Baker Tilly and a consortium of 18 charities have launched a national social impact bond scheme to help hard-to-place children in local authority care find permanent adoptive homes.
The social impact bond, which expects to raise £2m so far from Big Society Capital and Bridges Ventures, will fund the ‘It’s All About Me Scheme’. Through the scheme, local authorities can use a network of 18 voluntary adoption agencies to support the adoption of hard-to-place children.
Each local authority will pay around £54,000 per child for the service, around half the amount it would cost to keep a child in care over the same two-year period.
The expected £2m in social investment provided by Big Society Capital and Bridges Ventures will be used as non-recourse loans to the voluntary adoption charities. This will be repaid from payments by the local authority in four instalments – at registration, at placement, after one year, and after two years.
If the placement fails before the next instalment is due, no further repayments will be made.
Investors will receive a 4 per cent per annum return, with the potential for greater returns if the adoption placements are successful. The social impac bond is for a ten-year period.
A spokesman said the social impact bond has been designed to pay a commercial return in order to make the break from the narrow social investment markets into the normal investment market.
The scheme will support 100 children a year, but it is expected to be reopened early next year to a wider group of investors in order to raise an additional £3.5m, assuming the market expands.
The scheme has also benefited from a £1m grant from the Cabinet Office's Social Outcomes Fund.
Jim Clifford, head of not-for-profit advisory at Baker Tilly, and chair designate and architect of the It’s All About Me Scheme, said: “There are far too many children on the National Adoption Register who are never placed with adoptive parents. There are many complex reasons fro this, but through this scheme, we can encourage, equip and support more families to adopt these children.”
Clifford is himself a father to nine adopted children.
The consortium of 18 voluntary adoption agencies, includes the charities After Adoption, Action for Children and PACT.
