Social Impact Bonds: PPPs reloaded ?[Les obligations à impact social : une nouvelle génération de PPP pour les politiques sociales ?]

Experimented in the United Kingdom and in the United States for several years, the Social Impact Bonds (SIBs) aims at benefiting from a private financing of some social programs while conditioning the debt reimbursement and the financial returns to the fulfilment of performance objectives. For instance, this kind of incentive-based contracts were experienced for addressing challenges as reducing prisoner recidivism. A call for projects was launched by the French minister in charge of the social and solidarity economy in March 2016. These contracts that are not always bond-based may be defined as "future contracts on social results". In such mechanisms, the program is prefunded by the private sector (commercial banks or foundations), may benefit from its innovation capacities and its efficiency gains induced by an incentive-based contract. However, some possible pitfalls should be stressed. These ones are linked to costs factors but also to adverse effects on the quality of the service, especially if this one is difficult to define precisely. The aim of this paper is to present and to assess, mainly on the basis of international experiences, these contractual devices. We put the accent on their potential consequences in terms of a definition and supply of social services. We insist on the coherence of such output-based contracts and the more general tendency leading to an increasing use of payment by results schemes within the public sector.