Pay for Success: The First Generation - A Comparative Analysis of the First 10 Pay for Success Projects in the United States

Nonprofit Finance Fund (NFF) has released a comprehensive free report on the first 10 Pay for Success (PFS) projects that have launched in the United States. This report details how and why communities have applied this new approach to address critical social issues including early childhood education, homelessness, and criminal justice and recidivism. Pay for Success is an approach to contracting that ties payment for service delivery to the achievement of measurable outcomes. In the U.S., all of the current PFS projects have been accompanied by a form of social innovation financing, often referred to as a Social Impact Bond, in which investors provide upfront financing for the delivery of services and are repaid only if the services achieve a pre-agreed upon set of positive outcomes. The report includes a series of comparative graphics and observations on the market's development to-date. It examines project goals and project design; the partners and stakeholders involved; the underlying data, evidence, and evaluation plans; the governance and investment structures, including repayment terms and investor profiles; and project costs. To create the report, NFF drew on experience as a PFS educator, partner, and investor and conducted research using project documentation, publically available information, and stakeholder interviews. Over the past five years, NFF has conducted more than 200 PFS trainings, presentations, webinars, workshops, and convenings across the country for service providers, governments, and investors. NFF also manages the Pay for Success Learning Hub, www.payforsuccess.org, the leading national repository for education and information on Pay for Success. NFF's work on the report was made possible with the support of the Corporation for National and Community Service's Social Innovation Fund (SIF)

Corporate Social Responsibility and Islamic Financial Institutions (IFIs): Management Perceptions from IFIs in Bahrain

Islamic finance is gaining greater attention in the finance industry, and this paper analyses how Islamic financial institutions (IFIs) are responding to the welfare needs of society. Using interview data with managers and content analysis of the disclosures, this study attempts to understand management perceptions of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in IFIs. A thorough understanding of CSR by managers, as evident in the interviews, has not been translated fully into practice. The partial use of IFIs’ potential role in social welfare would add further challenges in the era of financialisation

Listening to firms : how to use firm-level surveys to assess constraints on private sector development

Firm-level surveys elicit information important to formulating sound policy advice and designing projects to promote private sector development. Drawing on recent World Bank experience in eight countries, the author advises why and how to implement targeted field surveys by answering the following questions: Why use targeted field surveys? How should surveys be focused and designed? What types of questions work best in surveys? How can surveys be oriented toward their target population? How should surveys be implemented? How should responses be analyzed and used? In this common sense guide, the author emphasizes how a carefully designed and implemented survey helps you get the most from a brief session with an entrepreneur or senior manager. Examples of questions that have been useful in eliciting analytically tractable responses relevant for policy formulation are given. Pitfalls that diminish the value of surveys and bias their results are identified. The author discusses such practical necessities as training and supervising local surveyors, identifying firms, and entering data into an appropriate software package. Finally, he cautions against two extremes: omitting assessments of the private sector or using survey results out of context, and failing to weigh them against other sources of information. Omission is the more serious of the two problems.Environmental Economics&Policies,Social Analysis,Health Monitoring&Evaluation,Public Sector Economics&Finance,Banks&Banking Reform

The changing role and influence of senior support staff in schools: companion case study report

"The case-study summaries that follow are based on interviews with 18 non-qualified teacher status (non-QTS) staff on school senior leadership teams (SLTs) and their colleagues in 16 different schools or partnerships (comprising 7 secondary schools, 4 primary schools, 3 federations/clusters, and 2 special schools). The case studies were conducted as part of a research study designed to explore the range and roles of non- QTS staff in schools who are members of their school’s SLT... The case studies have been grouped by role type into three broad categories: business and finance roles; community and extended services roles; and inclusion roles." - Page 4. The full report is titled "The changing role and influence of senior support staff in schools"

Gender and the labour market in South East England. Volume 2: employers’ policies and practices

This research on gender and the labour market in South East England was funded by the South East of England Development Agency/European Social Fund. In volume 1 we set out the context: theoretical explanations for gender equality, the legal framework and organisational factors. Moreover, using a range of published data, we answered the first of our research questions: how does the labour market position of women in the government region of the South East of England compare with that of both men in the South East and that of women in Great Britain/United Kingdom? In this volume we turn our attention to our other research questions: • What policies and practices do employers in South East England adopt in respect of gender equality? • What barriers do employers and women employees in South East England identify in respect of gender and employment

Central Public Administration: Working Conditions and Industrial Relations - Ireland

[Excerpt] The political system in Ireland is highly centralised, with the vast majority of political and governing power vested in Dáil Éireann (lower house of parliament) and more particularly in the cabinet and the Taoiseach (prime minister). Ireland has what Pollitt and Bouckaert (2004) would call a unitary political system, with the upper house of parliament (Seanad Éireann) and the president having little influence, and the cabinet wielding huge influence over the legislation that is brought before the Dáil. The total number of people employed in the public sector grew from around 317,000 in 2001 to 360,000 in 2008, a growth of 14%. Excluding commercial state-sponsored bodies, the numbers employed in the public service grew from 270,000 in 2000 to 320,000 in 2008, a growth of 19%. Since the financial recession, however, there has been a significant drop in the numbers employed in both the public sector and public service from 2008, with a drop of just under 6% in each case. Numbers employed in the public sector and public service in 2011 were just below 2007 levels of employment. Growth in public service numbers from 2001 to 2008 was primarily concentrated in the health and education sectors. Two out of every three people employed in the public service work in either health or education. Numbers employed in the civil service, by contrast, have remained relatively stable over the period 2001 to 2011, increasing slightly from 36,100 to 36,600. Numbers rose slightly from 2001 to 2008, when there were 39,300 people employed in the civil service, but have declined since then. The civil service is not large by European standards. An OECD (2010) study comparing eight countries (Canada, Denmark, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden and the UK) showed that Ireland had the third lowest general government employment per 1,000 population (67) in 2006, which was significantly behind Denmark (137), Sweden (125) and Finland (99). A subsequent OECD (2011) study showed that in 2008 in Ireland, employment in general government as a percentage of the labour force (14.8%) was around the OECD average. In 2010, the OECD undertook a survey of the compensation of central government employees (OECD, 2011). This included not only salaries and wages, but also social benefits and future pension earnings. On average, top managers’ (top public servants below the minister) total compensation in responding countries amounts to just under USD 230,000 (€168,212 as at 17 October 2013) PPP.1 At just under USD 290,000 (€212,159) PPP, the compensation of top managers in Ireland is towards the higher end of the European countries surveyed. For the next level down from the top senior managers, a reduced sample of OECD countries shows compensation levels in Ireland to be close to the OECD average, at USD 184,000 (€134,552) PPP. The survey also examined the compensation of middle managers (defined as those responsible for planning, directing and coordinating the general functioning of a specific administrative unit within a government department or ministry). The average compensation for the European countries surveyed is just under USD 140,000 (€102,390) PPP. Compensation in Ireland for this group is USD 155,000 (€113,350) PPP, a little above the European average. Secretaries’ (defined as general office clerks who perform a range of clerical and administrative tasks) compensation was also examined. In general, the level of compensation varies less across countries than it does for the management positions. Compensation in Ireland for secretaries was found to be somewhat below the average of the European countries surveyed, assessed at USD 44,000 (€32,175) PPP, compared with the European average of USD 49,000 (€35,830) PPP