Zealand (), and elsewhere. Social impact bonds are intended to make government funding of social services contingent on successful outcomes, with private investors providing the up-front financing and supposedly bearing the risk of non-performance. Proponents of SIBs claim they promote innovation in social services and bring market forces to bear on service providers previously funded by traditional government grants (; ; ). This examines the role of accounting in this new deployment of financial techniques into what Broadbent and Guthrie () refer to as services,” that is, not just the public sector but the “public entire arrangement of responsibility and accountability between public and private entities for the provision of public services. Our paper looks at how these financial techniques restructure and rearrange this field of accountability by specifying new allocations of risk and new mechanisms of performance measurement. Our particular focus is the Social Impact Bond for London Homelessness developed by the Greater London Authority (GLA) under the advice of Social Finance, a financial consulting firm that operates in the social sector, and Triodos Bank, a Dutch bank that describes itself as UK’s leading “the bank for social enterprise, and a fast-growing force within the charities sector” (). The social service provider funded by this SIB is St Mungo’s, a London-based charity that has named its programme financed by the bond Street Impact Programme” (; ). St Mungo’s has a long history of traditional “The programme funding from government sources, supplemented by private charitable donations. It went through a sequence of structural and organizational changes prior to successfully bidding to become a service delivery partner on the SIB. The Street Impact case therefore permits us to study the detailed reconfiguration of funding, accountability and governance associated with the use of SIBs in public services. This paper makes a threefold contribution to public policy, management practice, and accounting theory. With respect to public policy, this paper contributes to our understanding of the
Zealand (), and elsewhere. Social impact bonds are intended to make government funding of social services contingent on successful outcomes, with private investors providing the up-front financing and supposedly bearing the risk of non-performance. Proponents of SIBs claim they promote innovation in social services and bring market forces to bear on service providers previously funded by traditional government grants (; ; ). This examines the role of accounting in this new deployment of financial techniques into what Broadbent and Guthrie () refer to as “public services,” that is, not just the public sector but the entire arrangement of responsibility and accountability between public and private entities for the provision of public services. Our paper looks at how these financial techniques restructure and rearrange this field of accountability by specifying new allocations of risk and new mechanisms of performance measurement. Our particular focus is the Social Impact Bond for London Homelessness developed by the Greater London Authority (GLA) under the advice of Social Finance, a financial consulting firm that operates in the social sector, and Triodos Bank, a Dutch bank that describes itself as “the UK’s leading bank for social enterprise, and a fast-growing force within the charities sector” (). The social service provider funded by this SIB is St Mungo’s, a London-based charity that has named its programme financed by the bond “The Street Impact Programme” (; ). St Mungo’s has a long history of traditional programme funding from government sources, supplemented by private charitable donations. It went through a sequence of structural and organizational changes prior to successfully bidding to become a service delivery partner on the SIB. The Street Impact case therefore permits us to study the detailed reconfiguration of funding, accountability and governance associated with the use of SIBs in public services. This paper makes a threefold contribution to public policy, management practice, and accounting theory. With respect to public policy, this paper contributes to our understanding of the