Tag Archives: big society

Big society, Cuts, Third sector, Uncategorized

A post-cuts third sector; where business and back office are as vital as compassion

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Shaks Ghosh
Shaks Ghosh, chief executive, Private Equity Foundation

By Shaks Ghosh

“A hard road, leading to a better future, is how Chancellor George Osborne spoke of the journey ahead of us in yesterday’s Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR).

All I know for certain is that it’s already been a bumpy ride for charities, many more of which, it’s now been estimated, receive public money than previously thought. The Third Sector Research Centre believes that some 35% of organisations (rather than between a fifth and a quarter) get statutory funding and of those, 23,000, or 14%, regard it as their most vital source of income.

In the youth sector alone, the magazine Children & Young People Now, has found that of more than 130 charities, 82% are already being forced to cut youth projects because of funding shortages.

And, even with the very welcome one-year, £100 million transition fund announced yesterday to help voluntary sector groups adjust to new public spending budgets, it is going to get tougher. Think tank New Philanthropy Capital (NPC) warned on Monday that these government funded charities are approaching a “maelstrom”. It expects the sector’s income to drop by between £3.2bn and £5.1bn.

So that’s just some of the bad news. But there is good news too as we peer into the gaping chasm of what Shadow Chancellor, Alan Johnson, has called “the deepest cuts to public spending in living memory”.

Along with the transition fund, there’s £470 million over the next four years to build the capacity of the voluntary sector to deliver the Big Society.

I don’t know what this expanded delivery role will actually mean, the devil will be in the detail, but the CSR adds that it will “look to set proportions of specific services that should be delivered by non-state providers including voluntary groups.”

Could this support amount to enough of a lifeline? Possibly, but only if we are really bold and act now! During the economic down-turn last year, the Charity Commission found that only 32% of charities surveyed had taken steps to limit the impact of the recession, with just 14% reducing costs.

An ostrich mentality isn’t going to help. And I don’t say that lightly. I’ve felt that pain. As a charity chief executive, I’ve had to lose staff on occasions when the funding didn’t materialise.

What my last few years at a venture philanthropy fund have taught me is the importance for charities to concentrate on their ‘back office’ as much as their compassion.

It won’t be for everyone, as charities are driven by much more complex ‘bottom lines’ than pure profit and there will be a learning curve, but there’s much to gain from partnership with business. The Private Equity Foundation (PEF) has organised some 15,000 hours of pro bono support for its portfolio charities so I’ve seen first-hand how powerful it can be. In some cases, we’ve worked with charities which have managed the move away from substantial government funding to more sustainable models, while others have achieved huge growth in impact.

Which leads me to better measurement and evaluation. Only the demonstration of effectiveness will ensure support, as government tenders and pays for more services by results and funders choose between a deluge of ‘asks’.

It’s not measurement for measurement’s sake; evaluation can also help create a virtuous circle as organisations scrutinise the data to see where they can improve outcomes. It will become a vital tool, in what’s likely to become a ‘race for quality’ and more foundations should be prepared to pay for it.

Funding from the public and philanthropists cannot plug the hole left by government cuts. But, I believe that business does have a huge contribution to make in safeguarding the sector and I will be doing everything humanly possible to bring more of its money and skills to charities in the coming years.

Big society, Third sector, Uncategorized

C.S.R Westminster – firm but unfair

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Has anyone rung the equality police? For all the 70 or so mentions of ‘fair’ and ‘fairness’ in today’s comprehensive spending review (CSR), it’s the old, the infirm and the disabled who are caught in the eye of the storm. An estimated £7bn will be saved thanks to welfare cuts as well as a 60% reduction in the affordable housing budget and a 26% drop in local government funding. Changes to Employment Support Allowance and Disability Living Allowance, which effectively limit the use of such benefits, are plain nasty.

George Osborne might think he’s aiming at dole-bludgers, benefit-scroungers and fraudsters, but instead his firing range includes wheelchair-users, the learning disabled and the elderly.

As Richard Hawkes, chief executive of disability charity Scope, said today, it’s an assault on the most vulnerable “characterised by the callous removal of the mobility component of Disability Living Allowance for people living in residential care, which will simply increase dependency and mean many people will literally become prisoners in their own homes.”

Today’s CSR will have a huge and adverse impact on the vulnerable who rely on statutory services, leaving the community and third sector to pick up the slack. The big society concept could sweep in and save the day, casting out the necessary safety net for the vulnerable suddenly bereft of support, but there’s a snag; such charities and community groups are already suffering from under-funding and increased demand for services. Oops.

“Tough but fair” would be the three word George Osbourne would doubtless choose when summarising his CSR. Shadow chancellor Alan Johnson might go for “Dave’s Deficit Deceivers”. Mine: firm, but unfair.

Here’s a selection of some more three-word verdicts, thanks for the contributions so far – add by replying to this post or email me:

Kids comprehensively kicked – children’s charity Railway Children
Housing’s body blow – Sarah Webb, chief executive, Chartered Institute of Housing
Homes, what homes? – Kate Murray, journalist and The Social Issue guest blogger
George’s horrible medicine – Kate Murray
Poor get poorer – John Adams, general secretary, Voluntary Sector Disabilty Group
Expect eagle eye – Helen Donohoe, director of public policy at charity Action for Children
Ouch that hurts – Graham Faulkner, chief executive, National Society for Epilepsy
Time to re-think – Mike Stevenson, owner of social business Thinktastic

Thanks to Bill Mumford, managing director of the charity MacIntyre and chairman of VODG, who has pointed out one potential positive – the introduction of Individual Budgets (IB) for children with special educational needs (SEN) which could help create more flexibie short breaks for them and families and with transition.
Bill’s three-word verdict is an acronym (but we’ll allow it): S.E.N. I.B’s: F.A.B.

Big society, Local government, media & communication, Uncategorized

New York, LA, Gravesend; Kent gets its own US-style big society phone app

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Freelance journalist Kate Murray
Gravesend doesn’t have too many claims to fame, aside perhaps from being the place where Pocohontas is buried and the former home of Bond girl Gemma Arterton. It never makes the national headlines – unless it’s for recording record high temperatures in a heatwave. And before any Gravesendians out there start to protest, I think I’m allowed to say that as I was brought up in the town.

So imagine my delight when I saw my old home had scored a UK first by launching an application to report anti-social behaviour on a smartphone. The local authority, Gravesham borough council, announced it was joining New York, Boston, LA and San Francisco in making the ‘City Sourced’ application available to residents.

The app, the council said, would allow townspeople to send in instant reports of graffiti, flytipping or housing repairs, and would allow the authority to streamline its response. Its American supporters are even more effusive: the app, they say, represents the future for residents interacting with government. ‘It’s like having a city official in your pocket,’ said one satisfied LA resident.

Gravesham is the first in the country to use City Sourced but it’s not the only UK authority to engage with new technology in this sort of way. Brighton led the way last year with an app showing local bus times, followed by another one which lists council services and local entertainment. Trafford has an app which allows residents to find their nearest library or leisure centre, or to see what’s on at the weekend as well as to report litter or a missed bin collection. Preston even has one offering residents – and visitors – a ‘blue plaque’ trail of notable local sights.

These initiatives are not always popular in these tough economic times. Critics have accused authorities of wasting money developing applications for perhaps a few hundred iPhone or Blackberry users in their patch. I think the critics are missing the point.

Visiting Gravesend to see my mother on the day after Gravesham’s “Download Day”, I couldn’t resist having a go. I’d already downloaded the Gravesham 24 app and it didn’t take too long for me to find some graffiti that could do with being cleaned up. One quick snap on the camera phone, choose your anti-social behaviour category and press send. The GPS on your iPhone or Blackberry automatically shows the location of the problem and your report whizzes through to a terminal at the council offices to be prioritised and dealt with. You can also use the app to check how action on your complaint is progressing. Filing my report felt strangely satisfying. I might not have have had a council official in my pocket, but I could see why Gravesham had called the app empowering.

We hear a lot about how to promote real engagement between citizens and government. We’re going to hear a lot more about it as the coalition attempts to roll out its big society ambitions. But if the big society is to be about more than just getting volunteers to provide services on the cheap, then it has to have real, effective community engagement at its core.

Too often people feel that there is nothing they can do about the problems in their community. Offering them the chance to interact with government, in however small a way, has to be a good thing. There’s little point asking citizens to do more for you, if you don’t in turn give them fresh routes to get you to do your bit.

Big society, Education, Poverty, Social enterprise, Social exclusion, Uncategorized

The tale of Lion Face: how businesses could help society

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The story of Lion Face puts the big into big society. Seven years ago, the 20-year-old gang member from the barrios of Aragua, Venezuela, mugged a security guard from the nearby Santa Teresa rum distillery and stole his gun. When Santa Teresa’s security boss caught him a week later, Lion Face was given a daring ultimatum by the company’s wealthy owner, Alberto Vollmer.

In a move worthy of modern folklore, Vollmer said Lion Face could work for him for three months without pay, or be handed over to the police. It was a risky proposition, but a week later, Lion Face came back – accompanied by around 20 fellow gang members who also wanted to work. Vollmer agreed and Project Alcatraz, as it’s now called, was born (the name reflects the idea that people’s worst prison is themselves and the challenge is to escape from themselves).

The project aims to reduce delinquency and unemployment and involves gang members in an intensive (and mildly eccentric) three-month work-study programme that include rugby training and community service. On completion, participants choose between a formal job – in the Café Alcatraz programme, for example, they learn how coffee is produced and packaged- or further education, perhaps via the on-site housing construction workshop.

Santa Teresa, a 200-year-old family run company, is some 4,500 miles from Westminster, but given the current debate about the private sector’s role in big society – and if big society includes encouraging something other than statutory services to tackle social problems – the tale of Lion Face is a salutary one.

A rugby match at Project Alcatraz

Since 2003, five gangs have completed the project and been disarmed. Local crime has fallen by 40% and last year Project Alcatraz won best social inclusion project at the Beyond Sport Summit to celebrate sport-led social change in London. Professor James Austin of Harvard Business School’s Social Enterprise Initiative has said of the management of Santa Teresa that “its viability and profitability are dependent not only on its ability to produce a superior product, but also to generate social value for its surrounding community”.

And that’s not all, several years ago Vollmer negotiated with squatters who wanted to take over land on his sprawling estate; the result was the creation of Camino Real, a 60-acre 100-house community built by the squatters themselves and funded with government housing agency mortgages.

While most large UK businesses have corporate social responsibility (CSR) programmes that include employee volunteering schemes and donations to local schools or community projects, the ethos and scale of what’s going on at Santa Teresa is closer to the now extinct philanthropic traditions of Quaker companies (think Cadbury, Rowntree, Frys). Vollmer’s philosophy is quite simply that healthy communities lead to healthier profits. As Vollmer himself has said: “If you have growth and well being in the company but not in the community, then you are dead meat.”

Santa Teresa invests about 2% of its profits in social projects and attracts money from other sources including charitable donors. No mean feat given the years of political and social upheaval under President Hugo Chavez’s divisive regime that has pitted poor against rich.

It’s crude to suggest that Project Alcatraz can be replicated elsewhere; the schemes are as much a product of Venezula’s unique political, social and economic context as they are the result of the single-minded determination and social awareness of Santa Teresa’s owner. The best social businesses owe as much to their visionary and determined leaders as to their watertight business strategies and savvy investors, but the Lion Face story shows what is possible when business puts its money where its manpower is.

On a smaller scale, as discussions at a Tory conference fringe meeting today should reveal, there is some evidence that US-style Business Improvement Districts (BIDS) might help plug the gap left by public sector cuts. BIDS are defined areas within which businesses vote to invest collectively in local improvements (and therefore boost their trading environment). The public-private partnership between the local authority and business are funded by a levy on the business rate charged by the council.

Birmingham, for example, has three BIDs which collectively generate around £2m of private sector investment into city centre public areas each year. Birmingham’s BIDs certainly seem successful, winning national plaudits for their nighttime economy and the cleanliness of the city centre streets. Crime figures in the Broad Street BID area, for example, have been dented since the launch of the scheme, from 1,300 incidents in 2005-6 to 995 in 2008-9 and public satisfaction is high.

However, not all BIDs are proving entirely successful, as Edinburgh has found to its peril. Business organisations might be reluctant to participate thanks to the same economic malaise that is leading their statutory sector counterparts to consider retreating from service delivery.

And, given it’s taken five years to get 100 BIDs up and running around the country, how long it will take for the city centre programmes to make large-scale improvements (more to the point, will it be only a handful of BIDs that go beyond the realm of cleaning pavements, erecting floral displays and installing Christmas lights?). Also, as I remember from reporting about West End BIDS 15 years ago when the schemes were being chewed over by a clutch of the capital’s boroughs, there’s a worry about displacement. If improvements stop at the BID boundary isn’t there a danger of creating a two-tier city centre with a clean core and sweeping (literally, in many cases) the problems to the edge of the BID area?

As the public sector cuts back on delivery and all eyes dart desperately towards the twin panaceas of social enterprise and the voluntary sector to adopt its mantle, businesses and business-led partnerships should wake up to the vested interests they have in their local communities. Maybe that’s something to be championed by the new breed of City mayors recently proposed by Communities and Local Government Secretary Eric Pickles?

The UK has enough Lion Faces. Now what we need are a few more Vollmers.

* A fringe event ‘What role can Business Improvement Districts play in the recovery?’ takes place at 5.45pm today at The Mailbox centre, organised by Birmingham CIty Centre Partnership. Speakers include Bob Neill MP, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government and the Broad Street BID’s Gary Taylor.

Big society, Education, Older people, Social care, Social enterprise, Third sector, Uncategorized

How to ease the care crisis; let granny have a wii (because online octogenarians are very big society)

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A suggestion of boiled cabbage, laced with a faint, medicinal whiff. Magnolia-coloured walls lined with chairs turned towards a television set. And staring at the screen is a sea of blank, wizened faces attached to bodies waiting to die; ah the great British care home.

Just think, if the old dears are lucky, someone might even switch on the telly.

Unless, that is, this is the sort of care home that runs adult learning programmes for the elderly (check out the You Tube film) organised by social enterprise Learning for the Fourth Age (l4a).

At the Aigburth care home in Leicestershire, for example, here is an OAP enthusiastically playing tennis on the Wii, egged on by fellow residents, there is a 90-year-old emailing her great-grandson and everywhere is an attitude that sticks two fingers up at the stereotypical view of old people: “When you get to your 90s you feel you want to keep up with things.. it makes you feel you’re up with the world.”

Now I’m not usually one for Oprah-style outbursts, but even I found it difficult to watch the clip without smashing the air with a ‘You go girl!’ as the web-savyy pensioner tapped out her email.

As well as getting residents online, the care homes involved in l4a schemes run music, foreign language, flower-arranging and art sessions – basically any form of learning that people take an interest in. Because sessions are staffed by volunteers and local young people, the byproduct is community cohesion and intergenerational contact.

The experience of care home residents such as those in Leicester isn’t just a nice story. It could be another piece of the jigsaw when it comes to the crisis in care for the elderly.

Life expectancy is rising and by 2026, the number of people aged 85 and over will double and the number of people aged 100 and over will quadruple. In some 20 years’ time, around 1.7 million more adults will need some sort of care or support. Just last week the global dementia bill was said to be £388bn, according to the World Alzheimers Report. While I’m certainly not suggesting that getting ocotgenarians online will solve the crisis in care or provide the answer to one of modern society’s most pressing health problems, but surely anything that improves quality of life and cuts down healthcare bills is worth exploring further?

Programmes such as those in Leicester, says NIACE (the National Institute for Adult Continuing Education) transforms people. They are more interactive with each other, with the staff and with their families and are on fewer sleeping pills and anti-depressants; a reduction of 50% at one home that’s running adult learning scheme programmes.

Staff also reap rewards. As well as the fact residents are more motivated, they interact with them on a friend rather than carer-patient level. Anecdotally, absenteeism is rare and turnover low.

On the business side, money is saved because there’s less reliance on sleeping pills and anti-depressants – imagine the savings if this was replicated in every care setting in the country.

Politicians and policymakers take note; public finances are in a parlous state but if your granny has a wii, you might have to spend fewer pennies.

* Age UK recently launched a digital manifesto for older people with the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology, the digital media institution. It demands an end to digital illiteracy among the elderly by 2020. The manifesto argues that because the Internet is the public’s primary source of information, being able to surf, blog, or take part in community TV broadcasts not only empowers people but helps breaks the isolation that older people often experience.

Despite the fact that more pensioners have Internet access at home than ever before – almost 40% now compared to 11% 10 years ago – campaigners say it’s vital that older people are not left behind.

FACT says the issue is one of social justice that as it promotes localism and active citizenship.

Sounds like big society to me.