Social enterprise podcast #11: Public services
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- Social enterprise podcast #11: Public services
Showing posts with label David Floyd. Show all posts
Showing posts with label David Floyd. Show all posts
Thursday, 17 January 2013
Monday, 9 May 2011
I give you ....... the Transition Institute
This week we launched the Transition Institute (TI) with our partners Nesta. We had a pre-launch dinner at the Hoxton Grill, in partnership with our friend Craig Dearden-Phillips, the night before and then the official launch at the wonderfully snazzy Nesta building 1 Plough Place on Thursday.
The dinner was exceptional. It was one of those where almost everyone who had been asked accepted probably because as Patrick Butler, Editor of Society, Health and Education Policy at the Guardian said, it read like a who's who of social commentators in this field, which is persumably why he agreed to chair. I kicked off by welcoming everyone and explaining a little about the TI, its vision and our journey up to the launch.
The TI is a platform to debate, reflect and produce research, guidelines and best practice in the field of public sector outsourcing. It will not deliver support but act as a commentator among those that do. It will be the place where decision makers such as local and health authorities go to find out how to outsource effectively in a way that will maximise social value. Those that are involved in the TI and subsequently get involved hold one thing to be true: we agree that public services can be delivered more effectively through independent provision but only when providers want to maximise social value above profit.
Thursday, 6 January 2011
What next for the Future Jobs Fund?
If you use my blog links on anything like a regular basis you will be well informed about the world of social enterprise. The wise heads I follow are leading thinkers, commentators, agitators and satirists and serve to keep the rest of us honest in our assessment of progress. One of the most incisive thinkers has to our friend David Floyd at Beanbags and Bullshit who posted a few days ago on Future Jobs Fund. I encourage you to read the blog Looking to the Future, in its entirety because, as always, David has done his homework. The points he makes are illustrated by his experience of the Future 500, SEL’s program to enable unemployed young people access jobs in social enterprise. I was chuffed to read that his experience of our scheme was a positive one, and that the points he makes from it was that firstly, social enterprises found FJF helpful, secondly that young people did got jobs through FJF and lastly that it might have been expensive in relative terms but what is the real cost of failure? I would like to add to Government consideration, more specifically that of the DWP, that there might be a need to choose between affordability and success. They could, for instance, put an unemployed young person on hypothetically, scheme A which cost £6000 (FJF) and has a 65% chance of securing the desired outcome (SEL’s post program retention rate) or scheme B which is a more affordable £2400 (the average cost of a back to work scheme) where they have a 25% (average commercial success rate) chance of getting a job. When Government’s own statistics point to the lifetime cost of missing the window of employability when a young person comes out of school or higher education in the hundreds of thousands, the maths seems simple.
We hope to utilise our considerable experience in getting young people into social enterprise jobs as we work with partners on the new Work Programme for 2011, here in London. Lets hope in the scrabble to engage with this vital agenda there is time to listen to those with commitment and track record.
We hope to utilise our considerable experience in getting young people into social enterprise jobs as we work with partners on the new Work Programme for 2011, here in London. Lets hope in the scrabble to engage with this vital agenda there is time to listen to those with commitment and track record.
Wednesday, 25 November 2009
Who needs educating?
I enjoyed the third sector bash last night at Barclays, thanks Steve. It was my first opportunity to meet face to face with Mr Curley of the famous "Twitter Wars" (copyright 2009). For those who missed it: Kevin Curley of NAVCA made a few exasperated comments about social enterprise on Twitter in October, wondering if it was a front for more scurrilous behaviour. I rounded with a defence and an offer to take him on a tour of London’s social enterprises, to give him a little more faith in us. Our argument made it to Social Enterprise Mag.
At the time I didn’t get a response from Kevin, but last night I saw my chance! Trotting up I introduced myself, as we had never previously met. Kevin asked me to go easy on him (don’t know what he meant?!) although Toby Blume of Urban Forum, obviously in a mischievous mood was goading from the side lines for me to ‘have a go’. I said that confrontation wasn’t my style but that I would welcome a chat about the issues. Kevin explained that he was fed up with the social enterprise world talking dismissively about grant-reliant organisations, a position I can sympathise with. I told him that I was very much in support of the voluntary sector which was why I had run to join the Board of ACEVO, latterly becoming Vice Chair. He then went on to say that social enterprise is promoted without criticism. I opened my mouth to tell him about the month I’ve been having with the unions who have definitely decided to criticise social enterprise when, sadly, he was whisked away to as it were, fight another day. So Kevin, the offer for the visit still stands - I’d be happy to show you around.
On the Twitter Wars by the way, I got a number of comments from people like David Floyd of Social Spider, who felt that I had not properly answered Kevin’s point that if some social enterprises are critical of grant based activity, implying only income generation is sustainable, then why do so many of them look for grants? It’s a good point and one I should answer. The truth is that many social enterprises need grants, at least at the beginning, for example Green Works, which started with a grant but now turns over £2 million through income generation. Ultimately start up social enterprises often need investment and sometimes need grants, but moving away from grant based activity should be the objective and it’s that aim that distinguishes a social enterprise from a conventional voluntary organisation. It’s a bit like courgettes and pumpkins. The plants are almost identical but the fruits are very, very different.
I also bumped into Jeremy Swain of Thames Reach who didn’t realise he’d been quoted in Monday’s Guardian on the Andy Burnham position against outsourcing. I was able to get the article up on my blackberry to show him, showing technical prowess I didn’t know I had!
Had an email today from a friend, Carina, in East Sheen where I live, who asked me to sign her petition to No 10. It calls on the government to reverse its decision to legislate home schoolers into a cocked hat through draconian monitoring, when so little is currently offered to support them.
East Sheen is leafy and for the most part prosperous, we have some great primary schools and yet as I have said before in this blog, our secondarily schools are grim. They fall below national average and have unacceptable records of pupil violence. Carina is one of a few brave parents I know who have given up work to home school their children because they believe, in the face of their options, they have to. She has shown courage and commitment to her children and could do with a world of resources to support her, not to mention a quality school to send her children to. What does she get instead? Monitoring, supervision, bureaucracy and an implicit criticism of her choice to home school. Right to choose? I don’t think so. Why is it that so many of the ‘choices’ politicians talk about in fact create no choice at all?
As Toby Young tells us in last Sunday’s Observer, it is in fact very difficult for parents to set up their own schools, as he in Acton and the parents of East Sheen are finding. I think the pioneers of parent run schools should be encouraged. I think the Government needs to get off the fence on whether parents of just local authorities should control the budgets and I think social enterprise can help. SEL’s conference in the spring on the future of education will be the place these things are thrashed out in more detail and hopefully we will see more parents like Toby and Carina eventually getting the support they need to educate their children to a standard they find acceptable. In the meantime I urge you to sign Carina’s petition.
The other thing you need to do this week is vote in the Social Enterprise Awards! Two of SEL's members, Global Ethics and BikeWorks are in the running, so of course I encourage you to vote for them, but the main thing is that you vote - and get friends and colleagues to do the same. This link lets you do it online, so you've got no excuse!
Finally, if you represent a private company (or if you buy anything at all in fact), BUY THINGS FROM SOCIAL ENTERPRISE! SEL has been running a programme to encourage and support corporate companies to put social enterprises in their supply chains. Almost all those we approached have been positive, many have met with us, introduced us to their procurement people, looked at the long, long lists of social enterprises selling everything from paper clips to team building away days, come to the conference we recently held on the subject (with support from KPMG)... and so far, bought very little. So if you want to get involved and, yes you guessed it, BUY SOMETHING, e-mail our magnificant Director of Business Services Lesley Miller.
At the time I didn’t get a response from Kevin, but last night I saw my chance! Trotting up I introduced myself, as we had never previously met. Kevin asked me to go easy on him (don’t know what he meant?!) although Toby Blume of Urban Forum, obviously in a mischievous mood was goading from the side lines for me to ‘have a go’. I said that confrontation wasn’t my style but that I would welcome a chat about the issues. Kevin explained that he was fed up with the social enterprise world talking dismissively about grant-reliant organisations, a position I can sympathise with. I told him that I was very much in support of the voluntary sector which was why I had run to join the Board of ACEVO, latterly becoming Vice Chair. He then went on to say that social enterprise is promoted without criticism. I opened my mouth to tell him about the month I’ve been having with the unions who have definitely decided to criticise social enterprise when, sadly, he was whisked away to as it were, fight another day. So Kevin, the offer for the visit still stands - I’d be happy to show you around.
Getting gruff with Kevin Curley...
On the Twitter Wars by the way, I got a number of comments from people like David Floyd of Social Spider, who felt that I had not properly answered Kevin’s point that if some social enterprises are critical of grant based activity, implying only income generation is sustainable, then why do so many of them look for grants? It’s a good point and one I should answer. The truth is that many social enterprises need grants, at least at the beginning, for example Green Works, which started with a grant but now turns over £2 million through income generation. Ultimately start up social enterprises often need investment and sometimes need grants, but moving away from grant based activity should be the objective and it’s that aim that distinguishes a social enterprise from a conventional voluntary organisation. It’s a bit like courgettes and pumpkins. The plants are almost identical but the fruits are very, very different.
I also bumped into Jeremy Swain of Thames Reach who didn’t realise he’d been quoted in Monday’s Guardian on the Andy Burnham position against outsourcing. I was able to get the article up on my blackberry to show him, showing technical prowess I didn’t know I had!
Had an email today from a friend, Carina, in East Sheen where I live, who asked me to sign her petition to No 10. It calls on the government to reverse its decision to legislate home schoolers into a cocked hat through draconian monitoring, when so little is currently offered to support them.
East Sheen is leafy and for the most part prosperous, we have some great primary schools and yet as I have said before in this blog, our secondarily schools are grim. They fall below national average and have unacceptable records of pupil violence. Carina is one of a few brave parents I know who have given up work to home school their children because they believe, in the face of their options, they have to. She has shown courage and commitment to her children and could do with a world of resources to support her, not to mention a quality school to send her children to. What does she get instead? Monitoring, supervision, bureaucracy and an implicit criticism of her choice to home school. Right to choose? I don’t think so. Why is it that so many of the ‘choices’ politicians talk about in fact create no choice at all?
As Toby Young tells us in last Sunday’s Observer, it is in fact very difficult for parents to set up their own schools, as he in Acton and the parents of East Sheen are finding. I think the pioneers of parent run schools should be encouraged. I think the Government needs to get off the fence on whether parents of just local authorities should control the budgets and I think social enterprise can help. SEL’s conference in the spring on the future of education will be the place these things are thrashed out in more detail and hopefully we will see more parents like Toby and Carina eventually getting the support they need to educate their children to a standard they find acceptable. In the meantime I urge you to sign Carina’s petition.
The other thing you need to do this week is vote in the Social Enterprise Awards! Two of SEL's members, Global Ethics and BikeWorks are in the running, so of course I encourage you to vote for them, but the main thing is that you vote - and get friends and colleagues to do the same. This link lets you do it online, so you've got no excuse!
Finally, if you represent a private company (or if you buy anything at all in fact), BUY THINGS FROM SOCIAL ENTERPRISE! SEL has been running a programme to encourage and support corporate companies to put social enterprises in their supply chains. Almost all those we approached have been positive, many have met with us, introduced us to their procurement people, looked at the long, long lists of social enterprises selling everything from paper clips to team building away days, come to the conference we recently held on the subject (with support from KPMG)... and so far, bought very little. So if you want to get involved and, yes you guessed it, BUY SOMETHING, e-mail our magnificant Director of Business Services Lesley Miller.
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