Ms Deirdre Mortell:

I will take an example from the UK. Mr. McGroarty referred to Big Society Capital, which is the main funder of social outcomes contracts in the UK. It comes out of the Government although it is independent. It is similar to Rethink Ireland. It has had 22 social outcomes contracts in the past ten years that generated €1.418 billion in value. The benefit to cost ratio was 10:1. This means that every pound spent by the UK commissioners to generate social value generated £10 worth of value. This is how the economics or cost-benefit analysis works.

To take it down to the grassroots, what Rethink Ireland does is manage the contracts between all of the various stakeholders, including the Government funder that only pays if the outcome is achieved, the investors who put in the money upfront and take the risk, the delivery partner, which could be a football club, sports club or athletics club that does the hard work, and an independent verifier. It is not as though a football club just states it has achieved the outcome. There is an independent verifier, trusted by all parties, to state that the football club did so, which the investors, the Government and ourselves believe. The independent verifier stating this means the outcomes are met and the Government should pay. If the outcomes are not met, the Government does not have to pay. This is the risk the investors take.

The problem it solves for Government is that it is very difficult for to invest in the future because budgets are annual in nature. This makes it very difficult to state something will save money five years down the line. The investors take the risk and the Government only has to pay if the outcomes are achieved. This is the problem it solves in terms of releasing more money.