility valuation model which involves presenting people with a choice between continuing to be in a poor state or being in an improved state but living less long.

An approach on distributing wellbeing that treats each person as equal and an improvement of any one person’s wellbeing by any given amount is regarded the same as improving another person’s wellbeing by that same given amount. (see also Egalitarian Approach)

A term describing the total satisfaction an agent receives by using a service or consuming a good.

See Rating Scale.

An approach for evaluating a policy. The objective of policy is to maximise the social welfare function, which is the sum of the welfare of all the individuals in society.

Any approach that acknowledges that the goal of services and support is to improve the wellbeing of service users and their families.