Peterborough social impact bond 'already having an effect' 2

Finance | Tania Mason | 19 Oct 2011

The inaugural social impact bond currently being piloted at HMP Peterborough is already showing early signs of success, according to those involved in its delivery.

The newly-released short-sentence prisoners that are the target of the One Service – the programme funded by the social impact bond (SIB) – already appear to be responding positively to the interventions provided, said Janette Powell, the director of the service.

With the social impact bond (SIB) now one year into its six-year lifespan, the various organisations that are charged with providing aspects of the One Service held a media briefing to report on the learnings gleaned so far.

The programme aims to reduce the number of reconvictions among 3,000 short-sentence prisoners by 7.5 per cent over the period of the bond. Investors will receive a return if the number of reconvictions falls by at least 7.5 per cent overall.

If the Social Impact Bond delivers a drop in reoffending beyond 7.5 per cent, investors will receive an increasing return capped at a maximum of 13 per cent per year over an eight-year period. But if the 7.5 per cent target is not reached, the investors will get nothing back.

The One Service comprises a variety of interventions both pre- and post release, provided by organisations including the St Giles Trust, Ormiston Children and Families Trust, SOVA and YMCA. It is the only programme anywhere in the country that offers support to short-sentence prisoners after they are released from jail.

Powell said that although it was too early to extract any hard facts about the success of the programme, “our sense on the ground is that it is having an impact”.

“Clients tell us, ‘if it wasn’t for you we would be back inside again’,” she said. “And police and prison staff say they know when someone is engaging with the service because they haven’t seen them for a while.”

Rob Owen, CEO of St Giles Trust, said the programme was the ‘holy grail’ because it not only cuts the number of victims of crime, it also gives ex-prisoners a “fighting chance of changing their behaviour”.

And because the programme is accountable for every one of the 3,000 prisoners that leave HMP Peterborough during the period of the bond, there is every incentive to help those clients with the most complex needs, instead of being skewed towards helping those clients that might be deemed easiest to help, he said.

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Farah Damji
22 Oct 2011

Really irresponsible reporting, a bit like the mayor, spouting off "fantastic reductions in re offending" at HMP Feltham which have been denounced as being entirely false and for which Boris is now the subject of a complaint and an investigaion, with regards to comments he has made about HMP YOI Feltham.

No facts, just supposed stories from prison officers and other agencies" a feeling" and ***content removed for breaching community standards***. This completely contradicts the independent evaluation done a couple of months ago, charting the evidence and talking to real people involved with the One Program. Who are these fictitious clients? Can we have named / anonymised case studies? You can't pull conclusions, however pie in the sky, after barely a year.

Secondly, the Peterborough model is not a Social Impact Bond and little if no money came from private investors, most of it was philanthropic / charity money from their capital . it is also not a bond, in the real sense of the bond but a sophisticated derivative swap, with the hedge being the risk that re offending will go down.

For a truthful report into this and not some publicity mechanics by Ministry of Justice and St Giles, look at this.

http://www.justice.gov.uk/downloads/publications/research-and-analysis/moj-research/social-impact-bond-hmp-peterborough.pdf

St Giles is cherry picking, they are dealing with men sentenced to under a year, low risk, low level offenders. If they had no intervention at all, this cohort would likely not reoffend again.

[Reply]

Jay Kennedy
20 Oct 2011

Is it really about the funding mechanism? Sounds to me like any evident success is more to do with the package of support which has been put together to help these offenders...

[Reply]

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