Back to school blues, the true cost of childcare and learning to get along

I got a call this afternoon from our eldest: he had been locked out by his brother and was stranded at the back of the house. From the office I called home and demanded  a repatriation of the garden dweller. It's back to school and things are a little tetchy.

Navigating the change in temperature from holiday to school is this week's challenge in my first back-to-school without any childcare. Although the kids are really growing up and my husband is front line in the school shuttle service for our youngest, there is still a gap between the supervision necessary and an appropriate adult to provide it. But like so many working parents with teenagers, we shall have to limp on and hope for the best.

From first-hand experience I know childcare is expensive but was still shocked to hear from last week's Daycare Trust and Save the Children report that UK residents pay the highest childcare costs in the world. Restricted access to affordable, quality childcare is the single largest reason that women do not return to work after having children. The loss to the workforce of so many qualified, experienced women  must signifigantly reduce productivity, which has to be a bad thing. I know some men also give up work, but should anyone have to make that choice? Which is not a choice at all if it is done as a matter of necessity.

SEL board member June O'Sullivan, CEO at LEYF, the London Early Years Foundation, was everywhere in the media last week, discussing the report. June is one of the country's experts in early years' provision and the effects of restricted access to childcare and she spoke so well about the need to create affordable childcare and support more families through the early years. Once again, a social enterprise leading the way! June told me that LEYF had also been in the news this week when a visit by the then PM Gordon Brown and Chancellor Alistair Darling (another two boys who struggle to get along) to a LEYF nursery was the footage used to cover the Darling diary book launch. June has since had a visit from David Cameron, I wonder what the children make of it all?

Lessons from the demise of the Future Jobs Fund

Despite the success of this now-defunct scheme, social enterprises are still unable to take the risk of hiring long-term unemployed young people, writes Allison Ogden-Newton

• Allison Ogden-Newton
• Guardian Professional, Friday 26 August 2011 06.00 BST
• Article history

The Future Jobs Fund helped unemployed young people and the social enterprises they worked for. Photograph: Rex Features

In the next few days, Social Enterprise London's (SEL) final two participants complete their six-month paid work placements as part of the abandoned Future Jobs Fund (FJF) programme. SEL was part of the first wave of applicant organisations and so our experience over the last 27 months spans the FJF's complete cycle from glint in the Brown government's eye to one of its last beneficiaries.

When the FJF was announced in 2009, we had scant detail about how it would work and no idea about the scheme's suitability for social enterprise. We contacted our 2,400 members anyway to see if they were game for six months of a subsidised, long-term unemployed man or woman under 24. We were gobsmacked as the following 36 hours revealed hundreds of placement offers, and so London's Future 500was born.

The partnership we put together was with 164 social enterprises taking an average of four placements each. Given their small size, many employers needed more support to manage their young recruits than we had anticipated, but nonetheless they lived up to their reputation as social businesses and most made a job offer. In fact even though some participants struggled with the world of work – sadly, two even ended up in prison – 69% did not return to benefits, which achieved our ambition to work with those furthest from the labour market and help them become social entrepreneurs of the future. As Richard Cummings, HR director at Green-Works, told us: "The whole programme has been pretty painless and you guys really helped it work. Together we have made a real difference to the lives of so many people."

The scheme closed within weeks of the last election, so the 1,500 additional jobs we were subsequently offered have gone by the wayside. But why don't those social enterprises take young people on anyway if they have genuine jobs to offer? The answer is economic.

Social enterprises still struggle to attract mainstream investment so they are often undercapitalised and their restricted growth means that taking on skilled staff is a process undertaken carefully, and long-term unemployed young people with limited skills pose too great a risk. The wage subsidy combined with third-party mentoring, expertly delivered through social enterprises like Striding Out, reduce that liability. As Stephen Hurton, director of Proper Oils, told us, "Proper Oils would not ordinarily have offered him the job if we had not had the six-month period to induct and train him. This period was required to get the young person trained to a suitable level so he earned his offer of full-time employment."

This view was echoed by Caroline Roake, of Livity, who said: "For financial reasons, last year we couldn't have considered taking someone on without the FJF scheme, but having generated a junior receptionist role for it, we were very pleased to offer our receptionist an extension to her role after the six months were up. I'm sure there are many similar stories from other employers who have found they can't do without the person when the initial six months come to an end."

We know that FJF had difficulties elsewhere and some larger employers struggled. And we know that our final job number was particularly good, but as no project lead was asked to compile a retention rate figure and the government cancelled the evaluation programme we will never know with any degree of accuracy where it worked and where it did not. All we can go on is anecdotal evidence and the testimonies we still get from the social enterprises which became so committed to the project and the young people whose lives FJF changed forever.

"My coach definitely did help me to discover where I want to be and has helped me to become strong in the person I am," Sophia Williams, an employee at Think Productive, said.

Allison Ogden-Newton is chief executive of Social Enterprise London

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Least said, soon as mended?

Its all about the WikiLeaks isn't it? People are divided on wether it undermines the diplomatic process and therefore constitutes an invasion of privacy or it is blow for freedom of information? When I am trying to gauge my moral compass I usually think of my grandmother, the inspirational Margery Allison. Nanna was fond of the above saying and spent several years in Washington where my grandfather was a security advisor to the US Government. So what would she have made of WikiLeaks? I believe she would have cheered at Gordon Brown's attempted defence of Gary McKinnon, the young Englishman with Asperger's who hacked the US defence systems. I know she would not have been surprised at the revelations about US security and worldwide diplomacy being rubbish, according to the tales she used to tell, there is nothing new there. And the principal? I believe Nanna would have approved. She believed in democracy, as only those who have known what it is to fight for it do, and she knew what people got up to behind closed doors when they believed their behaviour would never be scrutinised.

I can understand the frustration of those compromised by the leaks. Who has not sent an email that you would be horrified to share with the world? Or at the very least, embarrassed?  But I read with slack jawed incredulity at the Swedish "sex offences" arrest warrant for Julian Assange WikiLeaks founder, and Paypal's decision to freeze payments to WikiLeaks because it alleges the site is set up to, "encourage, promote, facilitate or instruct others to engage in illegal activity." Even if you don't watch Spooks, this stuff adds layer upon layer of defensive, paranoid, manipulated and manipulative decision making which assumes we are all as daft as 'they' are.

Yesterday I joined in a twitter chat about censorship on my favourite social media forum. Time and again people's satirical or just ill advised tweets are being subjected to legal sanction. It was a dark day for British justice and our legendary ability to appreciate irony, when Paul Chamber's was fined £1000 this year for tweeting he would bomb Robin Hood airport if they didn't get the snow plough's out and clear it so he could see his girlfriend. I was delighted to be able to join the #IAmSparctacus campaign where thousands of us retweeted his original tweet in defiance of the so-called 'authorities', carrying the above hashtag to identify ourselves as dissenters of censorship. I will take to the streets to defend my right to be flippant.

The bottom line is the world has changed. Technology has encouraged we ordinary folk to expect that we have a right to information, which in turn has reduced the power of gatekeepers. Keeping things secret is harder and the very act of doing so requires fresh thinking. The world has shifted and it is just possible our leaders are having difficulty keeping up with this brave new world. Sorry boys but Google will get through to the Chinese, twitter will remain unfettered, and the US will not shut down WikiLeaks (Is it me or does it take rather too long to open?). Understanding how people think has never been more important because if you don't agree, and hope to keep that to yourself whilst seeking to represent the common view, it is unlikely you will get away with it anymore. Nanna believed that corruption was not just taking money you are not entitled to, but also responsibility. That is why I know she would have enjoyed every revelation that exposes hypocrisy for what it is, ridiculous and doomed.

SELing social reformation

It's been quite a week; so much so that it's taken me until now to blog - so I've got a great many things that I want to share with you.

I'll start with the last half an hour and work my way back to the start of the week.

I have been watching the Twitter feed on Bigotgate and whatever you might think of what the PM said and how he and his team subsequently mishandled it, the one issue that is only just surfacing is that very little has been said in defence of the Eastern Europeans in the UK who work hard, pay taxes and nonetheless can't vote.

What's happening in social enterprise? I have to tell you it is frantic, behind the scenes SEL and our members are having a thousand conversations about the changing landscape and how social enterprise is going to deliver social reformation.  As a trained historian I keep coming back to that which went before. What social enterprise is proposing is a Reformation, we want to challenge conventional thinking that neatly divides the world up into business, government and charity. Top of the list are education, health, energy, regeneration and above all money. We can do this, but only with the support of a Government that carefully listens to the detail and helps us put into place the necessary investment.

Today 2000 charity leaders came out in defence of the Future Job Fund. I am not a charity leader but if they had asked me I would have joined them.  At SEL we put together London's Future 500 which is putting over 500 young, unemployed people into social enterprise jobs, and I have to tell you, it is going well.  The applicants are enthusiastic, the employers are being, as you would expect from social entrepreneurs, supportive and early findings show that the number of permenant job offers coming out of the scheme is high. Surely no government could contemplate ending a program like that? Not when all of us fear growing unemployment, particularly in the young.

That is the saddest thing about new governments; change for change's sake. They often think ending things will save money and on the face of it that can be true.  But then the social cost is felt and then they have to invest in a new program to address the problem which ends up being more costly than keeping what was originally there in place. I have seen it in further education, the FEFC becoming the LSC and that being abolished in favour of...well, what?

Last night I had the Tory local authority candidate, Paul Hodgins, on my door step.  I must have been one of the few people he spoke to that evening who had actually read his parties manifesto, as I have poured over all the major parties proposals (incidentally, in return, increasing numbers of candidates are looking at SEL's own manifesto; encouraging) I asked him if their commitment to enabling communities to run local schools would, if they won, lead to something being done about our local school. I have met our local MP Susan Kramer and she seems like a good egg, and yet Shene School remains an unacceptable choice for many local parents.  Having said that Paul didn't seem to share my fury over the shambles that is Richmond secondry education, so I'm not sure he's going to get it sorted either.

On Tuesday we had an amazing event on the crucial issue of social impact assesment.  Like it or not, and despite what anyone says to the contrary, in future there will be more counting.  If its jobs, contribution to GDP or energy consumtion savings there will be more counting and those who get on board with how to do it will be in the strongest position.  The event was held in conjuction with PricewaterhouseCoopers and the London Development Agency and attendees were social entrepreneurs and accountants.  One lot knew all about social impact and the other, measurement and assessment. Combining the thinking of the two is the challenge.  Having been involved in this field for over 4 years and with our resident expert Sabina Khan, SEL's Director of Policy and Research at the helm, we are doing a great deal on this. So if you are interested check out our website for more information.

Finally, a few quick gardening updates.  I have got in my beetroot, salad, chard and carrot seeds, and I am preparing my runner bean beds.  But the crops at the moment are the real highlight of the week.  We have had our first asparagus, delicious and sweet and my purple sprouting is, as you can see from the photo, outstanding!

Both of them have interesting effects on the colour of your wee, so eating them together can provide endless entertainment.  All good clean fun! Talking of which, I'm off now to watch the leadership debate.

All quiet on the Western Front

I know its been hell for stranded passengers but for those of us in West london the quiet skies are bliss.

I agree that Nick Clegg did a bang up job on the debates on Thursday. Mind you I don't think any of them disgraced themselves. I'm looking forward to the next round, should be fun watching David and Gordon manage a consensus as they gang up on him. Funnily enough I knew Nick when we were children. His sister, Elizabeth was my classmate and friend and the Clegg's lived on our road. The last time I saw Nick, we were both in the Clegg's rather impressive sandpit. Not sure what sort of training a good command of bucket and spade is for political leadership, but it can't hurt.

Our conference, Social enterprise: A brighter future of schools, was a tour de force on Thursday. It's energy reminded me of the early days of social enterprise events when we knew we were being radical. The stories of what folk were up to both running businesses out of schools and running schools as cooperatives and potentially social enterprises was gripping stuff. This was parents organising and really getting involved, children inspired to set up and work in their own social enterprises and social entrepreneurs squaring up to run schools. I've done a full write up for the Guardian, so watch this space. It is, I think, an issue which is going to grow and grow. This is about staff and parents wanting to experiment with new enterprise based models. The genie is out of the bottle here, where schools are failing kids the state can no longer reject those who want change and are willing to do something about it.

I am at a concert for children at Amersham School in Amersham, Bucks. Our performers are Travelling with Tuba, Chris Cranham and Stewart Death. The kids are really enjoying it, depite the sunshine being outside. They have especially enjoyed the chance to play musical instruments from around the world like the Alpine Horn and South African Cornu.

 Joe playing the Alpine Horn