We asked providers and other stakeholders who have gone through the SIB process what they particularly valued about their SIB projects:
Freedom to innovate:
“Because of the focus on outcomes, we have greater freedom to individually tailor our approach to achieve the end goal. This has been really important in enabling us to take creative steps that carry risks of failure, but which have often succeeded in unlocking long-held issues with some very challenging clients. This kind of approach is harder to take in more traditionally commissioned services, where costs and time spent with each client is more directly influenced by commissioning frameworks and contractual expectations.”
– St Mungo’s Broadway, Street Impact
Internal growth:
“The SIB experience has been enormously beneficial in helping us to weigh up emerging PbR initiatives that require working capital secured through social investment. We have learnt a great deal from our own experience of delivering the SIB.”
– Thames Reach, Ace Project
Scaling up:
“Prior to the start of the SIB, ThinkForward had three coaches and a pilot group of just 60 young people. Less than a year later the staff team had grown to 14 and over 700 young people were being supported. In part this was because of the greater income generated, but it was also a product of the focused operating model that a SIB structure encourages.”
– ThinkForward
Access to future opportunities:
“Through the SIB, Impetus-PEF and ThinkForward hosted three ministerial visits, study tours from the US Congress and the Asian Venture Philanthropy Network and received national news coverage in the Sunday Times, the Guardian and ITV News. It led to a step change in our relationships with the DWP and the Cabinet Office and has spawned a variety of other opportunities, including potentially to support the roll-out of Job Centre Plus staff in schools.”
– ThinkForward
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