Social Enterprise Bill Progresses
Posted on 19 November 2010
Written by Kevin Maton, SEWM Network Director
Today has been a landmark day. Over the past weeks we have been promoting the private members bill entitled ‘Public services (social enterprise and social value)’ being put forward by Chris White MP (Conservative member for Leamington Spa). Just to remind everyone, the Bill attempts to put a duty on commissioners and procurement officers across public services to take into account added social, environmental and economic value, when assessing tenders to deliver goods and services. Local authorities will also be asked to develop a strategic approach to support the social enterprise sector.
Myself and colleagues from SEWM met with Chris to discuss how we could help support his Bill and his parliamentary assistant, Andrew O’Brien outlined the Bill at our last SEWM Network meeting in October. We promoted the Bill in our publications and on the website and asked you to contact your local MPs explaining the positive benefits of social enterprise and how the Bill would assist further development of the sector. All of that hard work has culminated in today’s result that the Bill has progressed to the committee stage – an outstanding achievement.
It is down to the hard work undertaken by SEWM members alongside that of social enterprises across the country with a clear focus from the Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) that both the government and the opposition have supported this Bill.
It also showed in the quality of the debate in Parliament. I followed the debate online and was impressed by the commitment of MPs that were supporting the Bill, referring to the excellent work being undertaken by social enterprises in their constituencies. As well as Chris White, the sector received strong support from Harriett Baldwin MP (West Worcestershire) during the debate.
The staff at SEWM take great pride in the work that has been done to support Chris White in promoting the Bill and of how the social enterprise movement and our friends in the community, voluntary and charity sectors have also supported this work.
I would also like to congratulate social enterprises and supporters of the sector across the West Midlands. Yesterday (Social Enterprise Day) we had wide media coverage around the sectors ability to help save public services. The story has made it into publications such as the Coventry Telegraph and Birmingham Post and a number of on-line news providers. More coverage we hope will follow. Also we were able to take the argument for social enterprise onto BBC WM and BBC Stoke explaining what social enterprise was and how it could assist in maintaining services at a time when the public sector is seeing budgets shrink. A big thank you to all who helped set up these opportunities.
Having said that I was not best pleased to be ready at 7am yesterday to make the case on BBC Coventry and Warwickshire along with Hugh from the local Leisure Trust only to find we were bumped off to make way for a news story (allegedly) about the M6 Catthorpe Interchange. Their loss!
We know that there were many events yesterday and thank you again to all our members who opened their doors to promote the message of the value of the social enterprise model. Already we are getting great feedback about yesterday’s events.
We need to continue to argue the case for social enterprise, not just with MPs but also with local authorities, Local Enterprise Partnerships and other public bodies. SEWM and our partners will be promoting social enterprise in communities and with independent agencies and private sector businesses with an interest in working this way – the dialogue and exchange of information and ideas must continue. In the West Midlands, SEWM will continue to working to ensure that the momentum is not lost.
In the meantime, please feel free to send your thanks to Chris White MP for his sterling work [email protected] and also to Hazel Blears MP [email protected] who worked hard to get opposition support.
Any additional feedback you have had or comments you want to make, please contact me so we can continue to reflect the needs of the sector as we approach what is likely to be a tough 2011 but a year with great opportunities for social enterprise.
Thanks for the comment. There are two key elements to the issue. As you correctly identify, these bodies are going to have to imaginatively approach the delivery of a service witth a much greater understanding of the value and cost of provision along with the commercial opportunities that may arise. So I have said, much like Sub-Post Offices have often become much more than just a PO, providing additional paid for services, libraries could follow a similar approach. However, I recognise that you cannot simply wave a magic wand and these changes will occur. So the second issue is that a whole package of support and encouragement, including the opportunity to develop new skills, wil need to be available if these changes are to take place.
I believe that Social enterprises, by their very nature, are ideally suited to serve the community so here is an opportunity to widen their focus to take on services that may fall victim of the public sector spending cuts.
Social Enterprise business models ensure they are focused on both quality, delivery and meeting the needs of the local area but, and I stress this time and time again, SEs are businesses. And often, people with a commitment to their community and delivery of services to help sustain those communities, will need assistance in making the transition into running a businesses, albeit one with a commitment to more than profit and community governance.
Well done Kevin on your call to arms! But I am concerned that public sector employees and council tax payers reading your comments may infer that Se is a magic bullet solution which will leave the existing service intact just by changing stakeholders. Assuming their revenues come from local authorities at present (e.g. libraries) this is going to reduce or disappear. So one way or another all these services are going to have to completely and imaginatively reinvent themselves if they are going to fully recover their capital and running costs and be sustainable. We need to change the rhetoric to focus on what services are really needed rather than protecting the services we can no longer afford.