Making friends in Merton

Today I chaired a social enterprise event in Merton. I really enjoyed it as the group the council had brought together were really on the ball. We had old hands like Nick Temple from the School for Social Entrepreneurs and some fresh faces from Merton based social enterprises like the inspiring Annys Darkwa from Vision Housing which works with newly released ex-offenders to find suitable, sustainable housing. The purpose of the meeting was to give the council a steer on taking their plan for social enterprise development on to the next level. James McGinlay, Head of Sustainable Communities at Merton Council opened the session and laid out his commitment to making Merton a place where social enterprise is making real impact. I was listening intently as SEL are about to publish a route map for local authorities to engage with social enterprise and achieve maximum return on investment.

As I keep saying, if you mean to do something then you are more likely to do just that. By the same vein, if Councils set about to grow social enterprise, they'll do it.

Much of what was said this aternoon underlined the 4 key pillars in the route map. These pillars are firstly to extend the right to request to all public services. This would encourage and enable public employees and community activists to spin off a given service, out of direct public management, whilst improving it. Secondly we are arguing for local and central government  to invest in developing a culture of entrepreneurship within communities through existing networks. My plea to all government is not to establish new support bodies but work through existing ones with a proven track record. Thirdly social enterprise creates jobs, it should therefore be a priority within every economic development strategy. Lastly procurement and commissioning guidelines should include social clauses, these will ensure the public sector gets the most from social enterprise and they in turn will have ample opportunity to demonstrate their social impact. With social clauses local authorities can get more bang for the buck.

All of these themes came up spontaneously  in the discussion today, which makes me think we are on the right track.

Finally I came home to two children that needed seperate costumes for their respective school plays tomorrow. Once again I seemed to have missed the memos. Sam needs to be a sort of Ali Baba character and Katie a punk rocker. After a lot of running around the house I think we have pulled something together. They both seem pleased.

Katie does counter culture

I am now going to sit down quietly avec a gin and read today's Guardian in which I alongside some of my friends in social enterprise are featured. Its all good stuff, a four page special on social enterprise put together by the lovely Patrick Butler. The timing is perfect, because now is exactly when we need to be asking ourselves the tough questions Patrick poses, namely where do we want to go and how do we plan to get there?

A matter of Trust

We are holed up at a quite stunning National Trust cottage in Pembrokeshire. I think the NT is one of our greatest social enterprises, preserving the National heritage and allowing ordinary folk like us access to some of the UKs most magical places. Next time I see Dame Fiona Reynolds I'll ask her to join the growing wave of social enterprise spokespeople. Its such a jewel.

The stunning view from our cottage

Its a jolly atmosphere today as Stella, the much loved hampster who had gone missing from home yesterday turned up this morning. Phew! Poor old Sarah, our au pair. She and I were in constant text conversation as she turned the house upside down, experiencing flashbacks of when her childhood chipmunk made a permanent bid for freedom. I told her Stella doesn't like the cold and the fat old thing could be tempted out with biscuits, as so it proved.

The calm and isolation of this stunning spot is only broken by the chaos of board games. Who knew that playing Monopoly was a blood sport? Well it is when played by adolescent males. In my day we didn't have rules like dancing for money, paying someone to name a side of the board after you, or placing one of the property deeds down the front of your pyjamas to put anyone else off from buying it. No I definitely think I would remembered that one.

Chris and I meet outside to take in the wonderful view and console ourselves that its just a phase. Still, the children aren't the only ones who can innovate with the rules: my contribution on that front is that the winner has to do the washing up. Being a parent can have its compensations.

Surviving the 'era of the cut'

Today I chaired the London meeting of ACEVO's nationwide pre-election consultations, entitled 'The Big Ask'. It was an interesting and well attended event. Lots of passionate and highly articulate points made. One that struck me was from a CEO working in health who had tendered for contracts against statutory providers for whom many of the procurement costs were lost in the machine. It was not, therefore a level playing field. We heard time and again from third sector organisations who offer services with extraordinary success rates, such as working with ex-offenders and achieving re-offending rates of 13% as opposed to the National statistic, which is at around 55%. These services present as extraordinary savings in terms of reducing prison populations and human misery, but as one woman put it, "if the prison authority has to make cuts, the first thing that goes are the auxiliary services."

I had a lovely meeting today with an old friend, Debbie Pippard, at the Big Lottery. We talked about their funding priorities, their enthusiasm for social enterprise and responsibility to only fund services that should not be funded by statutory authorities. It made me think about how you would define what statutory authorities should fund, and particularly how that might change in the 'era of the cut'. Debbie also asked me to draw folks attention to their Awards for All offer. Seems like a good one to go for at the moment.

Yesterday I saw my action learning group for a meeting to decide if we should continue. For those that don't know action learning is a formal, facilitated group of peers that meet regularly and take it in turns to pose professional dilemmas. Instead of offering advice, the group ask questions allowing the subject to work towards their own strategy. Ours has met quarterly for nearly ten years, and are an epic group of gals. In that time we have changed innumerable jobs, had children, got divorced, lost loved ones and remained true to ourselves and mistresses of the universe. We did of course, decide to plough on. As the Americans say, ‘if it ain't broke, don't fix it’.

The family and I are off to Pembrokeshire for a few days for log fires and muddy walks. Can't wait. We have left our lovely au pair to manage the menagerie. In fact this week we adopted another rabbit, Nibbles, whose family have downsized to a flat and can no longer keep him. He seems a super chap and as long as he steers clear of Jemima our clucky, pecking alpha chicken he'll be ok. Still, yet another animal - I can't help but wonder if it’s a step in the right direction. I think I must love agro.

Arguing the toss

We did the pancake thing last night, the kids are old enough now to flip their own which was fun. My preference is for maple syrup and lemon juice. Katie likes Nutella on hers. Pancake day is a funny thing, you do it every year as a child and then with your kids and so the tradition goes on. Tonight I wondered why pancakes? I know it precedes the fasting of lent, but why pancakes? Anyone care to enlighten me?

At the moment I’m tossing around ideas about the future of business support; the truth is that for many social enterprises, the existing support infrastructure can be a rather blunt and less than effective tool. We know the election will be followed by cuts and business support is as likely to shrink as anything else. This is going to happen just as we stand on the threshold of expanding through delivering more public service contracts and supplying ethical consumption. What our members need now is the kind of expertise that can inform their decisions, help them access investment and establish productive peer support . It’s out there, but we need to consider ways to achieve better, more valuable results. I would like to see something along the lines of a more interactive web based service like the peer to peer network, Horsesmouth – ideally led from within the sector.

If we are to do more with less, social enterprise is the vehicle to do just that. We can deliver jobs, new markets, environmental solutions, outsourced public services and buzzing communities and all with maximum social impact – but the entrepreneurs of the future need the support to get them there.

Spitting image

I had a go today at the hit and miss approach some of the young men at SEL were taking to shaving. I believe the technical term is ‘bum fluff’. Matthew, obviously feeling he was amongst friends, came back with the thought his facial hair made him look like Abraham Lincoln.  Dom has helpfully supplied a side by side comparison for us all to draw our own conclusions.

On your marks, get set........

I had my mug shot in the Society Guardian today, looking, quite frankly like I’d been at the cooking sherry. Having said that, it was nice to have some coverage for the speech I gave on the role social enterprise can play in public service reform at the Guardian’s brilliant summit last week.

This week started with a focus on the new Social Enterprise Mark. Developed by RISE (our sister organisation in the South West) and launched nationally in partnership between RISE and the Coalition, it's started to make its presence felt immediately. Instantly SEL members were e-mailing me with questions and statements of support or criticism. My answer to everyone is time will tell. The thing I love about our movement is that it is dynamic, ever changing; no one's and yet everyone’s intellectual property. If social enterprises grow and sell more as a result of carrying the Mark I’ll be more pleased than anyone. That and the further promotion of the social enterprise movement is my hope for what the Mark can achieve. In the meantime let’s keep the movement growing, counting people interested in delivering positive social impact through business as 'in' and not 'out' shall we?

I came home even later than usual tonight. I counted over 240 emails sent today, mostly on behalf of members, to those who need to know how they can support London's stunning social enterprises. I often feel like a pain in the arse to the great and good, but as I keep saying, that's the job.

Last night Chris and I went to the school parents evening for our eldest, Joe. We heard some lovely things about a hard working, inquisitive and energetic young man (13). Now there’s a chap quick of the mark.

Hot plates and warm knickers

Yesterday I went to my sister's bithday lunch for her girlfriends. It was a hoot. I arrived and was told that the heating was off because someone was having a hot flush. Sue served up a delicious lunch whilst we all got stuck in comparing notes on our lives, so different and yet so similar. I often think being a woman is a universal experience, at the end of any day, no matter how big or small, its always us that end up washing the pants. Talking of which, after I toasted Sue, my comrade in arms and fellow mother mover, her fabulous friend Lisa joined the toast with thanks to Sue and our mother for mum's Hostess Trolley. During the move we had to find homes for a mountain of things, one of which was a rather fetching brown and orange 1970's Hostess trolley. Although Sue's mate Lisa is a professional cook, we were baffled by her willingness to give it house room, until she announced to our little group on Friday, that not only does it offer up wonderfully hot plates, but the Trolley of legend is great for drying underwear. They didn't put that in the ad. I do love a good laugh.

Today I helped out at the allotment trading shed and did a few jobs on the site. Having spent an hour swapping top tips on potash and potatoes with my fellow plot holders, the family started the annual improvement of our mulch paths. Chris collected mulch while I cut up the manure bags I collect over the year, putting them black side up and securing them with my secret weapons. I make pegs out of the wire hangers you get from the dry cleaners. One of the really niffty things about an allotment is that it gives you an ideal environment to recycle and reuse loads of things. But even I would be hard pressed to get so much out of a 40 year old Hostess trolley.

Former Canadian PM pleads for UK social enterprise leadership

I am at this year’s Guardian newspaper public service summit. Obviously the talk is of cuts, up to 23% in the public sector according to our Chair, David Brindle, Public Services Editor of the Guardian, and people are wondering about the changes to come. I am here to talk about where social enterprise fits in.

I settled in to hear our key note speaker the Rt Hon Paul Martin, former Prime Minister of Canada who told us how, when he was Finance Minister, he and Treasury colleagues began the process of sorting out Canada’s rising deficit literally on the back of an envelope. He told us it was arbitrary and cold, but the fact was after 30 years of rising spending and accumulated deficit he felt it was absolutely necessary. He gave each member of the Government target cuts, allowing individual Ministers to appeal but refusing to budge on the overall bottom line.

I liked his line that when you are a finance minister it is better for everyone to hate you, rather than a few people. I wonder if that’s true for all those who have unpopular jobs to do?

I was really interested in this very bold approach but imagine my delight when he said that, in considering what the UK has done 'right', the answer is social enterprise. I was all ears.

He described it as a marriage of left and right, compassion and social entrepreneurship. He, not I, told the conference that business entrepreneurs can tap markets but social entrepreneurs cannot because they will always be hampered by their social aims when it comes to borrowing. He told delegates that the UK is leading the way with innovations including Community Interest Companies, which he wished they had in Canada.

He said 'if you can build on this growth in social enterprise, you will be ahead of everyone'. Upping the anti he told us that social enterprise improves quality of life, when ill health is often the collateral damage of the free markets. He repeated the point that in social enterprise you will be ahead of everyone, Canada, the US... in fact everyone.

I was dancing in my seat, it was all I could do to stop myself cheering. It was wonderful. He set a tone which meant that every subsequent speaker had to comment on social enterprise, building a debate that grew exponentially.

He posed the following question: “I would ask, why would the state not provide incentives for social enterprises?” He told us that the great recession of 2008/9 has done its work, it was and remains the perfect storm that has rendered getting Globalisation to 'work' the great challenge for our time. It's important to deal with it now, he told us; 'cut the deficit, regulate capital, and create Global solutions to this Global crisis'.

Leaping to my feet in questions I asked Prime Minister Martin, if he had social enterprise in Canada when he was PM, what would have been his vision for it?

He responded that his vision for social entrepreneurs now is that they really 'have a go' at capital markets. He said that in his view there are people who are social activists that are every bit as entrepreneurial as capitalists. Finally he said, “my remarks to you are almost a plea. A lot of us are looking to you for leadership in this area, we in Canada have not gone far enough, the US has gone further, none of us have gone as far as you have, we are all looking at the UK to show us the way.”

In response to ACEVO CEO Stephen Bubb's question around the need for increased social investment he said, "I think a social investment bank would be good, but to be honest access to the capital market is what you want. If the Twitter people had to go to a grant agency they would never have got money. We have a third world in Canada, Aboriginal Canadians who have a strong entrepreneurial leaning but no one will lend them money. Mezzanine financing is perhaps the answer, maybe Government should be taking a role in supporting initial investment? But what social entrepreneurs really need is access to the market.”

Finally he told us to get the public on your side, much as Philip Blond of ResPublica had told us to do at Voice on Tuesday. It was a wonderful speech.

Next up we had Rob Whiteman, CEO of Barking and Dagenham Council, who told us, that in the last decade we in the UK have improved things by investing in them and in the next decade we will have to improve things by spending less.

He told us that professionals should be on tap and not on top, that you need advice but don’t let it hamper your innovation. He mentioned working with social entrepreneurs running services such as libraries. Incidentally I have always thought public libraries are a natural home for social enterprise.

Simon Godfrey director of public sector strategy, business development and government relations at SAP, the IT and infrastructure giant was concerned that the private sector will outstrip the public sector very soon, as the population ages we need to understand that technology is key in delivering a quality life style to the aging population.

I was up next with Sir Andrew Foster, Chair of the 2020 Public Services Trust, Dame Julie Mellor, Partner at PwC in a session chaired by David Brindle.

Sir Andrew painted a picture of moving us from 'public services to powerful public' Dame Julie mentioned the work SEL are doing with PwC on dealing with the fiscal gap through social enterprise.

I had to abandon my planned speech as everyone had already mentioned social enterprise and my job was to pick up their points. I told them I was not an advocate of cuts but that I was an advocate for change. That the current crisis, described by Sir Michael Bishard, director of the Institute for Government as a burning platform, would offer change and that I felt that had to be an opportunity for my members.

I told them Government had to be a better shopper, that thinking it can both procure services and supply them efficiently was odd, that we were not services on the cheap, we were just better and therefore less costly in the long run, that social clauses in contracts are not in contravention of European law, that social enterprise blurs the line between public and private and that like the internet we are spontaneous, compelling unstoppable and of the moment. I concluded that opting for social enterprise was not a difficult choice, it was the only choice.

I was delighted when most of the subsequent questions were on social enterprise. I fielded concerns that community initiatives might lead to a post code lottery, that social enterprise might not be real engagement, or that it might be seen to be middle class (ask John Bird about that.)

I have since been asked to talk to so many delegates that I shall be busy for months getting round them all. That would be the job then.

I have snuck off to give you the heads up, both Stephen and I are blogging this one up a storm. Patrick Butler, Head of Society, Health and Education at the Guardian came up to me at lunch and said, you must be pleased. I congratulated him on organising such a good conference on social enterprise. Well done Guardian.

I will head home at the close of play today and not stay for the Gala Dinner as this is my second residental conference this week and I haven't seen the family much. This weekend I'm going to be doing some more burning and mulching at the allotment, perhaps putting in some broad bean seeds if the warmer weather holds.

I need to start thinking about our lawn. My husband is chuffed that the chickens have started laying again but I fear it is at the expence of my lawn which they have scratched to buggery over the winter. Bad chickens.

Socially speaking it should be a quite weekend with only my mate Julie popping over to debrief me on a speech she is giving to the law lords tonight on privacy law and the recent case involving a certain footballer. Julie is International Editor of a well known celebrity magazine so I should imagine they are looking forward to hearing what she has to say. She on the other hand is dreading it. She told me yesterday that's she'd rather interview Madonna. If making speeches isn't your job its hard to take in your stride. Still, to be honest, at most conferences I'd rather be in the garden. But not today, I wouldn't have missed it for the world. A great conference, and I'm looking forward to my little chat with Prime Minister Martin, we both seem to have it bad for social enterprise.

Having A Hoop at Voice

I’m blogging at the national social enterprise conference, VOICE 10 here in Cardiff. It’ a great opportunity to network and like my Christmas party for the neighbors, it gets everyone together to celebrate community. It is also an opportunity to take a look at the direction social enterprise might be taking. I say might, because although the contributions have all been engaging, there is still an air of defensiveness from within the movement, a point eloquently made by Caroline Mason, of Investing for Good CIC. Speaker after speaker has criticised the market, as the title of the conference, ‘No More Business As Usual’ might have encouraged them to do. The reality, as my husband is fond of saying, is we need to ‘keep it light’. Our power is in inspiring consumers and workers, our leverage is the story of individual social enterprises with their profitability and bankable environmental impact. Yes, capitalism has taken a battering, but less for its core principles and more for its failure to sustain growth.

What the market is doing is looking round for new high value performers, and social enterprises can and must be in that space. At SEL, we learned at our lunch with the private and public sector leaders last week that they are looking. What they are trying to work out is the extent of our appetite for growth and the general public’s interest in our values... and so John Bird, Editor in Chief of the Big Issue’s call for a revolution last night, whilst being highly entertaining, was mistimed.

I think we are on a threshold, we can enter the cathedral of the market by accepting its principles and playing the game of capital investment versus output (in our case social and financial), or we can refuse to go in and carry on heckling from the outside. We can’t, I’m afraid, go in and then start throwing incendiaries.

I thought Ed Mayo’s comments on Government taking an enabling role in allowing people to choose the business models they prefer, such as football supporter associations, would speed up growth. Ed’s central theme was one of working together and achieving scale, as Co-ops UK have indeed done. That felt to me like a strong and welcome signal we should all follow up on. He also asked us to think about the social collateral we generated through community based businesses, again something of consuming interest to our political leaders, surely?

The serious feel this morning provided a dramatic contrast to last night’s carnival atmosphere – with some wonderful performers from No Fit State Circus performing death defying stunts involving hula-hoops, presumably chosen to mirror the logo of the social enterprise mark which was given a national launch at the event. As one Tweet asked during the session; ‘if you have just woken up, no you’re not at a Pink Floyd concert!’ Whilst Leighton Andrews, Welsh Assembly Member spoke to us the dry ice machine went into overdrive slowly but quite definitely obscuring him from his audience. The Tweets were priceless. Many thanks to Nick Temple from the School for Social Entrepreneurs who showed me ‘TweetDeck’ in operation. We had the event in front of us as we watched the acerbic commentary coming in from all round the auditorium. Soon all events will be getting their feedback live. We’d better be very slick!

The smouldering Mr Andrews followed a lovely Spaniard, Mikel Lezamiz ,the Director of Cooperative Dissemination of the very impressive Mondragon Corporacion Cooperativa who outlined in excruciating detail the model and activities undertaken by his impressive set up in the Basque country, followed by John who did his usual barn storming rant, stopping only to remove his false tooth for the benefit of the front row and call a few people both in the room and without, ‘boring’. Oh dear.

All of this could be seen to be missing the point. Last night the Americans announced a deficit of $1.4 trillion. That has to be a heads up. That kind of borrowing, together with our own, means that debt is going to get very expensive, very soon. Let us hope not prohibitively expensive. There is simply no substitute for being profitable and getting on with growth, PDQ.

Philip Blond’s plural rating system was interesting to me, I am great supporter for the idea of a social stock exchange and hearing the man some describe as ‘Cameron’s brain’ advocating a rating system for a social enterprise trading platform was good. Philip also caused perhaps the biggest ripple at the conference by stating baldly the Tories will prioritise social enterprise if the voters do. That leads me neatly back to my first point, that what we have here is a selling job and as every marketeer will tell you, negative advertising does not work. Instead of denigrating our competitors the so-called 'big businesses' we need to talk up our advantages and broadcast our enthusiasm. Social enterprise is creative, liberating and sometimes even fun. As more people find out the water is fine, more will choose to swim with us.

I’ve just had lunch with my good friend Adele Blakeborough, founder of Community Action Network (CAN). We sat in the middle of the exhibition space and had great fun setting the world to rights and saying hello to people as they passed by. It was lovely to see Patrick Butler, Head of Health, Education and Society at the Guardian. Patrick is an influential, thoughtful journalist who is really interested in social enterprise and great at posing the tough questions. Something we will need much more of over the next 6 months.

The wonderful Antonia Swinson , CEO of Scottish Social Enterprise Coalition joined us, as did Matthew Thompson of London Community Resource Network, Mark Sesnan of GLL and Co-Chair of SEL, Duncan Sloan, Head of Commercial Banking at RBS and many more. It became quite a party and worked well for me as I had done that usual conference thing last night, of propping up the bar into the wee hours with colleagues from Triodos Bank (thanks for a delicious dinner Tracy), Social Firms UK, the truly delightful John Bennett, MD from Pack-It and Chair of the Welsh Social Enterprise Coalition, the lovely SEL staff, and felt grateful for the chance to sit down.

I’ve just heard Lord Victor Abedewale CEO of Turning Point call for the Right to Request to be extended to all forms of public sector activity. Right to Request was introduced into the Department of Health and gives staff the choice of setting up as independent service providers ie social enterprises. It has somewhat stalled since Andy Burnham took against it a few months ago, but I know Government and the Conservatives are looking at it seriously for the future. Lets hope they do. It’s a call we need to keep on making. Social enterprise needs growth markets like a fire needs oxygen. I bumped into Victor at the train station who didn’t know that the Tories are in fact interested in right to request and was very pleased to hear it. I think they will be hearing from him.

I’m looking forward to seeing the family. It’s great to get away and see everyone in the movement but even nicer to catch up with the troops back home. On Sunday our Sam got Silver Medal in his weight class in the County Judo Championships. Below is a film clip of his winning bout. We are so proud of him. He’s such a gutsy chap.



For full coverage of Voice have a look at the website of Social Enterprise Magazine. Finally Peter Holbrook in his concluding remarks to his inaugural conference as CEO of SEC told us Voice 10 was the highest twittered event in the UK this morning. I think that’s a well done to all us bloggers and tweeters and well done to the Coalition for once again setting out the welcome mat.