In June, the entire GPL team convened for training and strategic planning. We are excited to be launching 20 new GPL fellows who will be working with governments across the country.
On June 15th, Governor Charlie Baker announced the launch of the Massachusetts Pathways to Economic Advancement Pay for Success project. The project will provide vocational English language services and employment assistance to approximately 2,000 adult English language learners in Greater Boston with the goal of assisting successful transitions to employment, higher wage jobs, and higher education. This marks the 11th PFS project launched by a GPL government partner, out of 17 launched PFS projects in the U.S. Read more.
The GPL announced that it selected California, Connecticut, and Illinois to receive technical assistance developing performance improvement projects that apply Pay for Success principles to core agency services in areas including poverty alleviation, family stability, and higher education. Read more.
On November 18th, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner announced the launch of the Illinois Dually-Involved Youth Pay for Success Initiative. The project will expand therapeutic and wraparound services to over 800 youth across the state who are simultaneously involved in the child welfare and juvenile justice systems, with the goal of reducing their high recidivism and institutionalization rates as well as increasing wellbeing and transitions to adulthood. Five other Harvard Kennedy School Government Performance Lab partner governments launched PFS projects in 2016. Read more.
On September 29th, the DC Water and Sewer Authority issued the nation’s first Environmental Impact Bond. This $25 million bond issuance will fund the initial green infrastructure installation in DC Water’s Clean Rivers Project – a project that aims to reduce combined sewage overflows (CSOs) into the Anacostia River, Potomac River, and Rock Creek tributaries. Read more.
GPL Director Jeffrey Liebman presented at the 2017 What Works Cities Summit to an audience of 350 leaders from 91 cities across the country. Professor Liebman reflected on the state of the initiative and discussed the potential for results-driven contracting to improve outcomes nationwide.
As of March 2017, the GPL has provided government-side technical assistance on 9 of the 15 launched PFS projects in the US. This new GPL policy brief discusses the reasons that governments around the country are testing the Pay for Success approach. It also explains the PFS model, describes PFS projects in the US to date, and presents some of the lessons learned from the initial US PFS projects. Read more.
As part of Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative, the Government Performance Lab (GPL) helped Seattle’s Human Services Department develop outcome and process metrics for their homeless services to help focus improvement efforts on more meaningful measures of success. The GPL is publishing this list of recommended metrics with the goal of helping other governments seeking to adopt a data-driven approach to managing their homeless services contracts. Read more.
This new GPL policy brief describes metro-Boston's use of results-driven contracting in its procurement for an operator of its bike share system, Hubway. Boston and the other three participating municipalities that host the system leveraged this procurement to improve the user experience and expand their station network. The GPL provided pro bono technical assistance to Boston and its partners on this procurement through Bloomberg Philanthropies’ What Works Cities initiative. Read more.
GPL Assistant Director Hanna Azemati and Professor Liebman coauthored a chapter in the Manhattan Institute’s newly published book, Retooling Metropolis. Based on the Government Performance Lab’s work with cities, this chapter discusses cities’ top ten contracting and procurement challenges as well as how cities can address these by treating procurement as a strategic priority and managing contracts in an active and performance-focused way. Case studies of exemplary approaches to procurements and contracts include Boston’s problem-focused website redesign procurement, Seattle’s reform of the structure and management of its homeless services contracts, and Denver’s Pay for Success contract for supportive housing services. Read more.
