Authors: Rosenbach, F. and Carter, E.
Organisation: Government Outcomes Lab (GO Lab)
Policy Areas: Employment and training, Poverty reduction, Health & wellbeing
This is the first Government Outcomes Lab report from our supplementary evaluation of the UK Government’s Life Chances Fund (LCF) which focuses on The Kirklees Integrated Support Service (KISS) Social Impact Bond (SIB). The KISS SIB seeks to improve a range of social outcomes for vulnerable adults who are understood to need support to live independently. The outcomes contract is held by a special purpose vehicle (Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership, KBOP), which in turn manages individual service delivery contracts with independent provider organisations.
This SIB is a particularly promising evaluation site, as it was preceded by similar provision of ‘Floating Support’ under bilateral fee-for-service arrangements between the Council and the same providers. Analysis of this changed contractual arrangement may help to disentangle the effect of the SIB model from that of the intervention. A range of primary data collection methods were used, including in-depth interviews, documentary analysis and qualitative analysis.
The report identifies four broad challenges faced under the pre-existing fee-for-service arrangements and commissioning environment prior to the adoption of the SIB model in September 2019. These challenges provide hypotheses for future waves of research, which will explore the adoption of the new SIB model.
We are the UK Government’s evaluation partner for the Life Chances Fund (LCF). Through our engaged research, we are conducting multiple, longitudinal evaluations across the portfolio of 30 projects offered funding by the LCF.
The LCF was launched as an £80 million fund from the UK Government’s Civil Society directorate, designed to help people in society who face the most significant barriers to leading happy and productive lives. The Fund is dedicated to supporting the growth and development of outcomes-based commissioning through the use of social impact bonds (SIBs), by providing a top-up payment to local government commissioners in England.
LCF projects are aimed at tackling complex social problems across policy areas like child and family welfare, homelessness, health and wellbeing, employment and training, criminal justice, and education and early years. Most projects are expected to complete provision under the LCF by 2025 – 2026, with the potential for re-commissioning through other funding sources. You can find out more about our role in the evaluation of the LCF here and explore data and visualisations on individual Life Chances Fund projects through our INDIGO Impact Bond Database, which describes the projects’ locations, policy sectors, timelines, and stakeholder networks.
Want to know more about the state of play of impact bonds? Explore our global interactive map to find out data on impact bonds in their various stages of development and policy areas.