Mobilising the Market in Social Services: Social Impact Bonds, Fast Policy, and Neoliberalised Policymaking in New Zealand

Abstract

Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) are an emerging outcomes-based mechanism for the delivery of social services. The key feature of SIBs is the introduction of private, often for-profit investors who receive a return from their financial investment in a social intervention. SIBs gained traction in New Zealand in 2012 as the government sought to experiment with ways to encourage innovation and efficiency in service delivery contracting, implementing two SIB pilots in South Auckland in 2017. While there is a growing body of international literature on SIBs, New Zealand’s experience has largely escaped critical academic scrutiny. This thesis investigates the implementation of the SIB model in New Zealand with reference to concepts of policy mobility and neoliberalised welfare reform by asking the following questions: how were SIBs implemented in a national context, and how do they differ from an ideal-type SIB model? Does the SIB model represent a case of ‘fast policy’ mobilisation? Finally, does the SIB model exemplify neoliberalised policy-making, underpinned by market logics, privatisation, and financialisation? I answer these questions through analysis of 11 semi-structured interviews with key actors involved with the New Zealand SIBs, as well as documentary sources including reports and articles gathered online, and policy documents gathered from official information requests. I argue that SIBs are, indeed, an example of ‘fast policy’, a concept that describes both the increasing rapidity of policymaking and the proliferation of ‘best practice’ policy models. I also discuss SIBs as exemplifying neoliberalised policymaking, underpinned by the extension of market logics within non-market institutions, and the private funding and provision of social services. SIBs are unique in that they involve financial privatisation, which I argue introduces a new financialised calculus to outcomes-based contracts as a tool of neoliberalised social service provision. In addition to providing a detailed, New Zealand-focused account of the SIB model, contributing to the global and limited local literature on SIBs, this thesis contributes to emerging knowledge of financialised forms of privatisation through an empirically grounded study of the SIB model. Further, because SIBs have not previously been explored as an example of fast policy, this thesis extends the concept of policy mobility and an understanding of the ways in which internationally mobilised policies interact with local contexts. My findings demonstrate that SIBs are highly mutable, market-based models. I argue that, despite various unexpected obstacles and complications that arose in the process of implementation, SIBs represent a significant moment in the neoliberal reform of social services and welfare in New Zealand.