Programme

Worldwide, inequality between places is a major source of social anxiety and political disruption. The UK is an extreme case of this phenomenon: a highly centralised country which exhibits a surprisingly high level of geographic inequality. The current government has a bold political commitment to ‘level-up’ the country, which makes it a useful case study to consider the way forward internationally. But to make a meaningful impact, the strategy cannot focus only on new motorways and rail links: it will need to embrace the importance of social tools for transformation. Here, the role of responsible businesses, charities and community groups is key: no government can level-up alone.

If such ‘cross-sector partnerships’ are key to improving social outcomes, then how should governments nurture them? How much should the private sector be encouraged to help, and where does traditional democratic governance fit in? How can the multiple, intersecting layers of regional and local governments work with each other, and with the central government, to create the conditions for success?

How to level-up regions socially, as well as economically, is complex but essential. This two-part roundtable will examine examples and engage a line-up of leading thinkers on what the social aspect of levelling-up should mean. The conference audience are essential in offering a broad international perspective and in carrying the discussion on to all parts of the world. As one of Europe's most respected experts on regional and urban policy, Professor Philip McCann will be an outstanding chair to guide us towards answers in a session that we hope will offer some new perspectives on the question of how to level-up.

Discussants

Overview 

In this roundtable session we will explore with experts from Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia the latest practice and emerging insights around the development of outcomes-focused partnerships, such as social outcomes contracts, development impact bonds and outcomes funds. Building on examples from places as diverse as Spain, Cameroon, South Africa, India and Japan, the discussion will focus in particular on the challenges of moving from pilot programmes to system-wide approaches. 

As outcomes-based partnerships continue to be developed across the world, how are policymakers and practitioners using the evidence and lessons learnt from individual projects to embed a greater focus on social outcomes in the provision of public services more generally? How are governments and their partner organisations working together to scale and sustain the impact of promising approaches? What can policymakers learn from practice elsewhere in the world, and how can we encourage more effective cross-country learning? 

We will be addressing these questions and lots more in a lively and interactive session, where all participants will have the opportunity to bring in their own experience into the discussion. 

Further information 

You can explore our interactive global Impact Bond Dataset to access data on impact bonds in their various stages of development around the world. You can discover the different policy areas impact bonds are working in as well as their timelines and networks. 

For an in-depth discussion of the drivers, opportunities and challenges shaping the implementation of outcomes-based partnerships in different social and economic contexts around the world, do watch this discussion from last’s Social Outcomes Conference.  

Chaired by Michael Bowsher QC, this session will explore public procurement law reform initiatives in the UK and around the world in relation to public services designed to tackle social challenges.  After many years of experience implementing with the European Union’s directive on public procurement, the UK is now engaged in developing new legislation that the government promises will transform public procurement. 

The UK is also developing their fifth open government national action plan and is likely to make new ‘open contracting’ commitments. In contrast, Lebanon is seeking to enact and implement their first law on public procurement. The demands and expectations upon public procurement systems are high. 

We are promised solutions to COVID-19 and climate change through public procurement, while issues of transparency and accountably persist. Will new law help?

Discussants

Academics at the Social Outcomes Conference have generated many special issues over the years. This symposium is structured to provide listed participants feedback on their manuscripts under consideration for inclusion in a forthcoming special issue in the International Public Management Journal. 

The papers under discussion are: 

1. Anders, Dorsett: ‘Financing social innovation through payment by results: reflections from the evaluations of two large-scale case studies from the evaluations of two large-scale case studies’ 
2. Chiodo, De Pieri, Gerli: ‘Based on outcomes? Challenges and (missed) opportunities of measuring social outcomes in outcome-based contracting’ 
3. Fernando Deodato Domingos, Insper: ‘Leveraging Outcomes-Based Contracts: The Role of Socially-Oriented Investors’ 
4. Evans: ‘The effect of Institutional Complementarities within Socio-economic Governance Regimes on SIB Emergence and Dissemination: the first decade’ 
5. Fox, Olson, Armitage, Baines, Painter: ‘Can a focus on co-created, strengths-based services facilitate early-stage innovation within SIBs?
6. Fraser, Knoll, Hobi, Hevenstone: ‘How might we compare the ways in which Social Impact Bonds have developed across different European states?’
7. French, Wilson, Kimmitt, Lowe, Jamieson: ‘Social Impact Bonds: toward New Public Governance, or more New Public Management?’
8. Hajer, Das: ‘Political-economic Factors leading to SIB Emergence’ 
9. Merisalo, Pihlajamaa, Saari: ‘How to prepare a successful Social Impact Bond project? In-depth analysis of stakeholder experiences of the preparing phase of the Finland Children's Welfare SIB II project."
10. Pellizzari, Doganova, Muniesa: ‘Social impact bonds and the tactics of feasibility: experience from Chile, Colombia and France'
11. Tan, Allen, 'Doing everything they can or everything that pays? The impact of outcomes-based contracts on two non-profit organisations.’ 

This session will be delivered online only.

Governments around the world have been augmented by non-state actors to provide much needed public service provision to communities. Whether businesses acting responsibly or civil society organisations doing what they can, there are variations in the level of collaboration with government. So how should relations be managed between government and non-state actors and what factors affect these relations? Trust, incentives, value systems, efficiency and division are all important elements highlighted in the presentations. The studies featured in this session examine five engaging papers by expert researchers and practitioners (find more details on each paper below)

These papers will inform what is anticipated to be a lively discussion between the audience and the respondent panel to help develop the problems and opportunities presented in state and non-state actors working together.   

Our bi-annual Hack-and-Learn is an opportunity for policymakers, data analysts and other leading representatives of the public and private sectors to come together and tackle pressing questions in the field of social outcomes. Harnessing skills and experiences from a diverse pool of actors, this event provides a space for learning and community building around the use of data in the field and an opportunity to solve problems, co-produce and make better sense of the use of data.

In the two weeks leading up to SOC21, participants will join a challenge of their choice and work together in a team with other participants across the world to tackle the challenge together. This summer's co-hosts, INSPER, University of Cape Town’s Bertha Centre and Ashoka University’s Centre for Social Impact & Philanthropy, will offer the list of challenges but there is always space for participants to propose a new idea and work on it with a team of participants. 

Participants will present their final results at this ‘Show and Tell’ session, where senior researchers and practitioners provide feedback and suggestions for improvements. The session is open to anyone, particularly those interested in the use of data in the field of social outcomes.

Discussants

Organisations can have a difficult time awarding outcomes-based contracts. Many processes for budgets, procurement, risk management, etc. were not designed to focus on outcomes – especially not long-term social outcomes. Many of these processes are deeply entrenched in rules or practice. 

This session considers these challenges and offers solutions, including a new template outcomes contract, a new guide, and lessons learned from around the world. The session will also consider the fundamental public policy reasons behind entrenched administrative processes in public organisations and reconsider how an outcomes focus may achieve important underlying objectives such as effectiveness, efficiency, and accountability.

This session will explore social impact bonds (SIBs) focussing on children’s services across Europe. By taking a comparative lens, it will draw out the different justifications for using SIBs, development processes, design choices, and emerging (or final) results from these projects. 

The session will build on research from the GO Lab and RISE (Research Institutes of Sweden) and combine this with practitioner experiences on the ground from the Positive Families Partnership and City of Tampere.  

During the discussion, we will highlight the following themes:

• Understanding prevention in different contexts
• Justifications and rationales for using a SIB to deliver children’s services
• Design and development of social impact bond projects
• The use of high fidelity and licensed interventions in children’s social care
• Emerging and/or final performance results (where available)
• Lessons for using SIBs as a commissioning mechanism within children’s services
• Comparing SIBs to commissioning alternatives in children’s services

The rise of impact-driven investment and service provision opens up both the opportunity and need to develop common measurement strategies in order to keep up with the diversity of experience over time. Outcome Based Contracts (OBCs) have initiated new impact-focused relationships between the public and private sector. Impact investment, meanwhile, is now worth over $700 billion, making it one of the fastest growing parts of the investment industry.

The influx of funding for OBCs and impact investment raises the stakes for the measurement of social impact, as there is now a distinct incentive to ‘prove’ certain levels of impact. This introduces new risks (such as impact washing) and opportunities (such as sustainable financing) and calls for innovative measurement and accountability methods. This session presents some of the latest contributions to this body of literature.

This deep dive session will feature academic and practitioner perspectives on the use of social impact bonds (SIBs). The justifications and merits of SIBs are multiple and uncertain: are these tools for driving efficiency, extracting social value, or enabling government to act in different more collaborative or preventative ways?

Considering the frequent claims on the financialisation of public services and a perceived lack of the user voice in SIBs, this panel session aims to examine the emerging evidence on the role of the user voice in impact bonds across the UK and in an international context. Four overarching questions will guide our discussion:

1. How does the SIB design might help to facilitate the integration of the user voice?
2. At which stage of the programme and in which form shall the user voice be integrated?
3. How can the user voice be better integrated with other approaches, especially data, in the design of SIBs?
4. How can we ensure that the user voice affects national and local policy design?

Complex social issues do not have a linear cause-effect explanation. They typically sit in multi-layered, at times dysfunctional, eco-systems where multiple actors affect each other and the social issue in ways which are not entirely predictable. 

In this session we will look and discuss the use of a number of instruments which aim to influence the broader canvas in which complex social issues sit including CSR regulation, the setting of global agendas or manifestos, the provision of specific performance information to drive strategic decisions and the use of outcomes-based approaches for institutional reform.