Commissioning Better Outcomes and Social Outcomes Fund

There is growing interest among public sector commissioners in the potential of SIBs to tackle complex and expensive social issues. Commissioning Better Outcomes and the Social Outcomes Fund had a joint overarching aim to support the development of more SIBs; however, each fund had its own specific focus that reflected the respective missions of The National Lottery Community Fund and the Cabinet Office. The objectives for the two funds are set out below:

Commissioning Better Outcomes

• Improved skills and confidence of commissioners with regards to the development of SIBs.
• Increased early prevention is undertaken by delivery partners, including VCSE organisations, to address deep rooted social issues and help those most in need.
• More delivery partners, including VCSE organisations, are able to access new forms of finance to reach more people.
• Increased learning and an enhanced collective understanding of how to develop and deliver successful SIBs

Social Outcomes Fund

• Increased innovation in public service delivery through outcomes based commissioning.
• Improved cross-government working in public service delivery and encouraging co-payment by different commissioners.
• Increased number of SIBs addressing complex needs and demonstrating ability to replicate by standardising the process.
• Increased capacity for SIBs as a long term tool of government to improve outcomes and reduce costs, by supporting SIBs that test cashability of savings and ensure evidence is gathered to:
  - Determine performance of interventions on their primary outcome
  - Increase evidence on the impact of interventions on wider outcomes
  - Improve outcome valuation.

We decided during assessment which fund was most appropriate for each application and in some cases decided to jointly fund projects.

As many of the objectives for the two funds complemented each other, there was a single set of forms to make applying as simple as possible

Applicants followed a two stage application process consisting of an expression of interest (EoI) and, once this was approved, a full application. Commissioners, providers or intermediaries could all submit an EoI, but we expected full applications to be from a commissioning organisation (typically a public sector organisation) based in and serving people in England. For example:

• a Local Authority, seeking to improve outcomes for troubled families.
• a Central Government Department, seeking to reduce problem drug use. (For SOF only)
• a Clinical Commissioning Group, seeking to reduce hospitalisation of the elderly.
• a Police and Crime Commissioner, seeking to reduce gang membership.

In exceptional circumstances we did consider full applications from other organisations (such as providers) based in and serving people in England as long as there is a commissioner involved, where this was discussed with us before applying.

Throughout the development of your model, we expected proposals to:

• undertake early and extensive research and stakeholder engagement
• consult with beneficiaries
• consult with a wide range of potential delivery partners, including those from the voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) sector
• find support for your SIB from a range of different stakeholders such as other commissioners, investors, delivery partners and prime contractors
• be aware of your obligations under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012, and consider how any procurement might improve the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the local area.

The National Lottery Community Fund had up to £40 million available through Commissioning Better Outcomes. Up to £5 million of this total was set aside for development funding.

The Cabinet Office had up to £20 million available through the Social Outcomes Fund.

In your full application you could have asked us to pay for a minority proportion of outcome payments to cover, for example, non-cashable savings or savings that fall to other commissioners who cannot pay for outcomes. There was no minimum or maximum funding available for each SIB but we expected the average amount of funding to be around £1 million. We only contributed a minority proportion of outcomes payments, and expect the average contribution to be around 20 per cent of the total outcomes payments, including typically up to a benchmark of 15 per cent from CBO.

Grants funded varied from £19,000 to £150,000 to purchase technical support to develop SIBs.

More funding may be available in exceptional circumstances. Please discuss this with us before applying.

Funding could not be used for:

• day-to-day running costs for organisations
• pilot activities or any direct service delivery
• retrospective costs.

Related Documents

• Mayday Trust SIB: Be the Change (PDF 453kB)
• Directory of SIB providers (PDF 453kB)
• Directory of investors (PDF 333kb)
• Commissioning Better Outcomes and the social outcomes fund guide (PDF 236kb)
• Commissioning Better Outcomes and the social outcomes fund questions and answers (PDF 155kb)
  Commissioning Better Outcomes and the social outcomes fund glossary of key terms (PDF 169kb)
• Commissioning Better Outcomes and the social outcomes fund evaluation guidance (PDF 136kb)
• Summary of Commissioning Better Outcomes evaluation (PDF 386kb)
  
• Commissioning Better Outcomes grant awards July 2013 - November 2018 (XLS 218kb)