- October 10, 2022
Big Society Capital has just published new research by ATQ into the value of social outcomes contracts and social impact bonds in the UK. Commissioned by BSC as part of their Outcomes for All report, and based on detailed analysis of 76 contracts implemented since 2010, the research found that outcomes to date had generated benefits worth more than £1.4 billion.
Commenting on the launch of the report, Neil Stanworth of ATQ said: “We were delighted to be asked to undertake this work for Big Society Capital. We have been estimating the value created by social interventions for many years, and think it really important that commissioners and policy makers understand just how much public value can be created if poor outcomes such as homelessness or long-term unemployment can be averted. We hope that our work will contribute to a wider debate on this”
Neil has written a blog on this work which can be found here.
ATQ also co-authored another major report released this week, which summarises findings over the last 3 years from the evaluation of the Commissioning Better Outcomes Fund. ATQ has been partnering Ecorys UK in conducting this evaluation since 2014.
For further information on either of these reports, please contact Neil at neil@atqconsultants.co.uk
- October 9, 2022
Last week Ecorys/ATQ published our 2nd Update Report on the evaluation of the Growth Fund, tracking its impact over its first 5 years (2015-2020).
We found that the Growth Fund, a blended finance programme between The National Lottery Community Fund, Big Society Capital and ACCESS – THE FOUNDATION FOR SOCIAL INVESTMENT, has been successful in its aim of making small-scale loans more available to the charity and social enterprise sector. This in turn is strengthening the charities’ and social enterprises’ financial resilience and increasing their ability to support a wider set of people. We also highlight a number of lessons the partnership has learnt along the way, and aspects we suggest experimenting with further in the future.
Follow the links to read Ecorys/ATQ’s Full report and Executive summary, as well as blogs by Access Foundation and The National Lottery Community Fund.
- October 8, 2022
ATQ Directors have been major contributors to two important recent reports on outcomes-based commissioning and SIBs.
The first was commissioned by the Centre for SIBs within the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport and looks at the challenges and benefits of commissioning social impact bonds and the potential for replicating and scaling this type of contract. The report presents practical tips for commissioners to facilitate an easier commissioning process and provides recommendations to government to further the replication and scaling of SIBs in the UK. It was co-authored by ATQ Director Neil Stanworth along with colleagues from Ecorys UK and can be downloaded here. Neil has also written this blog summarising the report’s findings with Rachel Wooldridge from Ecorys.
The other report was a major update on the evaluation of the Commissioning Better Outcomes Fund which ATQ have been supporting, again alongside Ecorys, since 2014. This report draws on a range of other work done as part of the evaluation, including in-depth reviews of specific projects and stand-alone surveys of key stakeholders. It includes major contributions from both Neil and fellow ATQ Director Edward Hickman, and can be downloaded here. Another blog by Neil about this report can also be found on the GO Lab website here
- October 7, 2022
ATQ is delighted to have been appointed Implementation Partner for the Home Office’s £13m Trusted Relationships Fund. The Home Office has awarded grant funding to 11 Local Authorities to deliver Trusted Relationship programmes aimed at young people aged 10 – 17 years old who are vulnerable to sexual exploitation, gang involvement and/or peer abuse. ATQ, along with our partners for this project, Circles South East, will be providing implementation support and monitoring of all the programmes as well as designing and delivering shared learning events throughout the four year life of the programme (funding for 2020-2022 dependent on the spending review settlement).
- October 6, 2022
Neil, Stanworth, one of ATQ’s Directors, has been appointed a Fellow of Practice at the Government Outcomes Lab (GO Lab) from January 2018.
Fellows of Practice work with GO Lab to provide support and advice to commissioners and others and help GO Lab develop its role as a global leader in the research and practice of commissioning for outcomes. It is an honorary position offered to those who have recognised expertise in the field of outcome based commissioning and have a commitment to supporting the work of the Lab.
Neil commented: ‘I am delighted to be joining the Fellows of Practice network which gives me the chance to share the expertise that my ATQ colleagues and I have built up across more than 20 projects related to outcomes – based commissioning and social impact bonds.’
- October 5, 2022
ATQ supported the Family Drug and Alochol Court National Unit, which received the largest single award to date from the Fund of £6.05m . This will fund a Social Impact Bond (SIB) that will support families whose children are subject to care proceedings due to parental substance misuse and domestic violence in the home. We also supported the application from Suffolk County Council, which received £442,400 to develop a programme that will aim to reduce the number of adolescents entering or staying in care in Suffolk.
ATQ has since supported a number of SIB development projects that led to applications to the second round of the LCF by the end of October, These included applications for support to SIBs that aim to impovre outcomes for pre-school chidren, for disadvanatged young people and for adults with mentakl health issues.
If you would like to hear more about how ATQ could help you develop a SIB or similarr contract under the LCF, please contact us.
- October 4, 2022
ATQ is pleased to have been appointed as an approved provider under the Big Potential Advanced Fund. Already an approved provider under the Breakthrough Fund (see below), we are now able to support ventures through the £10m Advanced Fund which provides larger grants of between £50,000 and £150,000 to support VCSEs that have better developed plans to raise social investment or pursue major contract opportunities. Further details are on our dedicated Big Potential page here.
ATQ is also delighted to have been re-appointed as a provider under the Impact Readiness Fund. The IRF was piloted last year, and ATQ successfully provided support through the Fund to both a cohort of three ventures and a stand-alone venture. The Fund has now re-opened for applications until January 2016.
- October 4, 2022
ATQ is delighted to have been appointed an approved provider under the Impact Growth strand of the Impact Managment Programme
The Fund provdes grants – working with an approved supplier such as ATQ – to help social ventures develop a project that will improve their impact management systems and processes. The Fund has a further £1.3m of funding available, and expects to award at least 26 further grants. If you are eligible to apply for the Fund and wish to work with us, please contact us as soon as possible so that we have time to put together a strong application
- October 3, 2022
ATQ is pleased to have been appointed as an approved provider under both the Big Potential Breakthrough and Impact Readiness Funds. These provide grants to help voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations (VSCEs) buy in specialist technical support for investment and impact readiness.
The £10m Big Potential Fund is aimed at eligible VCSEs to improve their sustainability, capacity and scale and help them deliver greater social impact for communities across England. VCSEs can apply for grants between £20,000 and £75,000 in total to undertake investment readiness work with an approved provider such as ATQ.
The Impact Readiness Fund (IRF) is a new pilot fund through which grants between £15,000 and £150,000 will be available to help ventures build infrastructure and skills required to manage their performance, increase their social impact, and attract social investment / win contracts, again working with approved providers.
If you are interested in the Big Potential Fund please visit our dedicated Big Potential page or contact one of our team. If interested in the IRF please contact one of our team as soon as possible as applications to the Fund close on 16th January 2015.
- December 2, 2019
The current general election campaign has brought commitments from both main parties to increase levels of public spending to historically high levels – dramatically in Labour’s case.
How does Government ensure that any new monies for front-line public services are spent effectively and not wasted?
With the introduction of additional money, there are two possible ways ahead. It is either a great opportunity for public services to invest in change and improve service outcomes or it can simply release the pressure and allow change to be put back into the ‘too difficult’ tray.
Necessity should be the mother of invention
In other spheres of activity, necessity is the mother of invention which drives innovation and changes in the way things get done.
In the public services arena, necessity doesn’t drive change in the same way. This is because the spending taps have either not been turned off for that long or, as currently after 10 years of austerity, have arguably been turned off for too long. Let me explain.
Public service managers act rationally. Historically, spending cuts have been temporary within the usual five-year election cycle. This means that the default response is salami slicing – implementing small incremental cost savings, avoiding making any potentially significant changes in the way things are done and reverting to ‘normal’ when spending taps are turned on again.
The period from 2010 to 2015 can be characterised in this way, with most managers hoping/expecting that the next government would relax austerity. Unfortunately for all of us, public finance conditions didn’t improve and austerity budgeting has continued up to now (late 2019).
So what effect did this have? On the ground, front line public services have consistently reduced scope to meet only acute or statutory needs e.g. qualification for social care support, and change comes about largely through closure of provision and services e.g. Sure Start, youth centres, elderly care day centres, libraries etc.
At the risk of oversimplification, after five years of salami slicing there was not enough capacity left to plan, consult on and implement significant services transformation. High staff turnover in times of low morale is another factor. There have, of course, been some changes such as joining up between local authority teams in for example children’s services. There has also been some innovative use of outcomes-based commissioning – something with which I have personally been involved.
However, these have been small scale. The overall picture is one of services that are hunkered down coping with day to day demands with only limited commissioning and back office support to help introduce any changes.
So what should we do now the taps are about to be turned on again? I have previously advocated three ideas for introducing change across the public services landscape.
Use an overarching theme – presumption of prevention – to drive change
For all public-sector organisations, I would argue for a presumption towards prevention as a sensible overarching hook or theme. Every organisation should be encouraged to ask:
“what would we spend this budget on if the aim was to prevent the problem arising or getting worse?”
One of the positive consequences of looking at a social challenge from a preventative basis is that it forces organisations to look at outcomes and work out how to collaborate with other spending bodies to find ways of combining resources differently to now. Equally importantly, it should be cheaper – but only if we can break the ‘safety first’ mindset of waiting until action is mandatory, and almost always much more expensive.
Explicitly invest in services R&D
If the answer in the private sector is R&D, why not the public sector too? One remedy could be to set an explicit Government services R&D budget allocation. If say 1% of Departmental expenditure were top-sliced and allocated to R&D, this would be around £3bn per annum aimed at improving public service innovation and productivity gains.
This would require a complete rethink of the way we test and implement change. Instead of scrutiny of policy initiatives after implementation with 20:20 hindsight, by the Public Accounts Committee, National Audit Office et al, we would be asking these or potentially different organisations to review an experimental spend and deciding whether to implement at scale.
Extend Individualisation and co-design
Essentially give service users a voice in designing the services they receive. Give them ownership of the budget and how it is spent. The ideas of personalisation and choice have been around for over 10 years now but they have not gone anywhere near far enough, with control of budgets remaining largely with government bodies.
With some imagination, this principle could and should be more widely encouraged and extended to areas such as employability and skills (especially re-training), management of long-term health conditions, and parental support.
Conclusion
If 2020 onwards is going to be a great opportunity for public services to invest in change and improve service outcomes then, whatever colour the new Government, it needs to set the change agenda from the centre and quite possibly reinforce it with legislation.