As I mentioned earlier, I think the most useful thing to look at, in terms of issues that would respond well to a social finance tool, is prevention. I wouldn't suggest you could turn the running of a hospital over to a social finance type of tool. There may be people who think you could, but I wouldn't propose that.
I would say that prevention is really where this stuff has the most potential because the focus is on long-term outcomes and that's what prevention programs are interested in affecting.
I think that in the work of probably almost every government department there is some aspect related to prevention. I don't think any policy area is off the table. But I think some people have raised concerns about social finance being a code word for “privatization” or another way of covering reduction in overall social expenditure on the part of government. I don't think those are fair criticisms of the tool. Whether they're also in the air at the same time you're talking about the tools is another story, I suppose.
I think the idea behind social finance is not that government takes a step back from social service delivery but that increasingly there are multi-sectoral partnerships that help to deliver better value for government money, and that through a focus on outcomes, everybody in that scenario wins. You have a better chance of achieving outcomes that matter to the people being served, which, ultimately, government and the public dollar are seeking to pay for.
I don't know if that answers your question, but I think I would take core service delivery off the table. I don't think this is going to replace welfare cheques. I don't think it's going to replace hospitals or schools, but it could help to keep kids in school and lower dropout rates. It won't replace the running of prisons, but it could help to reduce the number of people who end up in prison. So I think it's really that prevention area that we need to focus on when we're looking at these tools.