Social Impact Bonds are being used by governments to fund important initiatives to unify families and prevent child apprehensions. This paper builds on a previous paper by John Loxley, Social Impact Bonds and the Financing of Child Welfare (CCPA-Manitoba. 2017). It updates the three case studies in that paper; the Sweet Dreams Supportive Living project in Saskatoon, Canada, and two Australian ones, the Newpin Social Benefit Bond and the Benevolent Society Social Benefit Bond, both in New South Wales. To these it adds another, relatively new Australian social impact bond, the Newpin Social Benefit Bond of Queensland. The objective is to assess the performance of the first three, all of which will have matured by June 2020, and see what extent, if any, lessons learned have been applied to the relatively new one.
The paper finds SIBs, with their accompanying high transaction costs and exorbitant returns to investors, are not needed and should be replaced by normal government funding arrangements.
