Getting in the mood

I knew it was December 1 today as dawn found me furiously hunting for a Santa hat. My daughter, Katie is singing carols with her class at the O2 tonight and I was informed solemnly this morning that ‘everyone else would be wearing a Santa hat, but don’t worry, it doesn’t matter’. My working mother’s guilt went into overdrive as I tore the house apart, finding no hat. I rang friends and neighbours, they had no hat, and finally I went shopping. I was aghast, and disproportionately grateful to find our local party shop open at 8.30am. I fell through the doors, told the shop keeper I loved her (alarming her I think) and bought three Santa hats, later informing the school receptionist that the others were for any class mates who might have parents that also missed the Santa hat memo.

Like every working parent I know, keeping up with school correspondence is a real challenge. Like every working mother I know, they are a source of constant guilt. I have had dozens of emails in the last week from the children’s schools, scouts and brownie associations asking for donations, preparation time and time on the day for their respective Christmas fairs (interestingly my husband gets none of these despite me making sure they have his email address as well.) I do what I can, making cakes at midnight and bagging up tat, and I heartily congratulate those who do so much more. However each and every email does serve to remind me that not everyone is living their lives at break neck speed. An odd, but curiously comforting thought.

Still I love life in the fast lane so social enterprise is a good place to be. Things are always shifting as we work away at the coal face of social change. Talking of change, I recently heard on the grapevine that there are key folk interested in changing the term social enterprise to social business, which is what the Japanese call it. Given the time and effort we have taken to build the brand of social enterprise, I think this could set us back. We need to focus resources on cranking up the social enterprise profile and fighting the corner of social entrepreneurs who are feeling the heat of cut backs, cut-throat markets and competitive contract tenders. Besides, I’m not sure 'social businesspreneur' would catch on???

The position of social enterprise, as we become more successful, will get more adversarial. So hang on to your Santa hats folks. Sadly we have unions like Unite and Unison producing anti-social enterprise leaflets; we have people like Peter Jones from Dragons Den talking about social entrepreneurs as a bad credit risk as if that were a matter of fact (I gave a rather blunt interview to a reporter yesterday on my public challenge to Peter Jones at the British Library when he made that unhelpful comment) and we have some voluntary sector leaders questioning social enterprise as either privatisation by the back door, or voluntary sector organisations masquerading as social enterprises to unfairly compete for funding. Make your mind up.

My job and SEL’s is to address these misconceptions and promote the real stories that are improving society through business.

To this end I met yesterday with Gerry Walsh and Mike Cornelius respective heads of procurement for LOCOG and the Olympic Delivery Authority. They were resolutely optimistic about the chances of social enterprises delivering some of the final £1.3 billion pounds worth of 2012 contracts. They both urged me to encourage SEL members to register on the procurement vehicle Compete For, and Gerry in particular highlighted transport as the next big opportunity. Such was their enthusiasm we concluded the meeting with an agreement to hold a joint event bringing them together with interested social enterprises. I am hoping the Cabinet Office will agree and if we do manage to get their support I will be in touch to let folk know when that is going to happen. Obviously given the timing of events, the sooner the better, so watch this space.

I relentlessly sell social enterprises, a part of my job I relish, made easier by the existence of wonderful organisations like the City of London Migraine Centre where I got life changing treatment for my migraines. Having suffered since my teens I had no idea how effectively migraines can be treated by the world class experts at the clinic. So when disaster struck on Saturday and I had one of my rare aura migraines that temporarily rob me of peripheral vision, I was able to take medication that restored me to the extent, that Katie and I made the rather lovely Gingerbread house below.

The result of the O-N's gingerbread house construction project. Kevin McLeod would be impressed.

"It’s too early" I hear you cry. Let me defend myself. It was a rotten afternoon, I was housebound and the pile of sweets I had bought to make the gingerbread house was fast disappearing into the mouths of short ghosts. Lastly I am a firm believer in prior planning and not leaving anything to the last minute. It is because of this that I am able to feign composure when our family and friends invade by the legion over the festive period.

Anyway I am a self confessed Christmas junkie and love the whole thing, more is more in my book so Ho Ho Ho to all you Grinches. For those of you getting in the mood but too busy to get to the shops I have posted some links to Christmas shopping sites in the right hand column (scroll up!). Let me know what you think.

Finally I urge you all to get out there and buy your Divine Chocolate advent calendars. It’s not too late!!!

Burnham's bad hair day and Bob's demise

My friend Julie came over this weekend and offered me some top tips for my blog. As she is the International Editor of the UK’s favourite celebrity magazine I thought I’d pay attention. She loved the personal stuff, thought the politics were interesting, if a little long (sorry) and said I needed more photos – what do you think? All comments welcome!

I caught a good radio piece on Saturday, arguing that women are losing out on the top city jobs during the recession. This reflects conversations I have had recently with leading ladies within the third sector where we have noticed that several big jobs for which we know outstanding women who have applied, have concluded with the appointment of less obviously qualified men. I am sure the chaps gave outstanding performances but I can't help but wonder why the scarcity of jobs is appearing to lead to the boys competing more successfully? Are we being peremptory? Time will tell, but as we head into what could be the whitest, most male dominated parliament in a generation I don’t think the third sector can sit on its laurels.

This weekend, catching up with reading, I read the Guardian interview with Shirley Williams. She’s a woman I admire. I loved her frank admission that she is always late. I am an offender in that department, much to my husband’s frustration. In my case it comes of having absolutely no sense of time and in trying to do too much. I thought her take on the politics of globalization was spot on; as was her characterisation of a UK unable and unwilling to see itself as part of Europe never mind a wider world; and it was interesting that she confessed that she had been reticent to fight for the leadership in either the Labour Party or the SDP because she was awed by senior male colleagues. She now regrets thinking she wasn’t good enough. I wonder how many women end up saying the same thing. Sadly too many, I suspect.

Monday failed to get out of the stalls as Sam’s chesty bug meant he was too ill to go to school. Chris and I drew straws, as we do whenever the children are sick, and I stayed at home. Sam and I watched the new Star Trek movie which was absolutely fab whilst I kept up with emails, which were dominated by the kerfuffle Acevo (where I am Deputy Chair) leaders are having with Health Secretary, Andy Burnham.

The background is that in September Mr Burnham surprised us all by reversing government policy, in a speech where he announced that the NHS would only consider outsourcing services if they were in difficulty and no public sector provider could be found. This flew in the face of everything government had encouraged social enterprise to do since 2005. It also had the effect of making only the unions happy. The line the papers took (Guardian yesterday, Times today) is that Labour is capitulating to the unions because they are bank rolling their election campaign. I’m not so sure. Fundamentally the search for quality and competative price in the NHS is an unstoppable one, as is the creation of a new generation of public service employees who either work for themselves or private companies. The government knows this, they have been supportive about the move and nothing else has come out since Burnham’s speech, so in my opinion they must simply have been having a bad hair day!

As for the unions, namely Unite and Unison, they think they don’t want social enterprises touching the NHS because the alternative is a status quo. It isn’t. The choice is the third sector or the private sector. Standing still isn’t an option and so far no party spokesperson (with the exception of Andy Burnham) has said it is. I have a Masters in Industrial Relations and I was a union FTO (Full Time Official) both here and in the US for nearly 5 years and it grieves me to find myself in opposition to the labour movement. I firmly believe in employee representation, I have got very cold on a number of picket lines outside garment factories in Kentucky and Pennsylvania, for instance, and I know what I am talking about when I say that social enterprise offers employees as strong a voice as any other organisational model, including that of the public sector, and in no way precludes trade union representation. On the contrary, we welcome it.

Bob - post attack

Shock , horror. Whilst looking after Sam my East Sheen allotment neighbour Ben called to say my site had been vandalised (above). Bob, our handmade and rather beautiful scarecrow, had been pummelled and knocked to the ground and the contents of my shed, including next year’s seeds (I hope it isn’t an omen), had been thrown in the water butt. Poor Bob. I wonder what goes through a person’s head when they are beating up a scarecrow?!

I loved Grumpy Old Women on the Beeb last night. They scoffed at the idea of working mothers “having it all” which I wasn’t so keen on, but then the wonderful Germaine Greer, patron saint of Women with Attitude, told us that the only thing women have all of, is all the work. Love it. India Knight lamented the war between working mothers and so-called stay at home mothers, which I too feel sad about. I think it comes from the natural tendency of women to feel guilty and inadequate. It’s a total waste of energy. I think we should unite against our detractors and defend the right of all women to choose their own paths. I just hope more of us crunch the gravel to top jobs.

Talking of hair, for those who've asked, my hair, post straightening, has perked. After 3 long days looking like the Pardoner in The Canterbury Tales, with hair as “smoothe as a strike of flex” (for which read lank), I’ve now returned to something approaching normality- a blessed relief!

Just when I thought the energy around social enterprise had reached a high, things are hotting up. David Cameron in his Hugo Young Lecture on Monday night and Tessa Jowell, Minister for the Cabinet Office yesterday have said their parties will make social enterprise central to the very core of future Government service delivery.

Labour plans to encourage mutuals like Central Surrey Health and Sunderland Home Care Associates as replicable models, whilst the Tories intend a broader commitment to encouraging community groups to take control of key services. Labour refer to a ‘John Lewis’ style public service, with employee control at the heart.

All very encouraging; I have little doubt for example that had postal workers been owner employees of the Post Office this autumn, the strikes which crippled and conceivably destroyed our national postal service would never have happened.

However, many of these ideas still need to be worked through. Andrew Lansley, the Shadow Health Secretary, has also been discussing the idea of an “easyCouncil” as in a no frills service along the lines of EasyJet airlines. It’s worth noting that John Lewis is a social enterprise, and EasyJet not; at EasyJet the employees are certainly not in charge, and arguably the model would fall down if they were.

We know social enterprises can thrive when they work directly for Government, for example with leisure trusts, which now outrank the private sector in terms of their market share of public leisure service delivery. In that space we have market leaders like GLL big enough to compete to manage the Aquatic Centre at the 2012 Games.

But of course not everyone likes social enterprise. It appears some people really hate it. Unite leaders have been particularly busy lately publishing pamphlets trying to frighten workers with talk of social enterprise as the ‘Trojan Horse’, privatisation through the back door and the possibility of City style pay and bonuses for executives. This nonsense culminated at the end of last week with a printed ‘report’ that highlighting the salaries of some Third Sector leaders. My mum always warned me about the dangers of launching missiles from inside the green-house; with a combined salary and benefits deal of £308,374 the joint General Secretaries of Unite, Derek Simpson and Tony Woodley should keep schtum in my opinion.

Actually when I read the Unite piece, I wonder if I was alone in thinking how poorly paid some of the CEO’s of some of the largest Third Sector bodies are. These organisations are highly complex with large turnovers, numerous staff, and important work with society’s most vulnerable people. Top jobs calling for top people, private sector comparisons are ridiculous and mischievous, no one is getting mortgage relief, and there is no bonus culture.

Social enterprise can do much to turn this sorry state of affairs into an opportunity. We can help people think about new and better ways of working. After years of targets and micromanagement we can offer people the hope of self determination and an ability to be creative in their work again. But we are not about exploitation, services on the cheap or privatisation through the back door. I was delighted that ACEVO CEO Stephen Bubb questioned David Cameron on Monday, on whether the Tories plans for the Third sector meant services on the cheap. Cameron said no, let's hope he meant it.

Social entrepreneurs need time and investment to build our capacity. We need Government departments to recognise where more research and investment needs to be made. This means following through on the long awaited review of the national economic development strategy, as public spending is analysed and rationalised they will need strategies to replace the current delivery modes, and with the right support and investment the third sector can really deliver.

I have nearly 1900 members all chomping at the bit to roll their sleeves up and get stuck in. Yes we need investment; you can’t expect social entrepreneurs to remortgage their houses (Although sadly some of them do) to finance companies they do not own, in order to deliver public services. The local bond is an interesting idea; for sure the tax breaks Government are looking at are long overdue, as is the Social Investment Bank, which will invest our vast reserves of unclaimed banking assets into social and community initiatives.

We need good, fair contracts that acknowledge the extraordinary social impact of social enterprises, like sterilisation products from the social enterprise Clarity, and we need unions that work with us, acknowledging that many of the people who set up and work in social enterprises are existing or potential union members, and many social enterprises.

I believe much of the hostility towards social enterprise is generated by confusion over whether it represents a John Lewis or EasyJet. Social Enterprise is the former, and with more research and further working through of policy, this will become very clear. Human beings aren’t good at change and there is a boat load of it on its way. In such situations so-called early adopters are the ones that thrive, and I know of no other community than mine with so many early adopters in its ranks. Public services run as employee owned mutuals will be the public services of the future, and it’s a future I want to be part of.