The payment-by-results road to marketisation, Dexter Whitfield

“‘Payment by results’ has become the new performance management mantra. It is intended to incentivise contractors, with payment conditional on the completion of agreed outputs or outcomes. There are currently two such payment and reward models: the social impact bond mechanism and phased incentive payments.” This article examines the implications of this approach, the growth of ‘social markets’, incentive payment contracts and explains why it is a high risk strategy; pages 22-23, in Critical Reflections: social and criminal justice in the first year of Coalition government, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, March 2012.