Current applications for monitoring of well-being and data management focus mainly on the compilation of register data. Sola in contrast enriches register-based data with research and service cost measurement. price lists. This will enable the construction of regional impact modelling in all Finnish municipalities and welfare areas. A function has also been built into the tool to also estimate the cost impact of interventions.

The production of evaluation data (including cost-effectiveness) will be fundamentally changed with Sola, as users will be empowered to produce evaluation data themselves. This allows for a more precise through regional price lists and allows operators to introduce new content, for example, in response to changes in policy.

According to officials from various Finnish wellbeing service counties, municipalities, regions and ministries, and WHO and OECD Wise centre representatives of the OECD Wise Centre, a similar evaluation tool is not currently available.

• Identification of Problems and Opportunities – identifying areas needing innovation.
• Generating Ideas or Designing Solutions – generating ideas to respond to both problems and or opportunities
• Developing Proposals - turning ideas into business cases that can be implemented and measured
• Implementing the innovation
• Evaluation - understanding whether the innovative initiative has delivered what was needed
• Scalability and dissemination - using what was learnt to inform other projects and understanding how the innovation can be applied in other contexts

The evaluation methodology itself has been developed and tested in both academic and development settings since 2018. The first version of the Sola calculation tool was developed in 2020 and tested in several municipalities of Central Finland with encouraging results. In this project, version 1.0 of Sola was developed.

Current Sola tool is version 2.0.

The assessment methodology was developed by Sosped Keskus company and has been developed further since 2018 with NGO’s and municipalities.

Since 2018 Finnish municipalities and wellbeing services counties have played a central role in the development of the Sola calculation tool.

The Wellbeing Services County of Central Finland and the University of Eastern Finland have been involved in the development of Sola from its commencement.

Experts from four different ministries have given feedback

Municipalities will be given the means to produce evaluation data themselves.

Wellbeing services counties will have the means to make wiser and more far-reaching decisions and to understand the opportunity costs of different phenomena.

Organizations will have the means to demonstrate the effectiveness of the Sola tool in relation to their own activities.

The well-being of citizens will be improved because regions will invest in it and funding from NGOs can be secured.

Finnish municipalities and several welfare regions have adopted Sola.
The results of Sola have been used in assessments, budget preparation and health promotion plans.

Two different events have been organized on the governance of wellbeing service areas.

The National Institute for Health and Welfare and the Finnish Fire Brigades have started to build similar tools for themselves.

A MOOC course promoting the Sola tool has been developed.

The first language models (AI) have been developed.

FUTURE
The data to be evaluated are aligned with the SDG targets and linked to the evaluation and promotion of the national sustainability strategy.
The tool is being prepared for export to EU level using Eurostat and WordBank data.

The methodological challenges have been related to the lack of ready-made means to assess the issues to be evaluated in the project. These include long-term (from five to ten years) cumulative social impacts. The evaluation methodology and principles have been developed in collaboration with Finland's best professionals.

Data challenges have been related to the fact that public registers have not provided information on all phenomena that are required to be assessed according to the social quality theoretical framework. For this reason the project contacted the Ministry of the Interior and obtained from them classified data.

Usability challenges have been addressed through continuous improvement and regular weekly training sessions.

University cooperation and theoretical frameworks supporting indicator selection (e.g. the Social Quality Framework)

The Project/activity responsible for the development of the calculation tool. Should be a public body with an in- depth understanding of the local government and have good networks. The role of the coordinator involves commitment of the test areas (municipalities and welfare regions, etc.) in the development of the tool and this body should also have overall leadership of the process itself.

Cooperation with the Ministry of Social Affairs and Health/Ministry of Finance to enable the tool to be disseminated and used more widely.

The company/other neutral entity responsible for developing the tool.

1. The National Institute for Health and Welfare is building a direct copy of the Sola calculation tool, which it will use to evaluate the effectiveness of the European Social Fund it coordinates.
This project will build an open calculation tool to assess the cost impact of measures to promote inclusion and employment (project).
The tool will group the benefits in such a way that the user will be able to identify how much a single action benefits for national sectors/ stakeholders.

2. In a another, Fire Brigade project, the calculation tool will be directly integrated into information management systems. This will make it possible to assess the impact of Fire Brigades at national, regional or fire brigade level.

The production of evaluation tools that demonstrate social value is also linked to the adoption of a new mindset. As officials and managers learn how to use the tools, they also learn that they themselves are independently capable of producing evaluation data. This brings with it perspectives of responsibility and opportunity. For this reason, transparency and reliable scientific sources are very important for the expansion of the tool.

The strength of evaluation tools such as Sola is that they integrate different types of information in an easy-to-use format. In this way, the information can be put to good use and support decision-making.