2012 Victory Parade: A celebration of faith, commitment and funding`

Today, I was at a meeting at the RSA just as Team GB's Victory Parade went by. I didn't want to miss out on the opportunity and so waited for the floats with Jaume Martorell, Network and Communications Manager at the Transition Institute, which is now based at the RSA and is right on the route of the parade. Jaume is from Spain where parades are a common occurrence, I told him that on the whole, we were not a big parading nation and this spectacle was unusual for us reserved Brits.

The atmosphere was very jolly with people smiling, cheering and waving flags. I fell into conversation with an delightful older lady jammed next to me by the crowd. After apologising for getting me in the eye with her flag, she told me how much she had enjoyed every moment of the Olympics and Paralympics, that she had gone to see both and thought they were 'wonderful'. It seems that few have missed out on the spirit of 2012 and, for those of us lucky enough to go to the Games, it has been magical.

My role right from the very beginning of winning the bid had been to work with the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office, then headed up by Ed Miliband, to ensure as many social enterprises as possible were able to contribute to the building, running and legacy of the Games. For social enterprise advocates, our starting point back in 2009 was the vision of the Social Enterprise Square Mile and for us this has turned out to have been a successful Games, with social enterprises like HCT providing transport on the site, Catering to Order supplying food to the construction workers and Clarity the soaps and detergents, both of which provide employment to the visually impaired. At the time, Ed had been really fired up by the Olympics and was extraordinarily supportive, using his influence to persuade key folk like the then mayor, Ken Livingstone, to give me the time to explain why social enterprise was so on message for 2012.

My gold medalist, John Charles, a great social entrepreneur

I thought today, as I watched the Paralympians, about inspiring social entrepreneurs like John Charles the extraordinary CEO of Catering to Order who set up the company after losing his sight at 18. For him, their success would perhaps be less surprising as he knows only too well what those challenged by disability – with the right support, guts and determination – can achieve. Not content with being a profoundly visually impaired, most of John's employees have similar difficulties and yet Catering to Order is commercial all the way. Now that deserves a gold medal.

Truly the greatest show on earth

Our family trip to the Olympic Village was in August when we went to see the men's hockey, something the kids will never forget. Joe, our 16-year-old, was particular thrilled as he is captain of his hockey team and was voted player of the year at the end of last season. It was an extraordinary atmosphere, hard to quite pick up on the TV and the Olympic Park was every bit as impressive and inspiring as you dared hope it might be. During a break in one of the matches, we even bumped into one of Joe's schoolmates, a fellow hockey team player and his family, so incredibly the Games left us feeling connected to our community even though they were evidently global.

As we left the Olympic Village we walked past the Aquatic Centre, which is now being managed by GLL, a great social enterprise that beat all other bidders in a highly competitive process to win this most prestigious 2012 legacy management contract. SEL, in our role as social enterprise ambassadors to the Games, supported its bid and I personally made representation to the legacy committee on its behalf, explaining the advantage of social enterprise in terms of its sustained commitment to local employment, community engagement rather than shareholders. So many victories made possible by vision and commitment.

Today, as the athletes went by, those of us on the pavement shouted our salutations and in turn many of them mouthed thank you to the crowd, including Victoria Pendlelton, Mighty Mo and Lee Pearson, which I thought was touching. They too seemed a little caught off guard by events. It's not in our nature, we Brits, to go over the top about things, but their achievement has given us all something to shout about. It is heartening to witness what can be done when faith and hard work are met with investment, something for us all to take away with and ponder.

@Samscycle4StreetChildSierraLeone sets off!

At 7.45am this morning, Sam's Cycle 4 Sierra Leone got started. The whole family turned out to wave them off, armed with a fabulous banner painted by SEL staffers Mei Hui and Surbhi Bahl. Thank you ladies, the banner gave the lads a right Royal Jubilee send-off, which was only slightly marred by a to-do between Sam and me. Sam was just desperate to get going and I wanted some photographs to mark the occasion so we won't be using any footage from the video mounted on hubby's bike as I believe I threatened to kick Sam down the street if he didn't stand still for the shot above.

Katie and I are staying at home to sort the car out, update the journey blog and pick up some supplies for our brave cyclists, although they already have some super snacks on board in the form of homemade meatballs supplied by lovely new neighbour Laura. We will then be joining the lads en route on the first leg to Brighton, which is a steady start of 60 miles.

Give the boys a boost and please sponsor them, they only need a few pounds to break through the £2,000 mark. To do that go to Sam's Just Giving page here. 

Can co-operation save the nation in 2012?

2012 is the United Nations International Year of the Co-operatives which might not sound where the party is at, but trust me, it is. More timely even than the Olympics, this celebration comes just as the world has woken up – hungover – wearing an 'Absolute capitalism corrupts absolutely' T-shirt.

With this in mind, I have just read a stunning piece from my friend and fellow Transition Institute board member, Ed Mayo. Ed is Secretary General of Co-operatives UK and so you would expect him to defend the art of the co-operator but this article, 'Making life more meaningful', explains in lyrical tones why the nature of society is truly defined by the principles of mutual and not exclusive gain.

I am a fan of New Year’s resolutions for the same reason that I like going to church sometimes, even though I’m not even a teensy bit religious. I participate in these things because I think symbolism is essential to a thoughtful, constructive and therefore successful life. Moments of reflection and the idea that people can set the direction of their own moral compasses is an idea I try to share, especially with our children.

So, my NYR is to spend 2012 looking for and hanging on to the things that are really important, not just to me, but everyone.

2012 is going to be a year when we will be celebrating excellence in competitive sport through the spirit of the Olympics, which is founded on the philosophy of co-operation, of bringing nations together, sharing the language of sport and celebrating in one another’s successes, not just our own.

This year is also going to see some big changes for social enterprise and SEL. To ensure the year ends well for all concerned, I am going to spend 2012 asking myself the big question: what really matters here?

That is why I love Ed’s take on a meaningful life, because he asks us to think about the true nature of wealth creation: what is it for? Through co-operation, he shows us how we can generate financial profit that acts for the benefit of all, not just a few greedy buggers in their steely towers. He dispels the urban myth that competitive behaviour is the driving force of a successful society and points to the £9.4 billion created last year by employee-owned businesses and £16.1 billion from those owned by their customers. Instead Ed offers us a vision of a global village where feast is not followed by famine because those that have accept the benefit of sharing with those who do not, who in turn remember this when they are called upon for support. In Ed’s world what goes around, comes around.

That's the kind of world I want to live in too, which is why being part of co-operative social enterprise really helps me to look and look again about what really matters.

I think 2012 will see a growing numbers of wealth-creating businesses that share ownership and profit proving Gordon Gekko was wrong. Like King Lear and Fred the Shred, these figures of tragedy demonstrate that the cult of self has only one sorry end, ironic eh? So I say roll on a year of co-operating.

Commissioning of social enterprises affected by cuts

Social enterprises working in the public sector are losing out under cuts, undermining the hope that public policy changes would lead to more contracts, says Allison Ogden-Newton As seen in today's Guardian Public

Public sector cuts are having a detrimental impact on many social enterprises. That's the finding of a report out today from Social Enterprise London, the organisation which I head. Is social enterprise hiring or firing? suggests that the public sector is failing to sustain, let alone increase, levels of contracting to social enterprise with 68% of the 74 respondents reporting public sector cuts had negatively affected them.

Talking to social entrepreneurs every day, I know many are having a difficult time. So I was not surprised to find that growth is rare at the moment and those working with the public sector are finding things really tough. It now seems that the hope we had that changes in public policy would lead to increased public sector contracts was optimistic.

Our survey contrasts with that of Social Enterprise UK's recent Fightback Britain report (based on a look at 200 organisations) that depicts significant progress for social enterprises, which it found had grown faster than mainstream SMEs since 2009, whereas we're seeing a more alarming picture of redundancy and limited public sector commissioning. Although I can't fully explain the divergence, it could come from the particular public sector focus of our report, which led to feedback that there was less contracting and commissioning "as clients are less sure of their budgets and more competition for each contract."

Commissioning came in for particular criticism, with 66% saying they found it more difficult. We read comments like "local commissioners don't know what they are buying," and "if our local authority doesn't hand over contracts soon, there won't be anyone to hand contracts to."

Acting as a valued partner the public sector represents a vital market for social enterprise where many have built businesses around innovative services delivered through statutory contracts. A quarter of respondents confirmed that they had made redundancies this year while the remaining 75% were worried job losses were on the horizon. It seems the symbiotic relationship has stalled, at least for now.

Given localism and efficiency are the two pillars of the coalition government's vision for the future of public services, and social enterprises have such a strong track record in delivering both, these findings are disappointing. Nearly half (44%) of respondents reported losing contracts and, in trying to work out whether size was a factor, it seems social enterprises employing between 25 and 49 employees were most affected; in this group, 3.5% reported a decline.

It was not all bad news, however, a little over half said that they thought that the big society agenda remained an opportunity, although 11% said they didn't know what it was. We had plenty of feedback like: "I see big society as offering a platform for our non-profit organisations to thrive and grow. This is good for the community."

But perhaps the harsh new reality and the inveterate tenacity of social entrepreneurs was most accurately reflected in this comment: "I think 2012-13 will be harder as the full impact of cuts in local authorities take effect. But there might possibly be some opportunities around spot purchasing."

Is there time to talk about social impact?

Colin Crooks, CEO at Green-Works, trading for planet and people

I know, there's a war on, services are being cut and the decline in public sector budgets has only just begun. So is there really time to talk about social impact? Well I think there has never been a better time and was chuffed to see a piece in Wednesday's Financial Times that seemed to agree with me, "Tracking social impact catches up with resource issues" by Rod Newing.

In his piece, Rod mentions a study called "The Consequences of Mandatory Corporate Sustainability Reporting" by Ioannis Ioannou at the London Business School and George Serafeim at the Harvard Business School, which examined the effect of mandatory reporting on several measures of socially responsible management practices in 58 countries.

The authors of the report found that "reporting increases the social responsibility of business leaders; raises the priority of employee training; improves corporate governance; reduces bribery and corruption and increases managerial credibility".

A really interesting comment in the piece was by Teresa Fogleberg, Deputy Chief Executive at Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) who told us, "social issues are running five years behind environmental ones," because it seems that while the corporate world and governments have accepted the need to carry out environmental impact assessments, they are less convinced about the efficacy of social impact assessment.

Why is this when there is so much to be achieved by really getting to grips with social impact, not least real cost reduction? If, for instance, you carry out a social impact study of primary schools where you would say, add not just Sats results, so much in the news of late, but also admission policy, social and ethnic diversity and academic distance travelled for children, then you start to get a real picture of how that school is performing in its socioeconomic setting and decisions about where to target limited resource suddenly become much easier. Social impact assessments do so much more than league tables, and in social enterprise the work we have done for members has directly helped them win more business.

SEL's very experienced in this regard. We've trained countless social enterprises and other organisations in the measuring and recording of their social and environmental impact - it's a field we know well and the demand for consultancy is ever growing. But what's absolutely clear is that in order to make it work organisations need to embed good measurement practice as early as possible into the organisation and/or project, rather than regard impact measurement as a retrospective activity, to be done once a piece of work is complete.

The wonderful SEL member, Green-Works a social enterprise that "trades for planet and people" was also featured in the article. Green-Works is paid to take away old office furniture that it refurbishes and sells. It invests any profit in training hard-to-employ people such as ex-prisoners, the homeless and long-term unemployed. Colin Crooks, its CEO, said, "Every pound we take produces £1.55 in social and environmental benefits, including only a small amount of carbon." All the indicators it uses to assess its social impact are external, as in their return-to-work ratio, the reduction in reoffending etc and, in this way, it knows it saves £5,000 per annum for the state per employee.

This is clever and, although not the stuff of sound bites, it is vital if we are to prioritise investment and ensure the deepest, longest lasting social and environmental returns.

Jobs are what they want

Image of Jobs from http://159.121.4.211/learning/liblearning21/resource/job_search.jpg via the Web

I wanted to share with you an email I received recently from Gavin Ramsey who now works for inspiring SEL member, Four Corners, London's centre for film and photography. Gavin's message underlines what I have been saying about the Future Jobs Fund: how for many it got them into jobs they wanted and why its equivalent replacement in social enterprise is desperately needed.

Hello Allison,

I hope you don't mind me emailing you but I just wanted to say that I very much enjoyed your piece on the Guardian social enterprise network with regard to the Future Jobs Fund.

As an obvious benefactor of the scheme I was saddened to see it cut and would like to offer my support in any way I can in your campaign to see a replacement.

With very best wishes

GavinGavin Ramsey
Gallery and Marketing Coordinator

Part-Time: Wednesday - Fridayfourcorners

Getting "whizzy" about public services

There are two things we need to do to dig our way out of recession, one is spend less but the other is make more. It often occurs to me that whilst most of my time is taken up deliberating over the first part of that equation very little is spent on the latter. Yet social enterprises are manufacturing, against the odds, and some like Divine chocolate are breaking into International markets where the big gains for the UK economy need to be made. This is important stuff and although a demonstration against unfair International trade agreements or the effects of the rapacious money markets on those who trade Internationally is unlikely to need policing, these issues should be of consuming interest to all of us.

What does resonate is the effect of spending cuts on public services. On Tuesday I was speaking at a Guardian newspaper event for the public sector and following Lord Wei for what must be the third time in recent weeks. We exchanged a laugh about that and although Nat had to go as soon as he had done his bit on Big Society, he has since contacted me to set up a meeting for a more in-depth conversation. I will be able to report on SEL member's views and experience around the Big Society, if any of you have specific observations or issues you want me to raise please let me know. It was a good debate with some great contributions from such respected bodies as the National College and recorded for Radio 4 to be broadcast on January 8th. I hope my views are represented in the round. Whilst I think the need for a new narrative on Big Society and its role in the public sector is pressing, talk of volunteering in that context is particularly unhelpful, the central message of empowering staff and consumers to work together to redesign services and deliver them as independent providers is timely and one we can build on.

On Thursday I participated in one of the most interesting meetings I've ever been to. Our hosts were NESTA and the subject was the future of public services and routes that will maximise social value. Contributions from the Innovation Unit, the Office for Public Management, Local Partnerships the fabulous Paul Corrigan dubbed "the quiet revolutionary" by the Guardian, Ben Lucas Director of 2020 Public Services Trust and NESTA led to some electric brainstorming and some really nifty ideas or "whizzy" as Paul had it. More, much more on that later.