On 19 June, I was at a country fair in a park in Suffolk. At 4.30pm, a horse took fright and bolted with an empty carriage, running full-pelt into a crowd. One person died and eight others were seriously injured. Myself and my little kids missed it all by an hour. A truly horrendous event.
The Nowton Park Country Fair was run by St Edmundsbury Borough Council, which also runs the park. I say this because I felt glad the state was there to deal with this. Yes, it is up to the council to deal properly with the aftermath, to oversee the inquiry and, possibly, to pay out compensation. Imagine if this park had been handed over to a half-ready community group with no real experience in event management.
I have been one of the people hammering away for this park to be given to the community to operate as a charity or social enterprise. I am now not so sure that this was the right idea. In truth, we're not ready.
Let's imagine things had gone my way and the park was now run by a social enterprise, of which I was a trustee. It is quite possible that I would have been sent to face the media or, harder still, a grieving relative. Alternatively, I could have spent the next month of my working life mired in dealings with the Health and Safety Executive.
But I won't be. A man called John at the council is doing all of this. And I am really grateful that John is there to deal with all of this properly, not me. Obviously, these incidents are rare - they can't be used to justify the retention of control of everything by the state. But they put up a flag upon which is written "be careful what you wish for".
Few in Whitehall will have heard about the runaway horse in Bury St Edmunds, but the debate about the big society rumbles on. Tories such as Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's director of strategy, want to bring the big society to life by making it the main thrust of the forthcoming white paper on public service reform.
He wants to see more mutuals, community groups and charities running public services, including parks and playgrounds. Meanwhile, other Tories, many of them outside David Cameron's immediate circle, want a stronger, free-market flavour. Hello Capita, Serco, payment by results and the rest.
Sitting behind the free marketers' view is the idea that the big society can't really be counted on to deliver savings or improvements in public services, a view shared by the trade unions and many in the voluntary sector. Where the right wing of the Tory party differs is in its belief that the private sector can do it better.
As the third sector, we will soon have to decide where to place our support: a vision of public sector reform that puts us at the heart of things, or one that puts the private sector clearly in the driving seat.
Despite the tragedy of the past weekend and it salutary lessons, I know where I am putting my money.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Leading in a New World
Tomorrow evening I am, along with Liam Black of Wavelength, hosting a gathering of leaders of social enterprise spin-outs from the North of England and Scotland.
It's about 'Leading in a New World - and the challenges of running your own ship once liberated from the Big Machine of the public sector. For most of the men and women present, life will have got a lot more interesting since stepping out. But it will also throw up a load of challenges too. Not least of these is how to carry the whole weight of an organisation, often a pretty big one, into unknown new space.
Since stepping down as a CEO, and working alongside new CEOs and MDs I have learned a lot about leadership. The first thing I have realised is that I wasn't as bad a one as I thought. My shortcomings as a CEO were such that, by the end, I didn't actually rate myself that highly. I couldn't do numbers, I got stressed too easily and I couldn't manage process that well. Also, the job sucked me dry of creativity. I left feeling a husk of my former self.
However, watching the best of the leaders I now work with operate, I realised I wasn't so bad after all. For what I lacked in executive skill-set I made up for in other ways. People seemed to trust me. They knew what I was about and felt comfortable with that. Although I had visible weaknesses I didn't try to pretend I didn't and, somehow, this built loyalty and support, rather than disenchantment. And, even at the end, I managed to hang on to some degree of emotional intelligence, even as the organisation became increasingly systems and process-dominated.
Of all the leaders I work closely with now, the two I admire most are also people whose weaknesses are as apparent as their strengths. One of them will be in the room tomorrow, in fact. What I like most about them is that their values radiate from them. And not just their service-values either. Their core beliefs and priorities as human beings are very clear from the moment you speak with them. They have integrity. They show care. They are not just task-centred, but people-centred too.
In their different ways, they both have an energy and warmth which makes them good to work with. Not always easy, but always stimulating. Both are soft-hearted, but can also be very tough if crossed. But you always know where you are with them.
I think what I've learned over the last year, from both my work with Stepping Out and my observations of Suffolk County Council is that the human side of leadership is absolutely critical. It sounds an almost facile thing to say, but, so often, you see CEOs who don't appear to grasp this important truth. They think it's just about the tangible results, the outcomes. Of course it is, but you don't actually achieve these, organisationally, without the commitment which really great leaders embody.
That's where I think Suffolk County Council went wrong. While our leadership, both on the the political and executive side, had great ideas and the right policies (in my view), real, felt, support for what they were doing was, in the end, limited to handful of their own side. They were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aloof, arrogant and focused merely on the task-in-hand, not the people side.
The real challenge when you're leading is that, every day, you have a welter of things bearing down on you. Cross cutting demands. It's solitary work and you often feel low in energy and pre-occupied. You become incredibly pragmatic, at times too much so, because it can cut across your values. Staying the person you are, and the one people need you to be, is, in my view, the principle challenge of leadership for these new CEOs.
It's about 'Leading in a New World - and the challenges of running your own ship once liberated from the Big Machine of the public sector. For most of the men and women present, life will have got a lot more interesting since stepping out. But it will also throw up a load of challenges too. Not least of these is how to carry the whole weight of an organisation, often a pretty big one, into unknown new space.
Since stepping down as a CEO, and working alongside new CEOs and MDs I have learned a lot about leadership. The first thing I have realised is that I wasn't as bad a one as I thought. My shortcomings as a CEO were such that, by the end, I didn't actually rate myself that highly. I couldn't do numbers, I got stressed too easily and I couldn't manage process that well. Also, the job sucked me dry of creativity. I left feeling a husk of my former self.
However, watching the best of the leaders I now work with operate, I realised I wasn't so bad after all. For what I lacked in executive skill-set I made up for in other ways. People seemed to trust me. They knew what I was about and felt comfortable with that. Although I had visible weaknesses I didn't try to pretend I didn't and, somehow, this built loyalty and support, rather than disenchantment. And, even at the end, I managed to hang on to some degree of emotional intelligence, even as the organisation became increasingly systems and process-dominated.
Of all the leaders I work closely with now, the two I admire most are also people whose weaknesses are as apparent as their strengths. One of them will be in the room tomorrow, in fact. What I like most about them is that their values radiate from them. And not just their service-values either. Their core beliefs and priorities as human beings are very clear from the moment you speak with them. They have integrity. They show care. They are not just task-centred, but people-centred too.
In their different ways, they both have an energy and warmth which makes them good to work with. Not always easy, but always stimulating. Both are soft-hearted, but can also be very tough if crossed. But you always know where you are with them.
I think what I've learned over the last year, from both my work with Stepping Out and my observations of Suffolk County Council is that the human side of leadership is absolutely critical. It sounds an almost facile thing to say, but, so often, you see CEOs who don't appear to grasp this important truth. They think it's just about the tangible results, the outcomes. Of course it is, but you don't actually achieve these, organisationally, without the commitment which really great leaders embody.
That's where I think Suffolk County Council went wrong. While our leadership, both on the the political and executive side, had great ideas and the right policies (in my view), real, felt, support for what they were doing was, in the end, limited to handful of their own side. They were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aloof, arrogant and focused merely on the task-in-hand, not the people side.
The real challenge when you're leading is that, every day, you have a welter of things bearing down on you. Cross cutting demands. It's solitary work and you often feel low in energy and pre-occupied. You become incredibly pragmatic, at times too much so, because it can cut across your values. Staying the person you are, and the one people need you to be, is, in my view, the principle challenge of leadership for these new CEOs.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Mission Possible in the Kingdom of Fife
Spent a fascinating day in the 'Kingdom of Fife' last Friday as Chair of 'Mission Possible?', a conference examining the future of public services in Fife. For the unenlightened, Fife sits just north of Edinburgh, on the other side of the Firth of Forth. It contains a mix of legacy mining towns, such as Kirkcaldy and Leven, as well as posher parts such as St Andrews, alma mater of Will n' Kate.
I love going to other countries and getting a feel of their issues. Scotland's are similar to our own but in bold. Public spending is a bigger part of their economy (Fife Council is by far the biggest employer) and levels of business start-up are lower than in England. Coupled to that, Fife has to contend for investment with its better-known neighbours to the south, Glasgow and Edinbugh.
Which sets the scene for Friday's event, convened by 'Fife Partnership', a collaboration of all the public and voluntary sector bodies in the area, all, helpfully, contiguous - and aided by a decent history of working well together. Thanks to devolution, 'local' now matters in Scotland far more than in England, where localism is still in its birth-pangs. Councils like Fife have a general power of competency. It is both felt and appreciated. Indeed, the chances of a Holyrood Minister telling them how often to empty their bins is less up there, for sure.
To the event. It was kicked off by Cllr Peter Grant, the SNP leader of the council. I like the Nats. They have a style of their own which is a mixture of intelligent, pragmatic and modern. They just feel fresher and more vital than the standard-issue Scottish politicians that we are now so used to seeing.
He was followed by a deputy CEO Steve Grimmond, who began his career setting up co-ops in Dundee and, unusually for a senior local government officer, has an acute understanding of the limits of municipalism and the need to view resources as a whole, not just public money to be thrown, from high at society's problems. Steve is the kind of leader I think local government needs - he sees well beyond what is immediately in front of him.
After my speech was the highlight of the event. Occasionally, you stumble across a world-class speaker. One who lifts you, gets inside your brain, pulls out your heart and leaves the stage to prolonged applause.
The person in question was Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. Not a name familiar 'Down South', but an internationally recognised leader in public health. Burns' presentation compressed 40 years of learning into 40 short minutes.
Scots, he told us, do not suffer worse health only because of smoking, above-average drinking and deep-fried Mars Bars. Indeed, control for this and you still find Scots dying and and in poor health in far greater numbers than elsewhere in Europe. What is happening is that massive numbers of people, many young, are out of control, living kamikaze lives which lead, often, to suicide, alcoholism, serious mental illness and death.
Burns takes a decidedly non-medic view of health. He doesn't believe there's these two worlds, one of 'healthy people', the other of unhealthy'. He thinks we all flit in and out of good health all the time. What keeps us on the right side of health is a mixture of our habits, our relationships and our ability to cope with the world around us. People who are resilient can stay healthy more easily as their stress is kept in check and their lives stay in shape. The opposite is true of people whose life experiences have not protected them so that they can cope with life-events.
Scotland, he argues, has a lot of people whose early lives have not afforded them that protection. So they act-out, they become addicts or drunks, commit violent crime or at worst kill themselves. It is a fact that Scotland's suicide and murder rates make some of the rougher parts of London look like a playground.
The answer to Scotland's health problems, therefore, is not a health service based on treatment but a better, more nurturing society in which early care and support, in particular, is improved. The voluntary sector, he believes, has a vital role in developing the kind of supportive relationships which both protect people and reduce their risks to themselves and others.
Burns' quest for understanding led him to study the accounts of younger holocaust survivors. People taken in by strangers and adopted. Nearly 70% experienced extreme trauma as adults, with many experiencing profound mental health problems. But 30% didn't - and it was this 30% which is of interest. This group were those whose positive life-experiences since had afforded them greater protection from their early trauma. Something was protecting these people. It is this that we needed to recreate in our society.
This led to Burns' main point: that we need to take an asset-based view of people in general. Build on what's there, what's already good, not be forever seeking to treat the problem, like a surgeon excising a cancer. Our whole public investment is based on attacking these 'negatives', most of it doesn't work yet we persist. Even when we know other approaches, particularly the asset-based approaches to working with people championed by the voluntary sector are proven to work.
The action didn't stop there. Harry Burns was followed onstage by a leading Scottish police officer called Karyn McCluskey who is Head of Violence for Scotland, following a successful stint in the Met and other English forces. McCluskey, however, is not your standard copper. She trained as a nurse, is also a published academic and has a bit of the Louise Casey about her, in her impassioned, no-nonsense style.
She started by showing CCTV footage of a gang of hooded lads in Glasgow killing a man with a stab wound to the heart, then another of a man being macheted. The purpose was not, however, only to shock. It was to illustrate the limits to policing. She went on to explain how a community-based programme designed to create peer pressure of a different kind - community pressure - was reducing involvement in gangs.
This was heart-stopping stuff. The police work closely with the community on a scheme which brings gang members into close contact with the recently bereaved mother, of the man who will never work again due the 'Glasgow smile' carved by a machete into his face, like some kind of grotesque clown.
While this stuff cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the most damaged, it has a huge effect on many and the 'Gang Amnesty' headed up by Karyn and her team - which offers immediate support- a team to go out - to gang members wanting an alternative, has been a success.
This was turning into the best event I had been to in a long time. And it wasn't over yet. Three local people spoke powerfully of how they had successfully mixed the resources within their communities with those of the state and other sectors and achieved powerful change.
Andrew Arbuckle told of how the community had taken disused brownfield land in his coastal town and created a new space which had transformed the fortunes of the area. Dr Margaret Hannah spoke about the Shine Project which has produced an entirely new form of support for older people, building, again, on their assets, networks and capabilities.
Finally, Josie Mitchell, a long-term resident of 'The Broom', one of the worst estates in Scotland 25 years ago, explained, movingly, how the residents there had formed up a housing association which now runs an estate which is a model of successful regeneration. Their very simple aim, now achieved, was to make the Broom a place where people wanted to come and live, not escape from.
Three golden threads ran through this event, which, by the way, put many of the London-based events I have been to of late to shame in terms of quality. The first was that where the state works successfully alongside people, rather than does-unto them, the results are transformative.
The second is that it is key, in an age of austerity, to create a strategy based on ALL of our assets - public, community, private, and then map these, AS ONE, onto our high level goals.
The third key message is that control and command in general - the modus operandi of most public organisations today, doesn't work and has to change.
That starts with politicians - and it has to start now.
I love going to other countries and getting a feel of their issues. Scotland's are similar to our own but in bold. Public spending is a bigger part of their economy (Fife Council is by far the biggest employer) and levels of business start-up are lower than in England. Coupled to that, Fife has to contend for investment with its better-known neighbours to the south, Glasgow and Edinbugh.
Which sets the scene for Friday's event, convened by 'Fife Partnership', a collaboration of all the public and voluntary sector bodies in the area, all, helpfully, contiguous - and aided by a decent history of working well together. Thanks to devolution, 'local' now matters in Scotland far more than in England, where localism is still in its birth-pangs. Councils like Fife have a general power of competency. It is both felt and appreciated. Indeed, the chances of a Holyrood Minister telling them how often to empty their bins is less up there, for sure.
To the event. It was kicked off by Cllr Peter Grant, the SNP leader of the council. I like the Nats. They have a style of their own which is a mixture of intelligent, pragmatic and modern. They just feel fresher and more vital than the standard-issue Scottish politicians that we are now so used to seeing.
He was followed by a deputy CEO Steve Grimmond, who began his career setting up co-ops in Dundee and, unusually for a senior local government officer, has an acute understanding of the limits of municipalism and the need to view resources as a whole, not just public money to be thrown, from high at society's problems. Steve is the kind of leader I think local government needs - he sees well beyond what is immediately in front of him.
After my speech was the highlight of the event. Occasionally, you stumble across a world-class speaker. One who lifts you, gets inside your brain, pulls out your heart and leaves the stage to prolonged applause.
The person in question was Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. Not a name familiar 'Down South', but an internationally recognised leader in public health. Burns' presentation compressed 40 years of learning into 40 short minutes.
Scots, he told us, do not suffer worse health only because of smoking, above-average drinking and deep-fried Mars Bars. Indeed, control for this and you still find Scots dying and and in poor health in far greater numbers than elsewhere in Europe. What is happening is that massive numbers of people, many young, are out of control, living kamikaze lives which lead, often, to suicide, alcoholism, serious mental illness and death.
Burns takes a decidedly non-medic view of health. He doesn't believe there's these two worlds, one of 'healthy people', the other of unhealthy'. He thinks we all flit in and out of good health all the time. What keeps us on the right side of health is a mixture of our habits, our relationships and our ability to cope with the world around us. People who are resilient can stay healthy more easily as their stress is kept in check and their lives stay in shape. The opposite is true of people whose life experiences have not protected them so that they can cope with life-events.
Scotland, he argues, has a lot of people whose early lives have not afforded them that protection. So they act-out, they become addicts or drunks, commit violent crime or at worst kill themselves. It is a fact that Scotland's suicide and murder rates make some of the rougher parts of London look like a playground.
The answer to Scotland's health problems, therefore, is not a health service based on treatment but a better, more nurturing society in which early care and support, in particular, is improved. The voluntary sector, he believes, has a vital role in developing the kind of supportive relationships which both protect people and reduce their risks to themselves and others.
Burns' quest for understanding led him to study the accounts of younger holocaust survivors. People taken in by strangers and adopted. Nearly 70% experienced extreme trauma as adults, with many experiencing profound mental health problems. But 30% didn't - and it was this 30% which is of interest. This group were those whose positive life-experiences since had afforded them greater protection from their early trauma. Something was protecting these people. It is this that we needed to recreate in our society.
This led to Burns' main point: that we need to take an asset-based view of people in general. Build on what's there, what's already good, not be forever seeking to treat the problem, like a surgeon excising a cancer. Our whole public investment is based on attacking these 'negatives', most of it doesn't work yet we persist. Even when we know other approaches, particularly the asset-based approaches to working with people championed by the voluntary sector are proven to work.
The action didn't stop there. Harry Burns was followed onstage by a leading Scottish police officer called Karyn McCluskey who is Head of Violence for Scotland, following a successful stint in the Met and other English forces. McCluskey, however, is not your standard copper. She trained as a nurse, is also a published academic and has a bit of the Louise Casey about her, in her impassioned, no-nonsense style.
She started by showing CCTV footage of a gang of hooded lads in Glasgow killing a man with a stab wound to the heart, then another of a man being macheted. The purpose was not, however, only to shock. It was to illustrate the limits to policing. She went on to explain how a community-based programme designed to create peer pressure of a different kind - community pressure - was reducing involvement in gangs.
This was heart-stopping stuff. The police work closely with the community on a scheme which brings gang members into close contact with the recently bereaved mother, of the man who will never work again due the 'Glasgow smile' carved by a machete into his face, like some kind of grotesque clown.
While this stuff cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the most damaged, it has a huge effect on many and the 'Gang Amnesty' headed up by Karyn and her team - which offers immediate support- a team to go out - to gang members wanting an alternative, has been a success.
This was turning into the best event I had been to in a long time. And it wasn't over yet. Three local people spoke powerfully of how they had successfully mixed the resources within their communities with those of the state and other sectors and achieved powerful change.
Andrew Arbuckle told of how the community had taken disused brownfield land in his coastal town and created a new space which had transformed the fortunes of the area. Dr Margaret Hannah spoke about the Shine Project which has produced an entirely new form of support for older people, building, again, on their assets, networks and capabilities.
Finally, Josie Mitchell, a long-term resident of 'The Broom', one of the worst estates in Scotland 25 years ago, explained, movingly, how the residents there had formed up a housing association which now runs an estate which is a model of successful regeneration. Their very simple aim, now achieved, was to make the Broom a place where people wanted to come and live, not escape from.
Three golden threads ran through this event, which, by the way, put many of the London-based events I have been to of late to shame in terms of quality. The first was that where the state works successfully alongside people, rather than does-unto them, the results are transformative.
The second is that it is key, in an age of austerity, to create a strategy based on ALL of our assets - public, community, private, and then map these, AS ONE, onto our high level goals.
The third key message is that control and command in general - the modus operandi of most public organisations today, doesn't work and has to change.
That starts with politicians - and it has to start now.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Lobbying On Health
Like many of us I have been adding my voice to the often aptly named cacophony of views on how our health services can be delivered in the future.
The Lib Dems have clearly scored a victory in this debate but I am not necessarily celebrating. While there were big problems and risks in the Lansley reforms-as-were, there was much good too which is now at risk. One of these is the role of non NHS providers, including, if we're not careful, social enterprises. These could be the baby thrown out with the privatisation bathwater.
To this end, I have been lobbying, among others, Norman Lamb, who really understands health and the party to speak with colleagues, particularly their Lordships, who might not be aware of the small miracles being achieved by the Central Surrey Health's and City Partnership Hull's of this world. Achievements any self-respecting Lib Dem should be proud of.
The plain truth of the matter in health and social care is that different parts of the system require different combinations of competition and collaboration. The argument to keep competition out of say, a big city hospital's coronory services in order to be able to deliver a specialism it otherwise couldn't can be matched, just as powerfully, by the case to introduce competition into areas like speech therapy or physio, where only one, often very sloppy, NHS provider, can legally claim public money for its work.
My point here is that different permutations of competition and collaboration, integration and break-up, are required across the system. This point is somewhat lost in the binary discussion in even the intelligent newspapers - and in politics. Their Lordships - who are often above this sort of thing - have been joining in with our own Lord John Pugh sounding off about Stephen Bubb's involvement with third sector capital provider Social Investment Business. This is exactly the kind of nonsense I fear could lead Lib Dem peers to try to kybosh social enterprise health providers too on the grounds that they are are kind of privatised service.
It has been interesting watching this unfold. Cameron is clearly highly sensitive to public opinion and a pragmatist, possibly too much of one. Too many U turns and he'll start to look very weak. Politically the Lib Dems needed to play this one as a win and, for once, seem to have got the politics right after a shocking year.
Lansley, on the other hand, is heading for Northern Ireland, as they used to say.
The Lib Dems have clearly scored a victory in this debate but I am not necessarily celebrating. While there were big problems and risks in the Lansley reforms-as-were, there was much good too which is now at risk. One of these is the role of non NHS providers, including, if we're not careful, social enterprises. These could be the baby thrown out with the privatisation bathwater.
To this end, I have been lobbying, among others, Norman Lamb, who really understands health and the party to speak with colleagues, particularly their Lordships, who might not be aware of the small miracles being achieved by the Central Surrey Health's and City Partnership Hull's of this world. Achievements any self-respecting Lib Dem should be proud of.
The plain truth of the matter in health and social care is that different parts of the system require different combinations of competition and collaboration. The argument to keep competition out of say, a big city hospital's coronory services in order to be able to deliver a specialism it otherwise couldn't can be matched, just as powerfully, by the case to introduce competition into areas like speech therapy or physio, where only one, often very sloppy, NHS provider, can legally claim public money for its work.
My point here is that different permutations of competition and collaboration, integration and break-up, are required across the system. This point is somewhat lost in the binary discussion in even the intelligent newspapers - and in politics. Their Lordships - who are often above this sort of thing - have been joining in with our own Lord John Pugh sounding off about Stephen Bubb's involvement with third sector capital provider Social Investment Business. This is exactly the kind of nonsense I fear could lead Lib Dem peers to try to kybosh social enterprise health providers too on the grounds that they are are kind of privatised service.
It has been interesting watching this unfold. Cameron is clearly highly sensitive to public opinion and a pragmatist, possibly too much of one. Too many U turns and he'll start to look very weak. Politically the Lib Dems needed to play this one as a win and, for once, seem to have got the politics right after a shocking year.
Lansley, on the other hand, is heading for Northern Ireland, as they used to say.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Social Enterprise the Irish Way
Just back from Louisburgh, a place which sounds like it should be in Tennessee or Wyoming but is in fact in Co Mayo, Ireland. It was a 24 hour flying visit to speak to the 2011 Finalist for Social Enterprise Irelands's Social Impact Awards.
What a setting. We flew into Knock, an airport built by a priest on a hilltop so that people could come see the nearby shrine. These days it is the gateway to the remoter towns of the west, for one of which I was headed.
I was picked up by the Cex of SEI, Sean Coughlan and we spent a pleasant hour and a half going over the recent election there followed by the visit of our Queen.
Irish politics, if you haven't noticed, has undergone a seismic shift with the dominant party (Fianna Fail) reduced to 19 seats - which would be the equivalent of Labour or the Tories getting less than 80. For the first time, it seems, old party allegiances have been abandoned in a collective protest against the economic collapse and the cronyism of the Irish state.
This, coupled with the Queen's visit, which is helping put to bed the longstanding issue between the UK and Ireland, make this feel like a time of reappraisal, Sean believes - and I agree.
I have been all over Ireland but never to Mayo, Louisburgh is set among mountains and sea. The weather changes quickly,making it a place of ever-shifting colour, light and shade. It never feels the same for long. The event was at the home of Declan Ryan, one of the founders of Ryanair, who is Chair of Social Enterprise Ireland and the One Foundation, Ireland's biggest social investor.
Declan is an aviation nut who now sets up airlines in emerging countries. Unlike a lot of big business guys, he is very unassuming and is the opposite of the 'Big I Am'. In fact, me being slow, it took me quite a while to work out who he actually was - halfway through a conversation in fact.
The event itself is about selecting from a field of about eight, the three strongest candidates for a significant social investment from the One Foundation, an investment that will enable significant scaling up. I didn't get to talk to everyone but at dinner I had a chance to talk to two candidates at length.
One was Sean Love. A former Director of Amnesty Ireland, Sean has paired up by novelist Roddy Doyle to set up Fighting Words. Staffed mainly by volunteers, it runs free creative writing and storytelling workshops for students of all ages to enhance creative writing skills and build their confidence in writing ability and self-expression.
In just over two years the centre has hosted 13,000 primary school children, 6,000 secondary students and 5,000 adults. Ireland is full of 'name' writers and artists, many of whom, with no accolade, show up and deliver sessions. Sean is heavily oversubsribed and wants to scale the programme.
Another was Krystian Fikert, a young Polish man set up MyMind in 2006, while employed with Google, in response to what he saw as the complicated nature of the Irish mental health system. MyMind provides affordable and accessible mental health services within the community, which aims to bypass the need for clinical referral, long waiting lists and high- cost services through ePsychologist, an innovative online support model.
What struck me about the group, overall, was their quality and energy. It reminded me a bit of that first day of the Ambassador programme when 20 of the UK's best all came together for the first time.
They have their work cut out. Ireland's economy is weak. Problems are growing almost as quickly as the pot is shrinking. These guys will depend on the country's new Government being willing to press the reset button in many areas of public policy - such as mental health, suicide prevention, education and the environment.
Which means taking on vested interests such as unions and the media. Easier in a small country where Ministers and MPs are often a phone call away. But harder, given the scale of mountains to climb.
I decided, after a bit of faffing around to waive my fee for this one. Not because I am a great guy but because I got as much out of this trip as anyone got out of me. Most of what I see I have seen before, in earlier version.
This was a bit different. I felt I was with the best of a generation, the people who are going, one way or another, to be the shapers of this country's future. To spend time among them was my privilege.
What a setting. We flew into Knock, an airport built by a priest on a hilltop so that people could come see the nearby shrine. These days it is the gateway to the remoter towns of the west, for one of which I was headed.
I was picked up by the Cex of SEI, Sean Coughlan and we spent a pleasant hour and a half going over the recent election there followed by the visit of our Queen.
Irish politics, if you haven't noticed, has undergone a seismic shift with the dominant party (Fianna Fail) reduced to 19 seats - which would be the equivalent of Labour or the Tories getting less than 80. For the first time, it seems, old party allegiances have been abandoned in a collective protest against the economic collapse and the cronyism of the Irish state.
This, coupled with the Queen's visit, which is helping put to bed the longstanding issue between the UK and Ireland, make this feel like a time of reappraisal, Sean believes - and I agree.
I have been all over Ireland but never to Mayo, Louisburgh is set among mountains and sea. The weather changes quickly,making it a place of ever-shifting colour, light and shade. It never feels the same for long. The event was at the home of Declan Ryan, one of the founders of Ryanair, who is Chair of Social Enterprise Ireland and the One Foundation, Ireland's biggest social investor.
Declan is an aviation nut who now sets up airlines in emerging countries. Unlike a lot of big business guys, he is very unassuming and is the opposite of the 'Big I Am'. In fact, me being slow, it took me quite a while to work out who he actually was - halfway through a conversation in fact.
The event itself is about selecting from a field of about eight, the three strongest candidates for a significant social investment from the One Foundation, an investment that will enable significant scaling up. I didn't get to talk to everyone but at dinner I had a chance to talk to two candidates at length.
One was Sean Love. A former Director of Amnesty Ireland, Sean has paired up by novelist Roddy Doyle to set up Fighting Words. Staffed mainly by volunteers, it runs free creative writing and storytelling workshops for students of all ages to enhance creative writing skills and build their confidence in writing ability and self-expression.
In just over two years the centre has hosted 13,000 primary school children, 6,000 secondary students and 5,000 adults. Ireland is full of 'name' writers and artists, many of whom, with no accolade, show up and deliver sessions. Sean is heavily oversubsribed and wants to scale the programme.
Another was Krystian Fikert, a young Polish man set up MyMind in 2006, while employed with Google, in response to what he saw as the complicated nature of the Irish mental health system. MyMind provides affordable and accessible mental health services within the community, which aims to bypass the need for clinical referral, long waiting lists and high- cost services through ePsychologist, an innovative online support model.
What struck me about the group, overall, was their quality and energy. It reminded me a bit of that first day of the Ambassador programme when 20 of the UK's best all came together for the first time.
They have their work cut out. Ireland's economy is weak. Problems are growing almost as quickly as the pot is shrinking. These guys will depend on the country's new Government being willing to press the reset button in many areas of public policy - such as mental health, suicide prevention, education and the environment.
Which means taking on vested interests such as unions and the media. Easier in a small country where Ministers and MPs are often a phone call away. But harder, given the scale of mountains to climb.
I decided, after a bit of faffing around to waive my fee for this one. Not because I am a great guy but because I got as much out of this trip as anyone got out of me. Most of what I see I have seen before, in earlier version.
This was a bit different. I felt I was with the best of a generation, the people who are going, one way or another, to be the shapers of this country's future. To spend time among them was my privilege.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday Reflections
Enjoying a calm Sunday after a breathless week. Business has quickened in the last couple of months. Suddenly I am not finding the time to blog, Tweet or follow the daily trail. Big proposal went in Friday. Should it come in I will feel the business really has legs.
One of the things I do to wind down is sort out the garden. Not planting or digging, just mowing and tidying. Then a trip to the tip. I love going there. Am I the only bloke who feels a strange purposefulness in filling my boot and heading down the dump? The one I use is a great place, one of the best in the country - managing to recycle 86% of what is left there. Which, when you look into the vast skips, is an achievement. All those settees, lawnmower, computers, fence-panels and rusty bikes.
Like a lot of us, I think a lot about the long-term future. All the stuff we produce and throw. One of my tasks today was to get rid of a knackered trampoline. All that metal and fabric - in the skip after two years. OK it'll get used again but this shaded my enjoyment of the trip. I look at my boy, three and half, in the front seat. Fresh, clean, beautiful. Then into the skip, Old, dirty ugly. I wonder, as I often do now, whether this is the best of it. What he'll be living in as a 41 year old? Will he be richer, poorer, healthier? Or will the world have changed beyond all recognition, as I fear it will? That's when I stop thinking.
I think what got me going this week was watching 'Megacities' by Andrew Marr. He goes to Dhaka, Shanghai, Mexico City, London. Half a million people enter Dhaka each year. Mexico City is several times the size of London. Nine billion people will be 15 billion within a generation. How's it all going to work with both oil and water running out, not to mention a warmer world? Will my boy be ok?
Yet our politics can't really cope with any of this. It's too big. And as individuals we seem only able to respond when the crisis is in the now, just like in WW2, where we faffed around as a nation until 1939 when it took the prospect of invasion to get ourselves organised. We could see tragedy in the middle distance but until it was right up to our eyes we did very little.
There's a point you get to in adult life, I think, where you've got to decide what you really believe and will build around. I know a lot people who are convinced greens. Their views are unconventional. Stop growth. Prevent population growth. Create a basic-income for all etc. All of my life, I have tended to rail against the utopians, whether green or red. Their lack of pragmatism has always seemed futile and to play into the hands of the enemy - witness Labour in the 80s. That was the crucible in which I grew up. Pure but Losing. Then seeing the place I grew up left to the dogs. For this reason, politically I always preferred people like Blair who accepted certain things - as not to would, as progressives have always done, hand power to the wrong people.
But I do have my moments of doubt. At heart I want a high trust society in which we are drawn closer together than we are in England in 2011. I am a big admirer of what Alex Salmond is achieving up in Scotland, an interesting combination of economic nationalism, green investment and a social ethic I find really appealing. It is positive, hopeful and interesting. It challenges the givens while working within the grain of Scottish identity and values.
Which brings me back to where I started - Sunday. Back from the tip, listening to Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music, kids out, looking out over the beloved greenery of Nowton Park feeling lucky to be alive.
One of the things I do to wind down is sort out the garden. Not planting or digging, just mowing and tidying. Then a trip to the tip. I love going there. Am I the only bloke who feels a strange purposefulness in filling my boot and heading down the dump? The one I use is a great place, one of the best in the country - managing to recycle 86% of what is left there. Which, when you look into the vast skips, is an achievement. All those settees, lawnmower, computers, fence-panels and rusty bikes.
Like a lot of us, I think a lot about the long-term future. All the stuff we produce and throw. One of my tasks today was to get rid of a knackered trampoline. All that metal and fabric - in the skip after two years. OK it'll get used again but this shaded my enjoyment of the trip. I look at my boy, three and half, in the front seat. Fresh, clean, beautiful. Then into the skip, Old, dirty ugly. I wonder, as I often do now, whether this is the best of it. What he'll be living in as a 41 year old? Will he be richer, poorer, healthier? Or will the world have changed beyond all recognition, as I fear it will? That's when I stop thinking.
I think what got me going this week was watching 'Megacities' by Andrew Marr. He goes to Dhaka, Shanghai, Mexico City, London. Half a million people enter Dhaka each year. Mexico City is several times the size of London. Nine billion people will be 15 billion within a generation. How's it all going to work with both oil and water running out, not to mention a warmer world? Will my boy be ok?
Yet our politics can't really cope with any of this. It's too big. And as individuals we seem only able to respond when the crisis is in the now, just like in WW2, where we faffed around as a nation until 1939 when it took the prospect of invasion to get ourselves organised. We could see tragedy in the middle distance but until it was right up to our eyes we did very little.
There's a point you get to in adult life, I think, where you've got to decide what you really believe and will build around. I know a lot people who are convinced greens. Their views are unconventional. Stop growth. Prevent population growth. Create a basic-income for all etc. All of my life, I have tended to rail against the utopians, whether green or red. Their lack of pragmatism has always seemed futile and to play into the hands of the enemy - witness Labour in the 80s. That was the crucible in which I grew up. Pure but Losing. Then seeing the place I grew up left to the dogs. For this reason, politically I always preferred people like Blair who accepted certain things - as not to would, as progressives have always done, hand power to the wrong people.
But I do have my moments of doubt. At heart I want a high trust society in which we are drawn closer together than we are in England in 2011. I am a big admirer of what Alex Salmond is achieving up in Scotland, an interesting combination of economic nationalism, green investment and a social ethic I find really appealing. It is positive, hopeful and interesting. It challenges the givens while working within the grain of Scottish identity and values.
Which brings me back to where I started - Sunday. Back from the tip, listening to Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music, kids out, looking out over the beloved greenery of Nowton Park feeling lucky to be alive.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Is Cinderalla back at the Ball? My latest piece for Third Sector magazine
Times have changed for the leaders of the voluntary sector. Cast your mind back 10 years, to 2001. It felt then that, like Cinderella, the sector under New Labour was being spirited from a life cleaning ovens and sweeping floors and invited to the ball. The government wanted to engage with the sector, and to spend money on it. Its prince saw how well those in the sector understood the problems of the time - and how we could help him to build the new kingdom.
The 2000s were our ballroom years. A group of talented leaders emerged who inspired confidence and admiration. They enjoyed the privileges of the court and an increasing familiarity with those holding power. As the prince swung our sector around the dancefloor, we were eyed with jealous suspicion by some outside the gilded circle. What price, they asked, were we paying for this proximity? But the riposte was that while we sometimes got too close to government, we had credibility - and a massive bounty to show for our trouble.
Then midnight struck. A new, more sceptical prince came to power. Our gown immediately turned to sackcloth, our chariot back to a pumpkin, our horses back to mice. We were unceremoniously cast out of the kingdom. Even our name, the 'third sector', was denied and replaced with a new one of the prince's choosing: the 'big society'.
The reason, of course, was that the new prince had different, more ascetic tastes. The ball was over and he had inherited an impoverished kingdom. He decided the third sector had become part of the furniture, no longer reflecting its roots. So he took away most of our money and told us to get by without state handouts.
And his loving gaze passed over us and moved to the fields beyond the palace walls where 'real people' tended the fields and helped the needy without regard for goings-on in the court. They didn't ask and they didn't get. These were the real heroes, he declared as he slammed the door, giving us just enough corn to get by until we could support ourselves.
Of course, we were cross. Before the new prince's ascent to power, we had done our bit to win his heart. We had responded with enthusiasm to his new ideas, even the ones we had doubts about. Some of us even came up with plans to make them happen. Alas, to no avail. Cinderella was politely, but firmly, sent packing.
That was last year. So what is happening now? Having banished us, the new prince, I sense, realises that, without the third sector's goodwill and know-how, his own 'big society' - led, in theory, by the yeomen in the fields - will struggle to get traction.
The penny is dropping that, while Cinderella may have gorged herself on the palace's fine food and wine, she has left a hole that needs to be filled. Indeed, she now finds herself invited back on the quiet. Not held as close, nor treated as lavishly and indulgently.
But definitely back
The 2000s were our ballroom years. A group of talented leaders emerged who inspired confidence and admiration. They enjoyed the privileges of the court and an increasing familiarity with those holding power. As the prince swung our sector around the dancefloor, we were eyed with jealous suspicion by some outside the gilded circle. What price, they asked, were we paying for this proximity? But the riposte was that while we sometimes got too close to government, we had credibility - and a massive bounty to show for our trouble.
Then midnight struck. A new, more sceptical prince came to power. Our gown immediately turned to sackcloth, our chariot back to a pumpkin, our horses back to mice. We were unceremoniously cast out of the kingdom. Even our name, the 'third sector', was denied and replaced with a new one of the prince's choosing: the 'big society'.
The reason, of course, was that the new prince had different, more ascetic tastes. The ball was over and he had inherited an impoverished kingdom. He decided the third sector had become part of the furniture, no longer reflecting its roots. So he took away most of our money and told us to get by without state handouts.
And his loving gaze passed over us and moved to the fields beyond the palace walls where 'real people' tended the fields and helped the needy without regard for goings-on in the court. They didn't ask and they didn't get. These were the real heroes, he declared as he slammed the door, giving us just enough corn to get by until we could support ourselves.
Of course, we were cross. Before the new prince's ascent to power, we had done our bit to win his heart. We had responded with enthusiasm to his new ideas, even the ones we had doubts about. Some of us even came up with plans to make them happen. Alas, to no avail. Cinderella was politely, but firmly, sent packing.
That was last year. So what is happening now? Having banished us, the new prince, I sense, realises that, without the third sector's goodwill and know-how, his own 'big society' - led, in theory, by the yeomen in the fields - will struggle to get traction.
The penny is dropping that, while Cinderella may have gorged herself on the palace's fine food and wine, she has left a hole that needs to be filled. Indeed, she now finds herself invited back on the quiet. Not held as close, nor treated as lavishly and indulgently.
But definitely back
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
How do we stop abuse in care?
If you didn't watch last night's Panorama, then watch it on Iplayer. It concerns the treatment of people with learning disabilities by one of the UK's biggest private social care providers. Panorama shows people being physically and verbally abused by staff who are clearly out of all control.
I would like to say that this is shocking by its novelty. But the truth is that I have seen similar things with my own eyes, albeit less often. And I have, throughout my time in advocacy, frequently come across stories of such goings on. The truth of the matter is that mostly goes on without senior managers knowing about it.
I don't have to think hard to recall one home I worked in. Presided over by a powerful personality, M, who clearly had 'issues', staff and residents alike were afraid of her. M was a bully and, on her bad days, a bit of a sadist. People would sit in their own shit if she felt they had done it to 'piss her off'. People's genitals would be laughed about as though they weren't there. On one occasion, she struck someone, not hard, but enough to know where they stood. Families even were intimidated by her. She had everyone in her thrall.
I was just a relief worker - this was one of many places I worked as a 23 year old. Having nothing to lose, I complained about M to senior managers verbally. Nothing happened. I put it in writing and threatened to go public. M was suspended. Then others came forward to substantiate and add their stories. People who themselves had joined in with M in her constant goading. By the end of it, M was lucky not to go to jail. Thankfully none of the other staff lost their jobs. They were all, in essence, decent people led by a monster.
This episode taught me something very important about people and leadership. Without great leaders in those places I worked, they quickly become hellish as staff take their cues from whoever is in charge. Which brings me back to the role of private companies in public services. I am categorically not one of those people who thinks that profit cannot be honestly made out of providing good care and support. That is nonsense as experience every day tells us. Nor is the answer for care to be socialised. The NHS, let's remember was only last week lambasted, again, for letting elderly patients effectively starve to death on its wards. And one of the last big learning-disability scandals was at Orchard Hill, an NHS facility.
No, it isn't just about public-private. It is about mission and leadership. It is about focus on what matters. If these places are run according to imperatives beyond providing best-service, things slide. The best places I worked were, bizarrely, run by the same group that employed M. Two miles down the road, their other place was and still is exemplary. I would place my own child there. What made it work was strong, empowered, proud local leadership backed, yes, by management with good values.
This is one reason I prefer spin-outs to either retained public sector or outright privatisation. Ownership and control we know have a positive effect on behavour. So too does focus and specialism and a strong sense of social purpose. We will, of course, one day see a scandal in a spin out. But I think in organisations which lose their sense of purpose through an excessive focus either on profit or too much public-sector politicking, when eyes leave the ball, the chances of scandal are all the more extreme.
My thoughts today are with the people on the wrong end of the kicks, shoves and hair-pulling in that programme. Several people today are in custody and hopefully those people are now safe. But, rather than just put this down to 'evil people', I hope this whole affair helps us think more carefully about the kinds of services - and the requirements of leadership - needed to keep people safe. Most people in social care are good, decent people. So too are most managers, right up to the top. I have no doubt that the company involved will respond in a concerned and reasonable way. I just hope that this also addresses some of the deeper reasons why these things happen.
I would like to say that this is shocking by its novelty. But the truth is that I have seen similar things with my own eyes, albeit less often. And I have, throughout my time in advocacy, frequently come across stories of such goings on. The truth of the matter is that mostly goes on without senior managers knowing about it.
I don't have to think hard to recall one home I worked in. Presided over by a powerful personality, M, who clearly had 'issues', staff and residents alike were afraid of her. M was a bully and, on her bad days, a bit of a sadist. People would sit in their own shit if she felt they had done it to 'piss her off'. People's genitals would be laughed about as though they weren't there. On one occasion, she struck someone, not hard, but enough to know where they stood. Families even were intimidated by her. She had everyone in her thrall.
I was just a relief worker - this was one of many places I worked as a 23 year old. Having nothing to lose, I complained about M to senior managers verbally. Nothing happened. I put it in writing and threatened to go public. M was suspended. Then others came forward to substantiate and add their stories. People who themselves had joined in with M in her constant goading. By the end of it, M was lucky not to go to jail. Thankfully none of the other staff lost their jobs. They were all, in essence, decent people led by a monster.
This episode taught me something very important about people and leadership. Without great leaders in those places I worked, they quickly become hellish as staff take their cues from whoever is in charge. Which brings me back to the role of private companies in public services. I am categorically not one of those people who thinks that profit cannot be honestly made out of providing good care and support. That is nonsense as experience every day tells us. Nor is the answer for care to be socialised. The NHS, let's remember was only last week lambasted, again, for letting elderly patients effectively starve to death on its wards. And one of the last big learning-disability scandals was at Orchard Hill, an NHS facility.
No, it isn't just about public-private. It is about mission and leadership. It is about focus on what matters. If these places are run according to imperatives beyond providing best-service, things slide. The best places I worked were, bizarrely, run by the same group that employed M. Two miles down the road, their other place was and still is exemplary. I would place my own child there. What made it work was strong, empowered, proud local leadership backed, yes, by management with good values.
This is one reason I prefer spin-outs to either retained public sector or outright privatisation. Ownership and control we know have a positive effect on behavour. So too does focus and specialism and a strong sense of social purpose. We will, of course, one day see a scandal in a spin out. But I think in organisations which lose their sense of purpose through an excessive focus either on profit or too much public-sector politicking, when eyes leave the ball, the chances of scandal are all the more extreme.
My thoughts today are with the people on the wrong end of the kicks, shoves and hair-pulling in that programme. Several people today are in custody and hopefully those people are now safe. But, rather than just put this down to 'evil people', I hope this whole affair helps us think more carefully about the kinds of services - and the requirements of leadership - needed to keep people safe. Most people in social care are good, decent people. So too are most managers, right up to the top. I have no doubt that the company involved will respond in a concerned and reasonable way. I just hope that this also addresses some of the deeper reasons why these things happen.
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