Guidance

The Life Chances Fund

Information about the Life Chances Fund which was delivered between 2016 and 2025.

• From: Department for Culture, Media and Sport
• Published: 5 March 2026

Overview

The Life Chances Fund (LCF) was delivered between 2016 and 2025. It aimed to help those people in society who face the most significant barriers to leading happy and productive lives. The £70 million fund contributed to outcome payments for locally commissioned social outcomes contracts which involve socially-minded investors. The fund supported 29 projects, and was managed by The National Lottery Community Fund on behalf of DCMS.

The Life Chances Fund

The LCF engaged with more than 50,000 beneficiaries to achieve better life outcomes in areas such as health, employment, and housing. At least 90% of beneficiaries achieved at least one outcome.

The LCF had 7 primary objectives:

1. Increase the number and scale of SOPs in England.

2. Make it easier and quicker to set up a SOP.

3. Generate public sector efficiencies by delivering better outcomes, and understand how cashable savings are achieved.

4. Increase social innovation and build a clear evidence base for what works.

5. Increase the amount of capital available to voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) providers to help them compete for public sector contracts.

6. Provide better evidence of the effectiveness of the SOP mechanism and the savings resulting.

7.  Grow the scale of the social investment market.

The LCF empowered commissioners in local government to find locally-led place-based solutions to entrenched social problems. In doing so, it supported the development of effective local partnerships that were well-placed to deliver what’s really needed.

Note: The LCF was reduced to £70 million in 2020. This did not affect individual projects’ budgets or delivery. Final outturn spend was £52 million (of which £42 million was outcome payments).

The geographical spread of LCF projects

The LCF supported 29 projects across England, 70% (20 out of 29) of which operated outside of London and the South-East of England.

The Mental Health and Employment Partnership (#20) ran 5 LCF projects across London and Shropshire, supporting individuals with mental illness and learning disabilities into employment.

1. Chances – Sunderland and 22 other England-wide locations
2. The Skill Mill – Durham and 7 other England-wide locations
3. Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership – Yorkshire
4. Promoting Independence – Sheffield
5. Big Picture Learning – Doncaster
6. DN2 Children’s Services – Nottingham
7. Future Impact – Nottingham
8. Fostering Better Outcomes – Cheshire
9. Integrated Family Support Service – Staffordshire
10. Pyramid Project – Staffordshire
11. DFN - MoveForward – West Midlands (plus London and Kent)
12. Midlands Regional Pause Hub – Midlands
13. Gloucester Positive Behaviour Support – Gloucestershire
14. Social Prescribing Project – Northamptonshire
15. A Norfolk SIB for Carers – Norfolk
16. Stronger Families Norfolk – Norfolk
17. Stronger Families Suffolk – Suffolk
18. West London Alliance – London
19. Single Homeless Prevention Service – London and Norfolk
20. Mental Health and Employment Partnership – 5 projects across London and Shropshire
21. ParentChild+ – West London
22. Enhanced Dementia Care – Hounslow
23. West London Zone – West London
24. Cornwall Frequent Attenders Programme – Cornwall
25. Pause Project – Plymouth

Further details of projects that were funded through the Life Chances Fund can be found in the Government Outcomes Lab’s Impact Bond Dataset

LCF learning and evaluation

The LCF was accompanied by an evaluation strategy which sought to obtain evidence on the effectiveness of the LCF as a whole; the impact of individual projects on outcomes and beneficiaries; and the effectiveness of SOPs as a commissioning tool.

The following evaluation reports have been published:

Implementation process evaluation

• Process Evaluation for the LCF

Synthesis evaluation

• Transforming Public Services: Key findings from the evaluation of the Life Chances Fund

Primary evaluation

• An introductory primary evaluation report
• An interim survey data release from the primary evaluation
• Final survey data release from the primary evaluation
• An analysis of children’s social care LCF projects
• Achieving Outcomes: Life Chances Fund final report

Kirklees Better Outcomes Partnership

• First interim evaluation of the Kirklees LCF project
• Second interim evaluation of of the Kirklees LCF project
• Final evaluation of the Kirklees LCF project

Mental Health and Employment Partnership

• First interim evaluation of the Mental Health and Employment Partnership LCF project
• Second interim evaluation of the Mental Health and Employment Partnership LCF project
• Final evaluation of the Mental Health and Employment Partnership LCF project

The Government Outcomes (GO) Lab was the government’s primary evaluation partner for the LCF. See further information about their work, as well as LCF project case studies and achievements to date

GO Lab’s evaluation work was supplemented by individual evaluations commissioned by the LCF projects themselves. Read the reports published so far from the LCF projects’ own evaluations

Published 5 March 2026