‘Big Society’ and Social Enterprise?
Posted on 20 July 2010
By Kevin Maton, Network Director, Social Enterprise West Midlands
Where are the key hooks for social enterprise from David Cameron’s speech launching his Government’s ‘Big Society’ idea?
The speech set out in general how he wants to emphasise the need for active citizens to grasp the opportunities his Government is committed to delivering and creating a Big Society which he said;
Is where people …don’t always turn to officials, local authorities or central government for answers to the problems they face …but instead feel both free and powerful enough to help themselves and their own communities.
It’s about people setting up great new schools. Businesses helping people getting trained for work. Charities working to rehabilitate offenders.
Already the social enterprise movement is gearing up to assisting a whole range of individuals to better access working opportunities but we believe that is most effective where that workplace is one that is experiencing the very real pressures of a business.
A workplace where there is a commitment to utilising profits to better assist and meet the needs of those disadvantaged in the labour market. Those leaving prison are an example of such a group. Whilst charities have a key role in providing help to a whole range of people in need, they rarely are able to provide a workplace environment that will provide a realistic experience for those looking to get into work and this is where social enterprises can play a key role.
In explaining how this Big Society is to be created Mr Cameron went on:
Of course, there is no one lever we can pull to create the Big Society in our country.
And we shouldn’t be naïve enough to think that if the government rolls back and does less, then miraculously society will spring up and do more.
The truth is that we need a government that actually helps to build up the Big Society.
There is here, a recognition that Government – at all levels – has a role to play in facilitating a shift towards a different pattern of service delivery and enterprise in the country. It also means that there has to be cash and other investment in that process.
The rule of this government should be this:
If it unleashes community engagement – we should do it.
The test would be therefore that Government financing and support should be tied to a demonstration that the investment will assist in the expansion of community delivery and enterprise. Without the opportunity for investment it is unlikely that there can be a step change in the contribution that local level community organisations and social enterprises can make to Big Society. It will be a failure of the idea if big private sector companies are the main beneficiaries or national charitable organisations run from remote HQs parachute their solutions into neighbourhoods, supplanting the smaller scale local community initiatives.
So David Cameron went on to identify the three big strands of the Big Society agenda.
First, social action.
The success of the Big Society will depend on the daily decisions of millions of people – on them giving their time, effort, even money, to causes around them.
So government cannot remain neutral on that – it must foster and support a new culture of voluntarism, philanthropy, social action.
Whilst nobody would wish to reduce opportunities for volunteering, such volunteers cannot be a replacement for employees delivering services and products as part of their paid for work. Volunteers need to be properly supported and trained and seen as a top-up to core service provision. Care homes, post offices, libraries and many of the other ideas proposed by the promoters of the Big Society cannot be staffed solely by volunteers and run effectively. They can be run as social enterprises accountable to their local communities and then they become a very attractive proposition to the volunteers who wants to ensure their effort makes a real contribution to their local area.
Second, public service reform.
We’ve got to get rid of the centralised bureaucracy that wastes money and undermines morale.
And in its place we’ve got give professionals much more freedom, and open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises and private companies so we get more innovation, diversity and responsiveness to public need.
Again its essential that this whole agenda is not converted to a huge opportunity for the big private sector companies like Serco and Capita to rake in the most profitable parts leaving community run social enterprises and others to take on the less attractive and lower value opportunities. But that is what most commentators see as the inevitable consequence of the current arrangement where local authorities and other public bodies are being told to make big cuts in their expenditure right now. It gives no time for local enterprises to develop consortia and increase their capacity to deliver local services on behalf of their communities.
And third, community empowerment.
We need to create communities with oomph – neighbourhoods who are in charge of their own destiny, who feel if they club together and get involved they can shape the world around them.
And finally lets not be so naïve as to believe that community empowerment is automatically creates a single agreed solution or way forward. Empowering individuals and groups and communities means also finding ways to resolve differences. The launch of the Big Society has seen suggestions such as community-led power generation through wind turbines for example. Already a controversial area and not one where the controversy disappears just because more people have been ‘empowered’ to be involved in decisions!
If these are the three strands of the Big Society agenda, there are also three techniques we must use to galvanise them.
First, decentralisation.
We must push power away from central government to local government – and we shouldn’t stop there….. to communities, to neighbourhoods and individuals.
The track-record on devolving power is already being undermined by the number of areas being retained at national level following the abolition of regional organisations such as the Regional Development Agencies. However this will be a really interesting area to examine the detail over the coming months. As I said above, just empowering different groups of people does not mean that you resolve some of the conflicts that will arise.
Second, transparency.
It goes without saying, if we want people to play a bigger part in our society, we need to give them the information.
Information is important but that requires mechanisms for the collection and dissemination of data and many of the organisations in a position to provide this service are having their budgets cut or are being abolished!
Third, providing finance.
We believe in paying public service providers by results. It encourages value for money and innovation at the same time. But the potential problem is that you can lock smaller organisations out, because they don’t have access to start-up capital. So government has a crucial role to play in bridging the gap – and indeed, more widely, in connecting private capital to investment in social projects.
We have already said we will create a Big Society Bank to help finance social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups through intermediaries. And I can announce today that it will be established using every penny of dormant bank and building society account money allocated to England.
Making resources available for investment is crucial but our experience has shown how important it is that there is grant funding available for feasibility and planning of that investment otherwise you will not attract the social enterprises and other community organisations into taking out the loans for that investment.
Finally, Mr. Cameron touched on the powers that social enterprise and others will be looking to have in order to deliver ‘Big Society’.
When I go up and down the country and speak to council leaders, social entrepreneurs and local activists it’s clear to me that there is a real hunger out there to do more – to take on more responsibility and have more control. So I ask them: ‘what powers do you want? What more do you want to be able to do?’
It’s by asking those questions that you arrive at so many of this coalition’s most transformative ideas.
New powers for local communities to take over the running of parks, libraries and post offices. More powers to plan the look, size, shape and feel of housing developments. Powers to generate their own energy and have beat meetings to hold police to account. These ideas signal the most radical shift in power from central government to neighbourhoods.
Throughout David Cameron’s presentation the assumption was that Big Society is a really obvious idea and a ‘good thing’. But the list above demonstrates the areas where there could be real barriers to local communities delivering. They will require support and advice , business expertise, investment finance and help with governance structures. I hope that the existing sources of such support will be recognised and enhanced by Government otherwise it is going to be very difficult to deliver the ‘Big Society’ vision that the Prime minister has set out.
So like many announcements over the last few months (including those abolishing organisations) there is still a great deal of detail to be provided before we have a proper picture of how the push towards the ‘Big Society’ will impact upon us. The key message is that if there is a community centred approach being followed, social enterprise can deliver in ways that meet this wider vision for the country. But it cannot be delivered without substantial investment in skills, training and infrastructure otherwise I can see Big Society will be just about Big Profits for the usual suspects.