Concurrent roundtables

Launched in 2016 by the UK Government, the Life Chances Fund (LCF) is a £70m fund which aims to help those people in society who face the most significant barriers to leading happy and productive lives. It contributes to outcome payments for locally commissioned social outcomes contracts which involve socially-minded investors through impact bonds. Running until 2025, the LCF aims to support over 51,000 individuals to achieve better life outcomes in areas such as health, employment, and housing.

All funded projects are now in implementation, with a wealth of learning coming out of delivery. This provides an exciting opportunity to celebrate what the projects have achieved so far, reflect on lessons learnt and explore how these achievements can be sustained beyond the life of the impact bond.

You can find out more about the Government Outcomes Lab's role in evaluating the LCF here.

The Roundtable will be an opportunity to explore with LCF project stakeholders the successes and lessons learnt so far from the delivery of these innovative projects; reflect on key questions around sustaining the impact of these projects beyond the LCF; and offer projects a platform to showcase their results and learn from each other.

For the session, we are seeking to bring together emerging insights from the research conducted by the GO Lab with practical insights from projects themselves, in an interactive discussion centred around three core topics:

• Unlocking collaboration at local level & empowering civil society
• The value added of outcome-focused partnership working
• Sustainability beyond the life of the impact bond

For those attending the Roundtable in person, the session will be followed by informal networking for an opportunity to connect directly with peers from other Life Chances Fund projects, as well as representatives from the National Lottery Community Fund and the Department for Digital, Media, Culture & Sport.

Watch the recording of the session here.

It is widely accepted that setting out the intended outcomes for people targeted by a social programme provides a useful articulation of the ultimate aim of that programme. But does that mean these outcomes should be measured quantitatively? And how should those numbers be used during ‘live running’?

This roundtable will explore the range of information that cross-sector partners should use to course-correct during programme delivery, and inform practice beyond. ‘Measurement for learning’ sounds like a good idea, but how do you make people do it? How accurate do your measures need to be? And who gets to see the information and make the decisions?

Watch the recording of the sessionhere.