Commerce and conscience
商业与良知

A new way of financing public services gains momentum
一种公共服务融资方法取得很大发展

Feb 23rd 2013 |From the print edition

AT HALF past six on a wet morning in central London, the city is already busy. Baristas are setting up inside coffee shops. Office cleaners are at work. And outreach teams from charities and local councils are on early-morning shifts to find rough sleepers and get them off the streets.

早上六点半，烟雨笼罩的伦敦市中心已开始熙熙攘攘，人们已忙碌起来。咖啡师在咖啡厅着手准备营业，办公室的清洁员打扫卫生，慈善外展队和市政委员会进行早班执勤，寻找露宿人员，并将其带离街道。

For most teams the priority is to find people who are newly homeless and help find them accommodation quickly, before they become settled in a pattern. Kath Sims, an outreach worker for a homelessness charity called St Mungo’s, is not looking for the new arrivals, however. She is trying to locate people in a specific group of 415 habitual rough sleepers, with the aim of prising them from the streets.

对于大多数外战队来说，最重要的是找到无家可归的人们，在他们习惯这种居无定所的生活模式之前，尽快帮助他们安顿下来。Kath Sims是（伦敦）无家可归者慈善组织“圣芒戈魔法”的一名外展工作者，她并没有寻找新的露宿者，而是试图找到415名当地习惯性露宿者形成的一个特殊群，让他们不再流浪街头。

That puts her at the front line of a big financial experiment, too. Her work is being funded by an instrument called a “social-impact bond” (SIB), which promises returns to private investors if social objectives are met. The bond raised £5m ($8m) from investors, to be shared between St Mungo’s and another organisation called Thames Reach (responsible for another 400-or-so homeless people).

这也使她站在一项大型金融试验的最前线，她所进行的工作得到了一家名为“社会效益债券”机构的赞助，该机构承诺，如果达到社会目标，个人投资者将会获得回报。这家债券机构从投资者融资5百万英镑（约8百万美元），为 “圣芒戈魔法”和另一家名为“泰晤士关爱”（负责400人左右的无家可归者）共享用。

The cash will fund a three-year programme, the success of which is measured by everything from the number of nights that the rough sleepers spend on the streets to their visits to hospital. As targets are met, payments will flow to investors from the Greater London Authority (GLA), the SIB’s commissioning body.

这些钱能资助一个为期3年的计划项目，其成功与否取决于露宿者晚上留宿街头的天数及去医院就诊的次数。如果达到预期的目标，“社会效益债券”机构的委托方即伦敦政府将会付款给投资者。

The arrangement suits all parties. The rough sleepers are frequent users of government services, including accident-and-emergency wards. Cutting their number should save the GLA enough money to fund payments to investors if goals are met. At a time when public spending is under pressure, the taxpayer stumps up only if results are achieved. Investors have the prospect of a return to entice them, of up to 6.5% if targets are met.

这一安排适用所有机构。露宿者是政府公共服务（包括事故急诊室）的“频繁用户”。如果达到目标，露宿者人数的减少是英国政府有足够的资金支付投资者。当公共支出面临不足之时，纳税人只要在目标实现的前提下进行纳税。投资者们有望得到收益回报来吸引纳税人的资金，如果目标实现的话，收益回报可能会高达6.5%。

As for organisations like St Mungo’s, they get upfront funding for a longer period than they would in a normal government contract. That matters. One of the people Ms Sims checks in on is a long-time rough sleeper with a history of violence, a drug habit to feed and a string of prison sentences. She needs time to build a relationship with him: stopping to say hello and roll him a cigarette is part of that process. Coaxing him into a hostel is not the right approach: he’d only end up in a fight and have an eviction on his record, which would make it much harder eventually to place him in permanent accommodation. The priority is to get his drug abuse under control by shifting him to methadone, at which point it becomes possible to think about accommodation. It all takes time.

对于如“圣芒戈魔法”的机构来说，相比一个正常的政府合同，他们获得前期资金的周期较长。这一点很重要。西姆女士探访了一位长期留宿街头的流浪者，他是一个有着暴力前科且多次服刑的吸毒人员。她需要时间和他建立一种关系：对其问好和为其卷烟是建立关系的一部分。哄劝他前往旅社不是一个权宜之策：这样会使他最终以打架的罪名而受到驱逐，从而更难为他安置到长期的住处。首先帮助他服用美沙酮，使他的毒品滥用得到控制，这样才有可能考虑安居的问题，这一过程需要时间。

The homelessness SIB is one of 14 that have now been issued or are in development in Britain, which pioneered the instrument back in 2010 with a bond funding a prisoner-rehabilitation programme in Peterborough. The idea is also winning fans elsewhere. New York city launched a SIB last year tackling recidivism among inmates at Rikers Island prison; Goldman Sachs is among the investors. Work is under way on three more American SIBs, one in New York state and two in Massachusetts. Jeffrey Liebman, a Harvard University professor who is providing technical assistance on all three, has just invited applications from other state and local governments to receive help setting up SIBs: 28 applied.

无家可归 “社会效益债券”现已发行或在英国得到发展，该债券早在2010年开创这一先河，即在（加拿大）彼得伯勒赞助一项“囚犯康复计划”。这一想法也获得世界各地人们的支持。纽约市在去年启动了“社会效益债券”计划，处理雷克岛监狱囚犯的再犯问题。高盛集团也在投资者之列。现已有另外三项美国“社会效益债券”工作正在进行中：一项位于纽约州，两项在马萨诸塞州。对这三项计划提供技术援助的哈佛大学教授杰弗里•利布曼邀请其他州和地方政府的申请接受建立“社会效益债券”机构：已有28个州和地方政府获得批准。

And there is rising emerging-market interest in SIBs, where they go under the name of “development-impact bonds”. According to Michael Belinsky of Instiglio, a start-up devoted to designing SIBs in poor countries, there is less scope for government savings to pay back investors in emerging markets because social safety nets are thinner. So international-development agencies are more likely to act as sponsors. Mr Belinsky is working on potential SIBs in India, to improve educational outcomes for girls in Rajasthan, and in Colombia, to reduce teenage-pregnancy and school drop-out rates.

“社会效益债券”以“发展影响债券”之名面向社会，有着不断上涨的新兴市场利率。致力于在贫穷国家建立“社会效益债券”的新兴公司Instiglio的迈克尔•别林斯基称：因为社会保障体系日趋薄弱，政府偿还新兴市场投资者的储蓄没有多大盈余。因此国际发展机构更有可能作为赞助商。别林斯基先生现在印度致力于即将发展的“社会效益债券”，为（印度）拉贾斯塔邦和哥伦比亚的女孩改善教育成果，降低少女怀孕率和学校失学率。

As the buzz about SIBs increases, the questions will also become more searching. Projects which take many years to have an effect (the impact of pre-school education on university admissions, say) will not interest investors. Good data are crucial for measuring outcomes: that can be a problem in developing countries.

随着有关建立“社会效益债券”的风声四起，问题也变得更加的透彻。需要多年才能产生效果的项目工程（例如，学前教育对大学招生录取的影响）不会引起投资者的兴趣。良好数据对衡量成果至关重要：在发展中国家可能是一个问题。

The hardest questions concern the returns that investors will demand if SIBs are to attract serious amounts of money. The Peterborough SIB dangles an annualised return of up to 13% if reoffending rates go down by enough; but investors lose everything if recidivism does not fall by at least 7.5%. That sort of equity risk is not going to appeal to many, acknowledges Nick Hurd, the British government minister for civil society. “SIBs need to evolve so that they become more like a debt instrument.”

涉及回报最难的问题是：如果“社会效益债券”吸引大量资金，投资者将会有所要求。如果再犯率大大下降，彼得伯勒“社会效益债券”机构年回报率达到13%，这一点仍有待推敲，如果再犯率高于7.5%以上，投资者将血本无归。很多人对这种股票风险不“感冒”。英国政府民间团体部长尼克赫德表示： “社会效益债券”需要改进，变得更像一种类似的债务证券。

Sibling rivals
同行竞争对手

Signs of just such an evolution are becoming apparent. The New York city SIB reinforces Goldman’s reputation for dealmaking as much as its philanthropic image: a guarantee from Bloomberg Philanthropies, a foundation, caps the amount of money the bank can lose if recidivism targets are not met. Some think this model, with philanthropists ensuring that a portion of investors’ principal is returned, is the way to bring in more capital.

这种改善的迹象变得越来越明显。位于纽约市的“社会效益债券”机构加强高盛公司交易声誉和慈善形象：彭博慈善基金会的担保规定了再犯率没有达到预期目标的银行损失上限额。有些人认为，除了慈善家确保投资者的一部分本金得到回报，这一模式是吸引更多资金的方法。

Another option is to blend the returns from SIBs with other assets. Allia, a British charity devoted to social investment, this month made a SIB available to retail investors for the first time. Of every £1,000 invested, £780 goes to a fixed-rate loan to a social-housing provider, which when repaid with interest will give investors their money back. Another £200 will go into an SIB providing therapeutic support to troubled children in Essex, which offers investors the potential for a return. (Fees eat up the other £20.) These are still early days, but big ideas often start small.

另一个方法是融合“社会效益债券”机构的收益和其他资产。英国慈善机构“阿利亚”致力于社会投资，这个月首次将“社会效益债券”提供给零售投资者。每1千英镑的投资资金里，780英镑作为固定利率贷款提供给社保住房提供者，一旦本息和利息得到偿付，投资者的资金将会得到偿还。剩余的200英镑将投入“社会效益债券”，为埃塞克斯的困难儿童提供医学治疗，这也为投资者提供了潜在的收益。（还有20英镑用于其他费用）现在还是起步阶段，千里之行，始于足下。