tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post756320595905022183..comments2024-01-07T12:13:21.793+00:00Comments on Craig Dearden-Phillips: My piece in this week's Third Sector on the need for soc ent to take over state servicesUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post-58305181616627046862011-05-15T15:07:53.514+01:002011-05-15T15:07:53.514+01:00I was privileged to be at the Academy of Urbanism’...I was privileged to be at the Academy of Urbanism’s Annual Congress VI in Glasgow this week and to hear Lord Andrew Mawson’s talk on the achievements of genuinely community-led enterprise in Bromley-by-Bow, in London’s East End and other places. For the positive version of what can be achieved by social enterprise in public service delivery I think you couldn’t do much better than that. <br /><br />He was nothing short of inspirational. I especially liked his description at one early meeting when ‘the senior social worker pulls out of her briefcase a huge encyclopedia with 1,000 reasons why nothing can ever happen in the world’ Advocates of co-production of public services should make a point referencing the Bromley-by-Bow exemplar.<br /><br />The inspiration, charisma and aspiration was indeed inspiring. However, there followed a significantly and instructively contrasting presentation from Arie Voorburg of Arcadis, Arnhem, Holland on ‘financing social renewal’. His offering was at times technical, theory based and maybe even a bit baffling. His wonderfully self-deprecating opening was something like, ‘maybe I should just speak in my Dutch and you will understand it just as much’. <br /><br />I was, nevertheless left wanting to go away and learn more about it all; especially on “multi-effect causality”. Having said all that I have maybe obscured his message which was that problems and opportunities are mostly not complicated; what complicates them are our approaches to them- especially when the approaches are dictated by professional or government agency interests.<br /><br />All-in-all, I was pleasantly surprised to go to an event about ‘Urbanism’ and find that notions of enterprise and society were so central to much of the discussions and exchanges.Edward Harkinshttp://uk.linkedin.com/pub/edward-harkins/15/40/635noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4742385127651266632.post-30160126324648265992011-05-06T16:47:04.865+01:002011-05-06T16:47:04.865+01:00Society Enterprise Mergers & Acquisitions Depa...Society Enterprise Mergers & Acquisitions Department here!<br /><br />I like the points raised in this article.<br /><br />What many people call a “Civil Society Apocalypse” was heading down the track like a juggernaut many years ago – especially so on Merseyside, where I am now based.<br /><br />It’s often also the case that many people that I have encountered are also blind to the (need for) structural change : what has worked in the past IS NOT going to be “fit for purpose” in the future.<br /><br />What’s wrong with justifying your existence and the “social impact” of the organisation that you lead / work with.<br /><br />One point that could have been made though.<br /><br />As a relatively new entrant to Civil Society – I’m a refugee from the world of investment and financial services – I’m sometimes amazed by the lack of value that individuals who are working within the sector attribute to themselves AND the sector.<br /><br />With UK charity income standing at close to £52 billion a year (Charity Commission figures) and registered charity employees equating to some 850,000 individual (IGNORING voluntary staff), this sector has as much right (if not more – THINK social benefit) to stand equally with other industrial / professional / business sectors in the UK.<br /><br />So yes, Civil Society needs to take on the provision of these services....<br /><br />....and do a good job of it!Andrew McGuirkhttp://andrewmcguirk.wordpress.com/noreply@blogger.com