Localism Bill and the Right to Buy

By Kevin Maton, Network Director, Social Enterprise West Midlands

Just one part of the Localism Bill that has received a great deal of positive comment and got community development organisations all excited is the Right to Buy.  I have long supported the proposals championed by the Development Trust Association and others for Asset Transfer policies within the public sector. This allows community bodies and trusts to run public sector buildings that are surplus to requirements. This is on the basis that they will be transferred at a value that better reflects their public service heritage and the community they will be put to use. Making them available for a community organisation to buy at full market value is not an Asset Transfer!

Now the Localism Bill is suggesting that communities may be able to exercise a ‘right to buy’ with regard to assets in private hands that the community wants to retain.  However, my years of experience would suggest great caution in seeing what the current Bill offers in a very positive light.  Much more detailed work is necessary. Why? Well here is an example.

A pub or small workshops in private hands is up for sale. Valued by the community, they are on a local list as needing to be offered to the community to buy first. These buildings are regarded by their owners as redundant in terms of their current use and they will expect to sell them for the market value of the land. That is almost certainly going to be for private housing value. But the community wants to retain and run them in their current state – as a community hub and resource centre in the former pub or start up enterprise centre in the workshops. If they had to pay an inflated housing land value for the pub or workshops they are unlikely to be viable projects. Is the private owner going to forego the maximum value of the site and allow it to be sold at its current use value as a redundant pub or workshops?

In my experience such buildings have a habit of catching fire or the bulldozers appear and it is the same result. In most cases people can demolish their buildings without permission so there would have to be additional legislation to protect buildings on an asset list.

This is just one example but this is typical of much of the legislation coming from Government – many of the issues have not been sufficiently thought through and major details have to be developed before this legislation is going to be useful to communities looking to set up projects and social enterprises in local buildings.  It is a bit like those major software companies that released beta versions of their products and left the public to discover the faults at great inconvenience.

Social Enterprise Bill Progresses

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 chris.white.mp@parliament.uk  and also to Hazel Blears MP hazel.blears.mp@parliament.uk  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.

Achieving our social aims in a better way

Guest blog: Birgit Kehrer, Change Kitchen

I had a really stimulating time at the Social Enterprise West Midlands Summer School here in Leamington Spa and I learned lots of invaluable insights into issues of leadership, social enterprise collaboration, and many other things. The sessions were fantastic in helping to clear lots of issues in my head and give me ideas on how to develop as a director of ChangeKitchen CIC to make the enterprise even more successful and therefore achieving our social aims in a better way.

I met many interesting and great leaders at this Summer School and feel very happy to be part of a sector with so many inspirational and committed people and organisations.

The most inspirational points – which gave me a real buzz – for me where the two different talks by Peter Holbrook; one very funny  after dinner speech and a more serious one on the second day, plus a good chat at the bar. I am encouraged and inspired that the Peter is new(ish) CEO of the Social Enterprise Coalition, as I feel he is a passionate leader with fresh ideas and a strong belief and commitment to social justice .

Peter is a great role model for leadership for me, so thank you for organising this, SEWM and thanks Peter, for sharing your vision. I feel even more positive about the future of the SE sector as a whole after Peter’s talk this morning and am excited to be part of it.

Inspiration, networking, collaboration..

Guest blog: Rosalyn Clare, Striding Out

The summer school has been a mad rush of inspiration, networking, collaboration, challenge and excellent coffee.

Oliver Nyumbu (Caret) delivered a year’s worth of thought provoking material. Mark Ellerby from Think Venue inspired with quick response to a need for third sector venues to offer their meeting places in a coordinated way.

Breakout groups were a quick fire round of sharing experiences and rising to the challenges of the Big Society agenda.

Recommended!

Learning can be fun

Guest blog: Charles Rapson, Colebridge Trust

Social Enterprise Summer School 2010 is a highly informative and useful couple of days learning things that will be very useful and making connections that could be even more useful. Plus a few laughs along the way.

Reflections on the Summer School

Guest Blog: Margaret Bull, Workforward CIC 

The Summer School event exceeded my expectations with inspirational presentations and examples of new ways to connect and energise the sector. Seminar discussions provided the perfect forum to exchange information, learn from others and share own experiences. A very interesting and most productive two days.

Thank you to everyone at SEWM.

Inspirational Leadership: An Approach to Leading Change

Guest blog: Oliver Nymbhu, Chief Executive, Caret

It is good to be at the SEWM two-day Summer School in Leamington Spa.  I was asked to give an opening talk on Good to Great and Leading Change.  The framework I chose to use (Inspirational Leadership Framework) was one created by Caret on the basis of work it did with the DTI as was. 

The framework comprises of a range of elements:

• Future – creating a clear and compelling picture of a future better than today.
• Ideas to Action – developing and using a disciplined approach to implementation of the vision and its practical priorities.
• Engagement – having the sustained discipline to enthuse and engage people (in and outside the organisation) crucial to the successful implementation of the organisation’s chosen strategy.
• Values and Behaviour – requiring leaders to identify, articulate and demonstrably live by the values and principles they espouse.

Participants worked on these qualities of inspirational leadership and applied them to areas of change they were seeking to bring about in their businesses.  It is important to emphasise that the above qualities work more like a smoothie than a car engine where different parts of the engine can exist and function alone.

A new approach to Welfare to Work

From public sector commissioning to the world of the prime contractor.

I attended an event yesterday promoted by one of the major private sector companies bidding to become one of the prime contractors for the new Welfare to Work (W2W) programmes.

Many will know that the Government is ending the different streams of provision for JSA, ESA and IB claimants – so no more New Deal, Flexible New Deal, Pathways to Work etc. – these are to be replaced by The Work Programme (WP).

The presentation starkly illustrated that, organisations used to a steady stream of public sector finance to help people without work get into jobs, face a revolution in both funding and organisation. And that means those not engaged in the ‘new world’ of the Work Programme, will quickly find they will no longer be resourced to undertake their core activities.

The Government hopes to have the new programme up and running in 2011 and prime contractors have submitted their bids to undertake WP work. Most will be effectively supply chain/contract managers with delivery left to sub-contractors.

However, the nature of the new WP is that it is very focussed on getting people into a job, a job that needs to be sustained for years not months with the financial payments for successful outcomes coming possibly a year or two after the initial work readiness training and job placement work.

Prime contractors are unlikely to expect providers to carry those delayed costs. It is recognised that many social enterprise and V&CS providers do not have the reserves to fund activity a year or two before being paid. So prime contractors will be seeking multi-million pound loans from the banks to fund this activity. This raises a number of issues.

Banks at the moment are not renowned for being willing to lend unless they are convinced about the credit worthiness of the organisations they are lending to and the likelihood of them being successful in generating income. This means that it’s likely that only the very big players with significant reserves will be winning these prime contractor roles. So local providers will need to be working with the likes of SERCO, esg. Capita and ingeus. There is no LSC, GOWM or AWM to consider running worklessness programmes – they will come through one of these big prime contractors. The presentation stressed their role as being about strategic direction, increasing capacity and raising performance. These were all functions that to a greater or lesser extent were undertaken by public bodies. These functions will now be taken on by bank-funded prime contractors.

Clearly, the new WP means prime contractors will be taking on significant financial risks and so will want to ensure that this risk is well rewarded and that they maximise the opportunity to generate payments through successful outcomes. They will be very firm in their management of local providers ensuring they have robust client management, finance and quality systems in place – focussed or placing clients in jobs and maintaining that employment for a period of years.

However, the presenters yesterday recognised the steep task facing anyone dealing with worklessness agenda in the West Midlands. The region has around 240,000 people on IB and three out of five people out of work have no qualifications.

Prime contractors will need delivery organisations that can tackle these issues and, crucially, that will include social enterprise organisations. SEWM has already put out a call to the sector to send us details of social enterprises interested in this area of work because we want to encourage organisations that can deliver services for WP clients to be ready to respond to the new programme. The prime contractor bidder yesterday is already setting up a network of potential providers. How are our local social enterprises responding to that offer?

This will be a topic for SEWM’s Network Meeting on the 13 October at ASAN in Wolverhampton. I want to hear from any social enterprises already involved in the WP or those that are looking to take part but are unclear about how to proceed. Email me if you have any comments (k.maton@socialenterprisewm.org.uk) or come along to our network meeting next month where there will be the opportunity to discuss these and other issues affecting social enterprise in the Region.

‘Be inspired’ jobs fair

 

Yesterday the SEWM team had a busy day at ’Be inspired’  the Jobcentre Plus jobs fair. The event took place in Birmingham and was attended by over 5,000 people.  We were there to introduce people to social enterprise as an option for business start-up but also to encourage more people to apply for jobs in the sector. 

Our jobs corner, carrying vacancies sent to us by SEWM members, was busy all day.  For many of the job seekers we met, social enterprise was a completely new concept, but we were also pleasantly surprised to meet people already involved in the sector and looking for more support.  

Thanks to our colleagues at Jobcentre Plus, who are embracing social enterprise with such enthusiasm, there were several social enterprise employers represented - Health Exchange CIC, Fifty50, Enta CIC, Change Kitchen, and Merlin Venture to name a few.   

If we met you yesterday - thank you for looking us up again.  Here is a list of all the Social Enterprise Jobs we promoted along with an introductory leaflet on social enterprise and sources of free business advice in your area.  For more information, please also take a look at the Social Enterprise? and Help & Advice sections of our website.

Good luck with whatever you decide to do. We’d love to hear how you’re getting on.

Identifying partnership opportunities for social enterprises in the West Midlands

The National Offender Management Service (NOMS) want to work more closely with social enterprises as providers of services to them. In order for this to happen, NOMS need to know more about social enterprises in this region, particularly the size of the potential market for business with them. As an example of the opportunities emerging for social enterprises, the Ministry of Justice has commissioned organisations to prepare bids to provide ‘Pathways into Employment’ type programmes for (ex) offenders. Social enterprises are in a strong position to act as deliverers of these services, sub-contracted to the organisations that emerge as the successful contractor for this region. We want to be able to identify and link social enterprises to these contractors at an early stage. If you have an existing service or programme or have an idea for one that you believe will assist NOMS to achieve their objectives, we want you to let us know about it by completing this Proforma.

This is not an invitation to pitch an idea for funding, rather an opportunity to make yourself and your service known to SEWM so we can assist NOMS and/or other partners to develop their understanding of potential social enterprise suppliers.

If you have any questions please call Kevin Maton, SEWM Network Director on 024 7663 3911 ext 109 or email: k.maton@socialenterprisewm.org.uk