This is our monthly policy briefing for July 2020. Each week we gather all the news, commentary and events from across the sector, then tie it all together each month. If you would like to get this in your inbox each week you can sign up to Tiny Letter.
Conference – Sign up for the Social Outcomes Conference – We are sending out a ‘4 weeks to go’ bulletin tomorrow morning to everyone who has registered for SOC20. This will include everything you need to know about SOC20 as well as what to expect from an online conference, and how to make the most of it. Sign up today for free to receive this. GO Lab
Opinion How to maintain impact investing in Europe – Investors and policy makers who want to advance impact investing in Europe need to account for the field’s different levels of maturity in national, subnational, and municipal markets. SSIR
Opinion Four ways to prevent the Sustainable Development Goals becoming a casualty of Covid-19 responses – 1) Governments should take sustainability more seriously, 2) governments should speed up the progressive realisation of universal goals, 3) Government investments should cut across sectors, 4) non-governmental actors should share responsibilities on achieving the SDGs. ODI
Press release EIB and Municipality of Madrid promote the city’s first social impact bond, putting Madrid at the forefront of social policy – This project aims to improve assistance for vulnerable people to help them overcome challenges. It will be a social impact bond and the Municipality will only bear the cost of the project if it is successful. European Commission
Three part blog series with our Fellows of Practice – reflections on outcomes contracts & Covid-19
Part 1 The Pros & Cons of Outcomes based contracts during the Covid-19 pandemic – A provider perspective – Gail Gibbons, CEO of Sheffield Futures explores how Project Apollo, a social impact bond helping care leavers find work, is adapting to lockdown and catering to the additional needs of service users. She states how we need to utilise SIBs inherent flexibility as outcomes will be affected, and remind us of how important the relationships are between the major parties. You can join Gail on Day 3 of the Social Outcomes Conference 2020
Part 2 Local government and community activism – a silver lining of the pandemic – Tom Davies, Manager at Social Finance gives us an overview of how local government and the community have worked together during the Covid-19 pandemic and what this could mean for the future. He offers two options for sustaining this government-community relationships, what this will require and what the implications are.
Part 3 In significant future uncertainty, why contact for outcomes? Inga Afanasieva, Infrastructure Specialist at the World Bank offers an argument for why we should focus on outcomes when things are so unpredictable. She highlights that the pandemic and the market crisis has exposed systemic inequalities that existed and there are four ways that outcomes based contracts can help. You can join Inga on Day 2 of the Social, Outcomes conference to explore this more.
Research How to Fail (Forward): A Framework for Fostering Innovation in the Public Sector – This report by the Centre for Public Impact offers a 4 step approach to failing forward. 1) Identifying failure, 2) communicating about the failure, 3) Understanding the failure, 4) Taking action. Centre for Public Impact
Research Social impact bonds in Sweden: structural and operational impediments from experts’ perspectives – This paper explores SIBs in Sweden and how experts have implemented them, and also looks at how well the Swedish Social Finance Infrastructure can facilitate SIBs in its current state and areas for future improvements. University of Gothenburg, School of Business, Economics and Law.
Conference Social Outcomes Conference 2020 – It is 8 days until the online Social Outcomes Conference! Have you registered? Have you planned which sessions you will be joining? Have you had a look at our range of excellent speakers? We’re excited to see you there! GO Lab
Press release Greater focus on outcomes needed in post-Covid world, says CIPFA – Guidance released by the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) urges the public sector to take an outcomes focused approach to policy making. CIPFA
News #Chances4children: The skill mill launch new social outcomes project to support 200 young offenders The Skill Mill’s Social Impact Bond programme will offer young people in 7 local authorities an intensive 6-month work programme designed to help vulnerable young people break the cycle of re-offending and gain work experience. Children & Young People Now