The perils and delights of public service delivery

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Public service delivery: those three words dominate the third sector’s relationship with government at present. Contracts to deliver education or health services (etc) clearly bring great opportunities for organisations, be they small community groups, or substantial social enterprises. But, in the manner of a swift SWOT analysis (or an OT analysis), contracts also bring threats or challenges.

Third Sector magazine’s supplement this week features "10 Ways to Better Contracts":

1) Make sure partnerships are beneficial to both parties
2) Share project risks fairly
3) Agree a reasonable timescale
4) Insist on full cost recovery
5) Make sure the bureaucracy is manageable
6) Agree only to projects that fit your mission statement
7) Highlight the added value you can provide
8) Maintain autonomy
9) Clarify staff roles
10) Monitor project progress

Later on they lay out a further six principles to help organisations on their way in this area. These are:

a) Know where to look
b) Full cost recovery
c) Use your charitable status to your advantage
d) Don’t feel intimidated
e) Know your limitations
f) Understand employment law

Some of these clearly align (4 and b, 7 and c, 3/5 and e) but I think they give a useful overview. Key ones from our experience both as an organisation, and helping others founding/running their organisations, are 5 and 6. The bureaucracy, particularly for smaller organisations, should not be underestimated, and can prove a significant administrative burden; partnership can ADD to these layers of bureaucracy as well. Avoiding mission drift is key: the temptation is always there to bend to fit contracts, which can skew or twist your core service and the way it is delivered. It can also take an organisation into areas where it has less expertise and experience. Being clear about where your expertise lies, and what parts of a contract (or method of approach) are most relevant to your organisation can lead to fruitful negotiations at the start of the process, rather than down the line.

Partnership is an interesting one as well: it can help form a coalition of parties whose skills and experience mesh well together, and provide smaller organisations with the ability to tender for bigger contracts than they could on their own. Successful partnerships should clearly add value, reduce unnecessary duplication and broaden reach (as we would argue our franchise system does for the SSE Network). But their are also significant risks: unclear governance, muddled purpose, blurred accountability, time-heavy meetings/administration, compatibility issues, dilution of activities and so on.

There’s much else to say here, and I would point people to ACEVO’s Full Cost Recovery site, NCVO’s work on the Compact and public services, and SEC’s pamphlets on public procurement for more useful information.

 

Events in the sector – June/July 2006

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OK, quick round-up of some conferences/events coming up that might be of interest:

– first up, for those of an academic learning, the 3rd Social Enterprise Research Conference is taking place at London South Bank University on the 22nd-23rd June; see the list of papers here

– on the same day, the 23rd, Community Links are hosting the Living Values conference, at which their report on values in the sector (aiming to "encourage boldness") will be launched; should be an interesting and timely event, and you can read a snippet from the report (pdf) via their website

– Social Firms Annual Conference, snappily titled ‘Shaping the Future: Supportive Employment, Successful Businesses", is on June 26th at my alma mater, Warwick University

– and, finally, the CICs – One Year On event is being held on July 10th; it promises to both celebrate and debate a year of the Community Interest Company…

If you have the time to go to them all, you’re clearly not working hard enough ;0)

The Acumen Fund (Fellows)

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One blog worth keeping an eye on is the Acumen Fund blog, which is, somewhat unsurprisingly, the blog of the US-based Acumen Fund. It’s a non-profit global venture fund that aims to use "entrepreneurial approaches to solve the problems of global poverty", with a particular focus on health, water and housing.

Most recently, they have announced the first Acumen Fellows, and are introducing them with fuller portraits over the coming weeks. The Fellows programme is centred round the concept that "The world needs to build an ‘entrepreneurial bench’ of top talent with strong financial and operational skills, as well as the moral imagination to build appropriate enterprises with local stakeholders".

Putting aside the interesting concept of an ‘entrepreneurial bench’ for one moment (I’m assuming this is a sporting metaphor for having a good squad of skilled players….), it’s quite an interesting approach. An eight week intensive training course in New York before a 9-month project which they manage and deliver. Though the blurb does come across as these being investment/project managers for the Acumen Fund, they might fit in our ever-broader definition of social entrepreneurs. The missing element (from an SSE point of view) might be that of personal identification/engagement with the project, and, therefore, ‘real’ ownership of that project….but in terms of giving people appropriate skills and confidence and knowledge to go on to achieve things, there’s considerable alignment.

The Past, Present and Future of Social Entrepreneurship

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How delightful it is to forget that you’ve signed up to a newsletter, and then receive something hugely apposite and useful in your inbox.

Such was my experience this morning reading the latest e-correspondence from CASE (the Centre [or Center] for Advancement of Social Entrepreneurship at Duke University) in the States. Too much to mention in detail, but you can access the whole newsletter here.

Most interesting to me was the interview with Greg Dees, probably the longest-serving and most influential of those studying and researching social entrepreneurship in an academic sense. The interview, which is titled ‘The Past, Present and Future of Social Entrepreneurship’ inevitably has a US leaning, but is hugely relevant to UK matters as well. Take this, for example, on the issues of defining ‘social entrepreneur’:

"Well, we’re going to continue to encounter some disagreement, because the term “social entrepreneur” is relatively new and evolving, but disagreement is not the same
as confusion. People get frustrated because there is no uniform
and unanimous definition, but keep in mind that even the term “entrepreneur”
has no one definition that’s accepted by all the people who
study it. And it has been around for hundreds of years. Some people
think that anyone who starts a business is an entrepreneur. Others
who follow Joseph Schumpeter think you have to be an innovator who
is changing the patterns of production. Some focus only on high-growth, major-impact entrepreneurs; others focus on anyone who starts any
venture. This has not inhibited the growth of entrepreneurship in practice or as a field of study. As long as we understand the spirit
of the term, we can move forward constructively. And I say this
as someone who has tried to define the term in a way that would
appeal to a broad audience.
            

My own feeling is that “social entrepreneur” conveys
the idea of somebody who is highly energized and determined to achieve
impact; who perceives opportunities; who pursues them in an innovative
and resourceful way; who is not bound or stuck by sector boundaries
but willing to use whatever tools are likely to get the job done, including business tools. My feeling is that entrepreneurship lies
in behavior: how innovative and resourceful people are, their willingness
to do what it takes to have the impact, and their determination
to make it happen. This kind of behavior can happen in many venues
and on many levels, on a small or a large scale.

Some people seem to want to restrict the term “social entrepreneur” to those who meet the strict criteria that their organizations use to decide on some major award, fellowship, or grant. To me, this
is like restricting the term “author” to people who
get a major literary prize. I think it would be great for this movement
to embrace social entrepreneurship in neighborhoods, communities, and schools, not just on a national or international scale. A couple
of weeks ago, I spoke with some high school kids in Louisville who
were exhibiting all the behaviors I associate with social entrepreneurship,
but focused on recycling in the local community. They would not
get an Ashoka fellowship, a Skoll Foundation award, membership in
the Schwab Foundation network, or funding from New Profit, but I still see them as social entrepreneurs. I think our movement is
enriched, not diluted, by opening the doors. We should embrace and
encourage social entrepreneurship of different forms, degrees, and
levels."

Excuse the length of quotation, but it struck me as so resonant and relevant both to our work and the social entrepreneurship (and social enterprise) sector in the UK, that it was warranted. Read the original piece for more nuggets of wisdom….

Guardian entrepreneurs

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Another piece in the Guardian on Saturday about social entrepreneurs, one of which is current SSE student (soon to be Fellow) Simon Fenton-Jones (see StreetShine.com). SSE gets a mention but, as is legendarily the case with the Grauniad, they got our name wrong (+ reduced our scope), so we became "London’s School for Social Enterprise", rather than the UK’s School for Social Entrepreneurs.

Hey ho. Fortunately, we are the top result in Google for ‘School for Social Enterprise’ as well, so hopefully those who are interested will find us….

The omnipresent David Cameron also provides his support for social entrepreneurship in the latter half of the article.