New South Wales’ state Premier Mike Baird extols the benefits of SIBs while visiting New Zealand which is working on their first issue…
SIBs Expanding In NSW, Says Visiting State Premier
NBR
As the Ministry of Health finalises negotiations on New Zealand’s first social bond, New South Wales Premier Mike Baird said the state was considering new social bonds targeting obesity and reducing prison re-offending.
On his first official visit to New Zealand, Baird told a Trans Tasman Business Circle lunch in Auckland that Australia’s first two social benefit bonds, pioneered by the NSW government in 2013, had proved successful though it was “still early days”.
A social bond introduces new, private money into social programmes without increasing public debt and without the need to decrease existing spending. Investors are paid based on the level of social value achieved.
The two A$10 million Australian social impact bonds both involved working with at-risk families to prevent child abuse and neglect. The first, with UnitingCare Burnside, funded the expansion of the NewPin programme which returned 7.5% to investors in the first year against a targeted 10 to 12 percent financial return over the bond’s seven-year term. The other bond was with social service provider, The Benevolent Society.