The government has announced that 22 projects across England are to share £48m to develop social impact bonds to tackle a range of social issues, including boosting young people’s employability and providing tailored health plans to older people.
The funding from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s Life Chances Fund will help the projects put in place social impact bonds to fund a host of projects, which also include support for former drug and alcohol addicts to reintegrate into their communities.
The projects will use the government cash to develop so-called social impact bonds, where money from investors is used to address social problems, with savings from reduced demand for expensive public services then used to repay contributors once certain outcomes are reached.
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The LCF was launched in July 2016 with the intention to increase the number and scale of SIBs in England. Money can be used to make payment towards outcomes contracts, although local commissioners are expected to fund the majority of the outcome payments.
Projects that have received fuding include Kirklees Council receiving nearly £6.6m to support people with vulnerabilities into independent living through addressing issues like substance misuse, while Staffordshire County Council will receive around £3.5m to provide therapeutic services and support to looked after children across the West Midlands.
Nearly £1.2m has been awarded for Age Concern South Gloucestershire to develop its personalised integrated care programme which brings together voluntary, health and social care services to provide personalised support to older people with multiple long term conditions, in order to reduce hospital admissions, while Lancashire County Council will receive just over £2.1m to boost a range of family preservation interventions that will help beneficiaries to avoid care and improve school attainment. A full list of the projects is available here.
The money is the third and final round of funding from the £80m LCF, which opened in July 2016, and civil society minister Tracey Crouch said it would “help make a difference to many more lives”.
She added: “I am looking forward to working alongside local councils to deliver projects and new services that help people reach their full potential.”