We profoundly believe in the benefits of Grosvenor Hart Homes’ model of pairing affordable housing with tailored support services.

To help demonstrate its benefits, we have developed a rigorous evaluation and cost-benefit framework to guide the evolution of our approach, promote accountability, and prove our conviction that there is a better way of supporting vulnerable children, young people and their families.

We commissioned social impact consultancy Sonnet to evaluate the pilot programme we’ve been running in partnership with Cheshire West and Chester Council. Sonnet is a community interest company that helps organisations to articulate their social impact, providing advice and measurement frameworks, and conducting analyses of social and system impact. This evaluation was stress-tested by an independent panel of leading experts in the fields of affordable housing and support services.                

The pilot is showing clear promise in transforming the lives of vulnerable children and young people and rewarding us with very encouraging feedback. From a cost-benefit perspective, we are projecting that this pilot alone will save the public purse more than £2.4m – a considerable amount from a relatively small cohort of 11 families and care leavers who are part of our initial pilot programme.

If this level of savings were to be replicated with just a quarter of the estimated 761,000 families known to children’s services through this holistic approach, the potential direct savings to the public purse would run into several billion pounds. And, of course, the value of the personal impact on each child and young person whose life chances have been permanently improved would be truly immeasurable.

We are conscious that this approach requires time, patience, deep collaboration and investment, shifting the focus of central government, local authorities, housing providers and the wider third sector from being in crisis management mode and spending on many sticking-plaster temporary measures, to investing in preventative solutions for the long term. Our ambition is to play our part and persuade others to follow our lead to help magnify our own efforts.