Social Outcomes Conference 2025

Dale Renner, Latitude Network founder, recently presented at the Social Outcomes Conference 2025 run by the Government Outcomes Lab at the Blavatnik School of Government at the University of Oxford. The conference brings together practitioners and academics to share how social problems can be addressed with outcomes-based approaches. Dale's topic was how sector-led data collaborations can give power back to social organisations to improve performance and enhance learning.

Reflections

Here are some of Dale’s reflections from the conference, focusing on the outcomes funding ecosystem -

• Outcomes thinking is driving innovation. Outcomes-based thinking, from formal Social Impact Bonds through to outcomes contracting and data, is a small but important movement that is driving innovation in social services across the world. There is an eclectic mix of professionals whose work is prompting governments, impact funders and social organisations to do a better job at addressing social issues. There is growing momentum in places around the world as governments gain confidence in clearer accountability around outcomes. For example, Colombia and South Africa are embedding outcomes methods more directly within government policy.

“The biggest lever for change is the shift governments can make from inputs to outcomes” - Saadhna Panday’, UNICEF Education Chief.

• The shift from inputs to outcomes is the key to service improvements.   Outcomes thinking is at the vanguard of improving how governments fund and achieve social good - not just innovation on the finance side but also driving focus on outcomes and need for better quality data. Outcomes projects in India are demonstrating the ability to improve educational outcomes for children at scale.

• The investment or funding ecosystem continues to diversify. There are more different socially oriented investors emerging, such as pension funds, philanthropic trusts, high net worth individuals and family offices (as inherited wealth passes to a more progressive generation), sovereign wealth funds, and even the third sector investing in itself - and many are looking for good projects to invest in.

• Funding across systems via outcomes funds can improve learning. The UK govt has made a commitment of £500 million over 10 years to the Better Futures fund, demonstrating how a large outcomes focused budget is possible. In its previous fund, Life Chances, outcomes funding was often provided to multiple organisations in a given region.

• Importance of the ‘relational contracting’.  Outcomes funds have demonstrated that commissioners, funders and contract managers of government funding need to better collaborate with service providers and local authorities to be able to flex with changes over the course of a project. This relational engagement allows better learning and adaptations, and prevents outcomes contracts being too ‘brittle’ and therefore failing when circumstances change. A new book was launched that shows how formal aspects of contracting for social outcomes and the relational aspects need to complement each other to create better outcomes.

Book: Contracting for Public Value: New Thinking for More Effective, Accountable, and Sustainable Public Service Contracts​ By Carolyn J. Heinrich, Deanna Malatesta, Eleanor Carter, Michael Gibson, and Nigel Ball​ - forthcoming from The University of Oxford Press

Implications for our work

• There is still more to do to accelerate the shift towards outcomes-orientated contracting in social services in Australia beyond SIBs, and lessons to be learned from perhaps other parts of the world such as South Africa, Colombia and the development community. While Australia has a range of relatively large SIB projects ($12-$25m project sizes), their momentum has slowed. There are opportunities to explore less transactionally complex outcomes funding and contracting methods as well to spread outcomes thinking outside traditional SIB structures.

• Funding across systems. Outcomes funds that fund across multiple organisations should be further developed in Australia. State Governments should consider SIBs or other outcomes incentive contracts that work across multiple organisations in a learning community, not just individual programs. This can enhance comparative work that collects more useful data.

• Scaling what works. More work is needed on ensuring better spread of best practices and scaling great programs that have proven impact. In Australia and the UK it is often hard to get funders to agree to scale proven programs after the end of a social impact bond. We are developing methods in our outcomes funding work to provide for funding on success after a SIB is completed to invest in scaling that program.

• Best practice replication. Regardless of their funding source, best practice programs that have proven their effectiveness often struggle to scale to new places. Around the world there are countless programs that could be licensed and delivered in other places. A key missing piece is often the ability to replicate but with local adaptation of proven service models. This is a problem Latitude is working on now - watch this space.

In a future blog we will share Dale’s reflections from the GOLab conference focusing on directions in data to enhance outcomes.