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Seven Social Impact Bonds: shifting the boundaries of citizenship

  • Stephen Sinclair , Neil McHugh , Leslie Huckfield , Michael Roy and Cam Donaldson
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Social Policy Review 26
This chapter is in the book Social Policy Review 26

Abstract

Chapter Seven focuses on efficiency of administration and the mixing of morals and mathematics in the context of the financialisation of everyday life. They examine the development and scope of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), a policy instrument designed to extend the role of private finance in welfare provision and delivery, following in the wake of previous efforts to outsource public services and expand the mechanisms for ‘payments by results’. As the authors demonstrate in the UK SIBs represent more than just an expansion of existing privatisation measures; they are part of the financialisation of service provision and delivery, bringing venture capital and the risk calculations and hedging of welfare outcomes to the financial market in an effort to shake up the assumed public sector inertia. As the authors discuss, the assumptions of risk, cost-saving attributes and the measurability of outcomes are all problematic in the financialised framework.

Abstract

Chapter Seven focuses on efficiency of administration and the mixing of morals and mathematics in the context of the financialisation of everyday life. They examine the development and scope of Social Impact Bonds (SIBs), a policy instrument designed to extend the role of private finance in welfare provision and delivery, following in the wake of previous efforts to outsource public services and expand the mechanisms for ‘payments by results’. As the authors demonstrate in the UK SIBs represent more than just an expansion of existing privatisation measures; they are part of the financialisation of service provision and delivery, bringing venture capital and the risk calculations and hedging of welfare outcomes to the financial market in an effort to shake up the assumed public sector inertia. As the authors discuss, the assumptions of risk, cost-saving attributes and the measurability of outcomes are all problematic in the financialised framework.

Chapters in this book

  1. Front Matter i
  2. Contents iii
  3. List of figures and tables v
  4. Notes on contributors vii
  5. Introduction 1
  6. The British welfare state
  7. Economic crisis, work–life balance and class 11
  8. Towards a fairer pension system for women? Assessing the impact of recent pension changes on women 29
  9. Warehouse, marketise, shelter, juridify: on the political economy and governance of extending school participation in England 47
  10. The political economy of taxation in the 21st-century UK 65
  11. Occupational and fiscal welfare in times of crisis 85
  12. The Social Policy Association Conference 2013
  13. Better to satisfy the coroner than the auditor: social policy delivery in challenging times 103
  14. Social Impact Bonds: shifting the boundaries of citizenship 119
  15. Creating a legacy of long-term indebtedness: the toxic impact of payday loans in Wolverhampton 137
  16. No future to risk? The impact of economic crises and austerity on young people at the margins of European employment and welfare settings 155
  17. Aristotle on the front line 181
  18. Towards integrated services? The integration of social policies and other policy domains
  19. Integration of social and labour market policy institutions: towards more control and responsiveness? 201
  20. Decentralised integration of social policy domains 221
  21. Rescaling inequality? Welfare reform and local variation in social assistance payments 239
  22. The competition–collaboration dilemma: the perverse effects of mixed service integration policy approaches in Queensland 259
  23. Developing integration of health and social care in England 279
  24. Index 295
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