Peterborough is profiting from the SIB but investors haven’t reached the hurdles – a realistic assessment which may be long-term good news for SIBs as it shows the product involves risk but can deliver results…food for thought over the weekend, happy reading!
Peterborough Prison Social Impact Bond Pilot Fails To Hit Target To Trigger Repayments
Susannah Birkwood – Third Sector
A study of the government’s social impact bond pilot project at HM Prison Peterborough has found that the first phase of the scheme did not reduce the number of reconvictions sufficiently to trigger payments to investors.
The study by QinetiQ and the University of Leicester shows a fall in reoffending of 8.4 per cent compared to a national comparison group, but reoffending rates were required to drop by 10 per cent in order to trigger payments to investors under terms set out by the Ministry of Justice.
Peterborough Social Impact Bond Reduces Reoffending But Makes No Payout Yet To Investors
David Ainsworth – Civil Society
The UK’s first social impact bond has met initial targets for reducing reoffending among offenders released from Peterborough Prison, according to results published today by the Ministry of Justice.
But the results show it has not yet delivered strong enough results to trigger a payment to investors.
The project reduced reoffending by 8.4% among the first cohort of 1,000 prisoners it worked with, compared with a control group. There were 142 reconvictions per 100 offenders, compared to 155 reconvictions among a control group.
The World’s First Social Impact Bond: Early Verdict
James Perry – Pioneers Post
There were two goals to the Peterborough Social Impact Bond, launched in 2010 by Social Finance:
To address the failure of the system to intervene with short sentence male offenders other than by imprisoning them – by seeking to rehabilitate them.
To test a pioneering new way to divert taxpayers money to civil society organisations able to solve social problems that would otherwise go unsolved, and in the process deliver savings.