Life Chance Fund final evaluation: Data release

This report is the third of three reports from the LCF Primary Evaluation which seeks to provide descriptive information on all projects established from the LCF through a longitudinal survey. This report focuses on Wave 3, which explores implementation benefits and drawbacks; collaboration and trust between stakeholder organisations; reflections on organisational and performance management practices; and the legacy of the LCF.

It follows two previous reports from earlier waves of the LCF Primary Evaluation Survey. The first report (Wave 1) focused on capturing insights from the early stages of project mobilisation. The second report (Wave 2) was a data release which focused on the implementation experiences of stakeholders. This report builds on this and seeks to capture how stakeholders’ experiences have changed across waves, while also focusing on insights specific to project completion.

About the Life Chances Fund (LCF)

The Life Chances Fund (LCF) was a £70 million fund supporting the growth and development of 29 locally-commissioned social outcomes partnerships (SOPs), also known as social impact bonds (SIBs), in England. These outcomes-based projects were co-commissioned by central government and a range of local public sector organisations.

LCF projects aimed to tackle 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. Following three application rounds, funding was made available for multi-year SOP projects to run within the LCF’s nine- year lifespan from July 2016 to March 2025. The first LCF projects began service delivery in 2018, with the bulk of projects launching between 2019 and 2020. LCF Projects were only able to claim payments for outcomes achieved up to the end of September 2024. Some projects continued to deliver services beyond the lifetime of the LCF.