Achieving outcomes: Life Chances Fund final report

The Life Chances Fund was a £70 million programme funded by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS), and administered by The National Lottery Community Fund (TNLCF). It ran between 2016-2025. The Life Chances Fund was designed to tackle complex social problems across policy areas, including child and family welfare, homelessness, health and wellbeing, employment and training, and more.

The Life Chances Fund was delivered through 29 locally-commissioned social outcomes partnerships (also known as social impact bonds). These partnerships used outcomes-based contracts where payments were tied to the achievement of measurable social outcomes.

This report is part of a wider set of evaluations the Government Outcomes Lab undertook for DCMS as their knowledge and learning partner for the Life Chances Fund.

About this report

This is the final report in the Life Chances Fund evaluation series. It presents findings on project performance in terms of outcome achievements and payments. The report focuses on the final outcomes achieved by the 29 Life Chances Fund projects. It aims to answer these questions:

1. To what extent have these 29 social outcomes partnerships achieved their intended outcomes?
2. To what extent have these 29 social outcomes partnerships achieved the intended level of outcome payments?