Make it a verb, not a noun

Being socially enterprising matters most, not whether your organisation is or isn’t a social enterprise

By Rob Greenland

It’s clear that the Coalition Government wants the Big Society to be its legacy. Gone are the days of Big Government. In its place, Big Society will ensure that the UK is a fairer, happier place in which to live. And, of course, it will cost a lot less money to keep it that way.

At least that’s what they tell us. But what’s to say that a social enterprise will do a better job than the state? And does outsourcing (it may be slightly cuddlier outsourcing, but it’s still outsourcing) save real money – or does it just create costs elsewhere in the system?

I’ve worked with people setting up social enterprises for the past ten years. I know that when entrepreneurial energy is mixed with a clear social mission, exciting things can happen. There are good examples of where social enterprises deliver better services than those once delivered by the state.

Take Bulky Bobs. Run by the FRC Group, Bulky Bobs deals with bulky household waste in Liverpool. It’s taken what was once a problem – because of rising landfill costs and the social blight of flytipping – and found ways to create social value.

Bulky Bobs also gives long-term unemployed people real jobs. The company takes decent sofas and wardrobes and sells them to people on low incomes. The result? Less waste goes to landfill and, most importantly for Liverpool council taxpayers, it delivers a good, responsive service, at a competitive price to the public purse. If you need someone to collect your old sofa, you can rely on Bulky Bobs to do the job. And if you don’t believe me, have a look at the company’s social accounts on its website.

Sandwell Community Caring Trust (SCCT) is a social enterprise that provides care to adults and young people. Founded in 1997, it soon realised that if it were to offer better care to people, it had to care better for its staff. So it works really hard at ensuring that its employees are happy in their jobs – in particular giving them as much autonomy as possible in their day-to-day work.

The level of staff absenteeism show what a difference this can make. Last year, absenteeism was one day per employee per year. For their local authority counterparts, it was three weeks. Think about the difference this can make to the quality of service – not to mention the cost of delivery.

So we need more organisations like Bulky Bobs and SCCT, right? The simple answer is clearly “yes”. But the reality of delivery is slightly more complicated than the policy. SCCT and Bulky Bobs are well-established organisations. I don’t know them well enough to comment in any detail, but I bet they’ve spent years making mistakes and making it up as they went along. They are successful and effective today largely because of this history. The fact that they are “not-for-profit” is clearly important – but I would argue that it’s not their defining success factor. They are good businesses that have clear social missions and that re-invest their profits. But they are good businesses first and foremost.

We should remember this as we try to encourage more social enterprises to deliver services. It is naïve to suggest that transferring ownership of, and responsibility for services to mutual organisations will magically transform the service in question. For starters, a service is only as good as the service specification. If procurement processes are too brittle to encourage socially entrepreneurial approaches, then there is a danger that we are left with the same quality of service, but with an extra layer of complication, as the social enterprise tries to manage its relationship with the state.

Similarly, it is unfair to expect a social enterprise to enjoy immediate success, in markets where there may have been years of underperformance. While I do believe that a good business, run entrepreneurially and with a social mission at its heart can do great things, I’m also clear that it can take time (and money) for that to happen. And in case you’ve not noticed, there isn’t a great deal of money around at the moment. The public may become increasingly impatient for better services – particularly if the big promise from the Government is that the Big Society is going to deliver those improvements. This doesn’t feel like a benign marketplace in which to innovate.

My son, Frank, starts school in September, just as I started school in the early months of the Thatcher government. How will his future be shaped by the years of austerity that lie ahead? I worry for him, as the decisions that this government takes with regards to how public services are delivered (DIY schools anyone?) will have a big impact on him. I’m clear that social enterprise has a role to play in ensuring that he grows up in a prosperous, fair society. But where I perhaps differ from the Government is that I see social enterprise as a verb not a noun. Being socially enterprising is what matters most, not whether your organisation is or isn’t a social enterprise. And, to be frank, being socially enterprising is far too important to be left to social enterprises alone.

To find out more about this article, visit: http://www.thesocialbusiness.co.uk/blog/

28 May 2010

Rob Greenland. Founder of The Social Business,