Interactive teaching tool

Social Investment

Social investment is about better allocating our effort towards more of what works. But that requires being able to identify, and allocate towards, the people who most need help — and not those who don’t.

So understanding need — telling who needs services from who doesn’t — is a core driver of both the cost of any programme and its likely return: in how many people you genuinely support, and in fiscal terms too. This model lets you explore how that works for yourself.

Open the model

Social Investment Policy Flight Simulator

Who to help — and how far down the list to go

Move the sliders and watch how your ability to identify need shapes everything — who you reach, who you miss, how far it makes sense to extend a programme, and the return it earns. Five built-in scenarios draw out the core trade-offs, from the “base-rate trap” to cherry-picking the easy cases.

  • Why a “90%-accurate” tool can still reach mostly the wrong people
  • The gap between the most efficient programme and the one that supports the most people
  • When to target tightly — and when to help everyone
  • How cream-skimming the easy cases fails those who need help most
Launch the simulator →
📄  User guide (PDF) A plain-English walkthrough with a worked example and exercises.

Read more

Reframing Child Protection Mansell, Ota, Erasmus & Marks, Children and Youth Services Review, 2011 — the signal-detection model of intake decisions this simulator is built on.

This is a tool for understanding the concepts — not for planning. It is a deliberately simplified version of the analysis an economist or analyst would do, but useful because it draws out many of the core ideas and trade-offs. It measures value simply, including a fiscal lens; the wider wellbeing real services create — employment, education, health, reduced harm — is larger again, and calls for a broader, multi-dimensional approach.