When I first became involved in designing and developing large scale projects to tackle drug-related crime, I was surprised at the reticence of some local authorities and other statutory funders to get involved in payment by results schemes, particularly those funded by Social Impact Bonds. Councils were having to make cuts left, right and centre and here were reputable Third Sector organisations knocking on their door with innovative schemes to tackle entrenched social problems with private funding to boot. How could they say no? Over time, I have come to understand their concerns. This post explores the potential of SIBs. Social Impact Bonds are intended to be used to fund large scale interventions designed to tackle historically intractable social problems over a number of years. There is just one current UK example, the One project which provides a resettlement service to prisoners released from HMP Peterborough. However,

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