Social Bonds Advantages And Disadvantages Essay

Issues around reoffenders, ex-criminals, healthcare and education are of large importance to governments, and efforts are continuously being made to resolve these issues. The introduction of social bonds (SBs) has brought about a new and innovative means to resolving these issues. Social bonds are a performance-based contract between governments and the private sector aimed at resolving social issues. Their ability to deliver better outcomes, while transferring risk from governments to the private sector makes them attractive. But difficulties in measuring success and potential for “cherry picking” have diminished their successfulness. This essay will argue that social bonds are an appropriate measure to solving social issues, but that government …show more content…
While social bonds can result in a wasting of scarce public resources, this is only to ensure that success is more likely to occur. This may not always be the case, like with the Peterborough Social Bond that failed despite rigorous measurement efforts, but when social bonds are successful, the innovative ideas and impacts are often seen to outweigh these factors. In saying this, there does need to be some intervention when it comes to the use of social bonds in delivering public services. If there is not some restrictions on the time and resources used for measurement or defining of success, the resolution of social issues becomes far too costly. If governments give a limit or are given some level of control over how social bonds are defined, then issues like these are resolved. It also needs to be considered that while social bonds may be good under some circumstances, they are not likely to work as a method in solving all social issues. Therefore governments need to take some precautions when deciding on what should be funded in this manner, and what is unlikely to work. Thus, social bonds are an appropriate measure to solving social issues, but some intervention around costs, time restraints and the use of social bonds is necessary for their