Firstly, governments around the world find it hard to invest in
prevention because they still need to pay the bill if the intervention goes wrong. For instance, if
rehabilitating prisoners fails, the government needs to pay for police, court and prison time to
punish the offenders. Secondly, usually there is only partial data that municipalities and
government departments can access to understand when an intervention is needed, and when
it works. The real cost of a social problem is not always fully analysed and the financial case for
intervening when the data is incomplete is difficult. And thirdly, social organisations are paid to
deliver a set of services rather than deliver a result. This means that, typically, there is little
incentive to innovate.