In a bind

Every year, about this time I despair of my allotment. On the whole the year tends to start well with a tight rein on the planned lay out (I like a plan) in the Spring, then a wavering but nonetheless apparent effort to prevent the onslaught of weeds in the growing season, but in the autumn things tend to go to pot. My nemesis is the bindweed (Convolvulus sepium) which made my plot look like a set from Sleeping Beauty when I got it all those years ago, and despite great efforts on my part it never goes far, always being the first thing to throw shoots in the spring and the last thing to grow confidently into the colder months.

I have to say my spirits have been particularly low this autumn despite the very kind comments made by Paul Mason of SEL member, Parent Promoted Foundation with whom I had my first business meeting on the allotment this Friday. I had a good meeting with Richmond Council Cabinet in the morning talking about social enterprise, and had carved a couple hours for horticulture in the afternoon before school pick up when Paul asked for a quick catch up. As he lives close to my allotment, we fixed a time to discuss the concept of Community Schools whilst I dug for Britain. Paul, a new allotment holder, was interested in what I was doing and was extremely complementary about the site. But to me its looks tired, exhausted even and scruffy (or is that me?) and certainly not worthy of its 2009 title of Allotment of the Year.

In a fit of pique I dug out my raspberries, commenced the back breaking task of double digging the bed which I continued on Saturday. As you can see from the shot below the bindweed goes nearly 2 spits down and has complete mastery of the soil. Shame you can’t bloody eat it. If anyone has top tips for its removal let me know. I have tried systemic weed killer, digging, putting the plant in a plastic bag and poisoning the leaves and shouting rude words at it, none of it seems to work although the shouting makes me feel better.

On the upside we are eating our first pumpkin, in risotto and stew, the chard is going great guns and the tomatoes are turning red on the window sill at the rate of 4 or 5 pounds a week. I picked the last of the blackberries and made them into a torte yesterday and as part of our latest economy drive I dug out my Nanna’s Yorkshire recipe to make scones from the half pint of cream that had soured in the fridge. Waste-not-want not and they were yummy disappearing almost immediately with the last few getting the thumbs up from the SEL team today (Recipe available on request).

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

Schools run as social enterprises? Its not rhubarb you know

My first day back to the office yesterday after Japan and Cornwall, and I was hit by a wall of activity.  The SEL, 'Social enterprise: A brighter future future for schools?' conference on Thursday seems unbelievably well timed.  So much so, that as things stand, I have been lined up on the day for interviews with BBC Breakfast News and Women's Hour.

Following the launch of the Labour manifesto yesterday and the Conservatives today, everyone is talking about communities and social entrepreneurs running public services. The Tory manifesto even includes the following: "Our public service reform programme will enable social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to play a leading role in delivering public services and tackling deep-rooted social problems." This will be the first time a major conference about that very issue, in the context of education, has been held in public. Those speaking include exemplary educationalists like Sir Michael Wilshaw, Principal of Mossbourne Academy in Hackney, who has shown how schools can excel under the Academy model, and others like Neil McIntosh CEO of fellow social enterprise CfBT Education Trust who are keen to promote the model of social enterprise, to ensure the sustainability of education projects. I can't wait, should be fascinating.

The bottom line for me is that we know there is an appetite for social enterprises like the Parent Promoted Foundation to take over running their local schools where existing management has failed to get a grip. I will not be distracted by the old slurs, that its only pushy middleclass parents wanting to take over everything, or its business trying to come in through the back door. Rubbish.

We have worked closely with some of the leading innovators in this field like Carmel McConnell from Magic Breakfast, June O'Sullivan at London Early Years Foundation and Paul Mason at PPF and we know there are highly qualified people in the wings, desperate to role up their sleeves and get stuck in to sort the intractable problems faced by families in London trying to make their way through the system. They just need an opportunity.

I hope you are enjoying the sun as much as I am. As I love being outside I was in the garden on Saturday and allotment on Sunday. The garden is looking quite good, my roses seem to be bouncing back from the hard winter well, although green fly is aready in evidence! But I also appear to have lost a couple of clematis.  At the allotment my forced rhubarb is nothing short of spectacular.  The colours of the stalks when they emerged from their dark hidding place is almost unearthly, and the taste is a delight. Subtle and not at all tart as my allotment neighbour Ben said in his text to me on Sunday having enjoyed the stalks I gave him.

                                                    Sam with this years stunning rhubarb

I promised an update on the decorating. I managed, with the help of my friend Sarah to finish the hall stairs and landings before setting off to Japan. 2 coats, 3 ceilings, 4lbs of body weight (who needs the gym?), 9 doors, 30 litres of paint and 72 stair spindles later it looks like this......

               The before shot, darker despite
                       the lighter walls I think

More or less of the heroics?

The Tory Summit organised by Acevo on Thursday was great. We had an impressive procession of shadow ministers over the course of the day including George Osborne, Francis Maude, Oliver Letwin and Nick Hurd. They each highlighted different areas of consuming interest to us in the third sector, particularly around procurement, payment by results, right to request and social impact measurement and reporting. I didn’t agree with everything said but I did manage to blog most of it as it was happening.

Getting important public statements out onto a public platform in real time felt new and exciting, even if my right hand did ache with the frenetic typing. I was therefore chuffed when my efforts were described as 'heroic' in the Guardian blog the next day.

In the session I participated in I was asked to comment on social impact measurement which I hope I did coherently. It’s such a complex field to deliver in sound bites, and I think Phillip Hammond got the wrong end of the stick when he came back on my point, with a sense that what social enterprises need are two forms of contract, one for the things they make and sell (their economic return) and another for the jobs, training and opportunities they create (their social impact). No Phillip, two forms of procurement? I don’t think so. What is required are effective and clear social impact clauses in all contracts. Perhaps they should all come to a SEL event on same to bottom out the principles?

Still I thought it went well. They seemed keen, and more to the point they seemed organised and briefed which makes for altogether a better conversation.

Since then I have had some really interesting discussions with Asheem Singh, Deputy Director at ResPublica, Phillip Blond's think tank about new horizons for social enterprise. We both agreed that education will be the brave new frontier and that the SEL conference on education is well timed. The event should be a real groundbreaker. It’s on April 15th at RBS Headquarters on Bishopsgate. Speakers include Sir Michael Wilshaw the remarkable head of one of the UK’s leading schools, Mossbourne Community Academy in Hackney, and Paul Mason, who runs the Parent Promoted Foundation. If social enterprise in the education context is on your agenda then do come along. Tickets are available through the SEL website in the usual way. Or you can email me direct.

I should apologise for my unusual quietness on the blog front. I have been spending all my spare minutes painting my house. I started in the hall, but it’s turning out a bit like the Forth Bridge: each freshly painted room makes the one next to it look rather shabby. I will put up some more before and after shots when I have a moment. Now that piece of work is turning out to be heroic. I just hope I can get the house back to some kind of order before I head off to Tokyo on Friday to talk to a symposium about social enterprise.

I must sign off, I’m due at the House of Commons to meet with Vince Cable in 30 minutes. I am looking forward to it. He was so lovely when we shared a podium in November and seemed to have a real interest in social enterprise, not least because, as he explained, his son is a social entrepreneur.

Schools chief goes to the bottom of the class

I will try to do my best to convey the fury I feel at Professor David Woods staggering comments quoted in today's Guardian, about so-called 'prejudiced' middle class parents insisting on privately educating their children in the face of excellent state provided education, without expletives.

In the first instance secondary education in some parts of London is in a state of crisis. I am amazed parents haven't taken to the streets. As an example, our local comprehensive has GCSE results below National average, they have been threatened with special measures, there were two knife related instances in 2009 and they run through head teachers like 'Have I Got News for You' rotates Quizmasters.

Call me 'prejudiced', as indeed the Government's key education advisor David Woods just has, but I think my children deserve better. When we first looked over the school we went with friends whose son was also then in Year 6. We were equally disquietened by the lack of discipline, organisation and ambition for the children, but my friend, a Governor of a local primary school, felt that if local parents didn't make a commitment to the school it would never improve.  Six weeks into his first term their studious and delightful son left that school for the last time in an ambulance, having been kicked in the head. He too is now being educated privately.

So who is to blame? The parents who have re-mortaged their houses to enable their children to be educated in schools where fear is replaced by learning? Or the Goverment, who seem unable to offer us decent education?  According to Woods the disproportionate number of parents in London who choose private education do so because they have, and I quote 'innate and uninformed' prejudices enflamed by attendance at 'dinner parties in Islington'. If this is the informed view of Government advisors no wonder education is in such a mess.

The infuriating truth is that we are not pretentious elitists wanting to buy our children advantage, indeed the majority of us are not even dinner party goers; we just want a good local state education and for many of us that is simply not an option without moving to the right postcode. Woods also dismisses as 'prejudiced' the higher level of parents who send their children to state primary schools and then turn to private schools post year 6. What about the poor woman the Goverment tried to pillory in October because she claimed a bogus postcode to get her child into a decent school? Or the ludicrous number of parents applying to top state schools like Tiffin? Or the growing number of parents driven to educate their children at home rather than send them into schools where results are poor and bulllying rife?

The bald truth is the system is a mess and people are so worried about it they are willing to sacrifice a great deal to give their children hope.

Our children are endlesssly appreciative of the opportunity to go to a good school. At the end of last term Joe got the highest effort grade in his senior school, repaying our decision as best he can.

This is all very serious. A Government that thinks it can dismiss the agonising decisions parents have to make, with ill considered remarks, is in danger of being out of touch. In the light of Woods comments you would think that local parents like those who are working with the newly formed social enterprise, the Parent Promoted Foundation, that aims to set up parent run schools. would be welcomed with open arms. Yet their extraordinary commitment is currently being met by a wall of beaurocracy. It is a shambles that needs sorting out. Calling concerned parents names seems a hopeless place to start.

Anything but board

Education is very much in the air for social enterprise. I picked up Red Mummy's blog last night thanks to a tip off from Stephen Fry's Tweet which chimed with the things I've been saying about schools. Parents of children in many secondary schools up and down the country are really not happy and they want things to improve. The blog is facinating and echoed  a number of conversations I have had lately.

This morning I met with officers from Lambeth Council and Sarah Neuff from the fantastic development trust, Coin Street Community Builders to launch a really exciting initiative designed to develop social enterprise in the borough. I think Lambeth is really showing its dynamic commitment to social enterprise and I look forward to working on a project which I'm sure will establish the borough's credentials for innovation.

Interestingly Lambeth is the only place in the UK that has succeeded in establishing a parent run school, something I discovered when meeting with Paul Mason from Parent Promoted Foundation this morning.  Paul is leading the monumental struggle of Barnes, Mortlake and East Sheen parents, trying to establish a school in the area that meets children's needs.  The thing I like best about this movement of ours is meeting people like Paul who are real social innovators, fighting to create a world I for one, want to live in.  Parents should be able to run schools, certainly where local authorities have failed; they couldn't do a worse job. In fact, I think they could do an excellent one. Paul told me the Foundation have the backing of 2000 local parents, impressive. He and I worked over possible models, related initiaitives and where social enterprise fitsin - all good stuff. 

I think this growing development in education (exemplified by the work CfBT commisioned SEL to do on social enterprises delivering extended services in schools) is unstoppable. Clearly the existing system needs an injection of responsibility, commitment and enthusiasm.  All qualities you get in spades from people like Paul, working to improve the community for people like me and my family. watch this space for our up and coming conference on this.

This afternoon my lovely board met.  The SEL Board is a meeting place for many of the UK's leading social entrepreneurs, chaired ably today by Sophi Tranchell MD of Divine Chocolate.  During the discussions we learnt from Carmel McConnell of Magic Breakfast about a great deal they've done with Quaker Oats whose packaging now carries a 5p per pack funding commitment to Magic Breakfast, Carmel's social enterprise that currently feeds over 3000 children a day who arrive at London schools too hungry to learn. So go out and buy Quaker Oats people!

Off to a reception for Southwark Leaders now, no rest for the wicked.