Let's Embrace Outsourcing

The 2010s will I believe be the decade that Councils stopped doing things. Or rather stopped doing things themselves and focussed on their core business of making sure things got done. For that is actually their purpose. They are not there to do things. And when they do, they're not normally very good at it (I can say this, I am a Councillor!).

But who would expect them to be any good at any one thing? These are ridiculouly over-diversified organisations. Indeed what other organisation would credibly claim it could competently look after abused children, manage the roads, support carers of older people, redevelop towns and empty the bins? All of these are specialisms. Councils are doing the football equivalent of playing in all positions when in truth they can do only one remotely well.

Barnet, Kensington and Chelsea, Hammersmith, Essex. All of these Councils are leading the way in asking `Why should we deliver this?' and, if there is no compelling reason why, finding someone who can deliver best and cheapest. Although these are all Tory Councils, and I am a Lib Dem, I think history will prove them to be right and that all parties will live with this eventually, rather in the way they did once the Tories did what no-one else thought possible by smashing trade-union power.

The result of Councils asking themselves that big question is that they rapidly come to the conclusion that No, they ought not to be trying to run everything. No other business could run so much well, so why should they? Plus few other businesses are lumbered with the disatrous long-term costs that the public sector still bears (the six months paid sick leave, the king's pension etc). It makes sense to have fewer of these people on the books.

The logical outcome of all this is a much bigger future role for the private and third sectors. Now, the private sector is already limbering up, getting ready to run on the pitch. The third sector dressing-room, however, is a less unified place. Some players are hungry, keen to run into the new territory, seeing the possible improvements that can be made to the dismal offer made by local authorities to vulnerable groups.

Others though, while on the team-sheet, are more half-hearted. They want to do things but have reservations about what this might say about them as players. And a small minority are not going on that pitch for love or money. They line up with the Dave Prentice's (Unison leader) of this world and say that the state should continue to do most things and take the rap when it all goes wrong. Because that is democratic and at least the public sector is accountable.

Well, excuse me, this is where I come in, Mr Coucillor. Public services, just because, they are provided by local authorities are not more accountable to elected members than those provided by Capita or Turning Point. I would argue in fact that in-house services are less accountable. Because, essentially, they are `family'. Giving your family - the people you employ- the hard time they deserve is a lot less difficult than giving it to people in whom you have no other interest than what they do for you (or are saying they are doing). Outsourcing means more accountability, not less.

We stand at an important junction. In 1995, Suffolk County Council employed about 18,000 people. Today that number stands at about 30,000. An increase of over 50%. This is about to change. Not only is there less to spend, we now know that markets must be opened up. It has taken a long time but we're nearly there. The third sector needs to recognise that its time has come and get out on that pitch, determined to win.

In Praise of League Tables for Charities

I know league tables are supposedly going out of fashion. I actually like them. For, whatever their flaws they tell us something. They satisfy our need for comparison. League tables are something people in the third sector get very edgy about. We just don’t seem to like the idea of a ranking. But this, of course, is to pretend we are all equal. That all charities deliver. The truth, and we all know this, is that not all charities do. Many are no good at all. And some actually probably do positive harm. Yet we hold back from saying this, fearful, I suspect, of what it will do to our brand (people trust charities, we mustn’t let them know that many of them are crap).

Personally I would welcome league-tables. Yes, I know they wouldn’t be perfect but that isn’t the point. They would give me an idea of where the organisations with which I am involved either as a donor, a trustee or a CEO, actually stand. Central to these league tables should be user-satisfaction. This would force charities to get some data on what users actually think of their services. Not a perfect measure of outcomes, I know, but a fair proxy that is easy and economic to find out. Don’t find out and this bumps down your rating. This would actually get charities taking users and customers more seriously than they do now.

However, I am not stupid. This won’t happen, I know. The sector is far too comfortable with the status quo to bother with any of this. Its marketing departments know that income depends more on corporate PR and flashy impact reports than the actual truth of a charity’s performance. Leaders in the sector are often cowardly when it comes to being properly transparent about their organisations. When did you last hear a charity CEO say publicly that they felt a particular programme or approach had failed or that their charity actually wasn’t the best thing since Mighty White? In truth, behind closed door, CEOs are willing to be very open about the shortcomings of their organisaiton but never, strangely in public.

As a donor this personally makes me very suspicious. I put money into organisations that tell the truth about themselves, even when this isn’t all good news. Because then I know I can trust that organisation. None of the causes into which I have put money or time would probably baulk at a league table. Openness is part of their culture and intent. It is part of learning, getting better, becoming more efficient, a better servant of the common good. We have allowed our sector to be hi-jacked by our marketing and PR departments, fearful that if we tell the truth support will drain away – or go to others.

A league table of charities would be a great leveler for those charities who deliver bang for buck – but who don’t have the PR machine to pull in the big donations. It would tell us what we needed to know about which organisations large and small actually did the business. I can’t see what any decent org would have to fear from this. So why aren’t we doing it?

Maximum Human Discomfort

Maximum Human Discomfort.

This is the phrase which came to mind today as I wandered around Liverpool St station. I wanted to pee – but didn’t have the 30p in change needed to go. I wanted to sit but there are perhaps 20 seats in the whole place. I wanted a café and there’s only a micro-Costa in a far corner.

25 minutes passed this way until the relative comfort and relief of the 1530 to Norwich. Does it have to be this way?

Do London stations have to be this bad (Kings Cross is just as bad?). Staff are dour and unhelpful should you need them.

They could all learn lessons from another main line station – Stowmarket.

As an experience, Stowmarket station is actually gratifying. Not just adequate but a positive contribution to ones day.

It starts with the staff. All helpful and empathic to the needs of the traveler. The shop is well stocked and sells cups of tea for a quid and employs the friendliest person in East Anglia on the till. The toilets are a dream. Pristine, hot water, towels. And free to all station-users. On the platform there is a lovely waiting room, all warm and nice-smelling.

But overall the experience of using Stowmarket station is one which recognizes one as a human being. In this sense it is additive to total happiness in the world.

By contrast, a place where you can’t pee, sit or relax is the opposite. Miserable, inhuman, nearer to a cattle-market than a key travel centre of the UK, Liverpool St station captures the very worst of this country.

When people ask me why I live in Suffolk, Stowmarket station is up there on my list of reasons.

Give Me Sunlight

This week I made good on a long-held promise to myself - to go see the work of Peter Holbrook and his team down at Sunlight in Gillingham, Kent. I travelled down there with one of my Trustees, John Willis, who was hoping to find inspiration for the renewal of Huntingdon Community Learning Centre - something of a White Elephant so far - but packed with potential.

So what is Sunlight? Well, one one level, its very simple. It's a `community anchor' type organisation. It is housed in a big building in the middle of a deprived area and within its doors lie a panopoly of resources for people to tap into, from the offices of of public sector and third sector organisations through to an alphabet-soup of informal self-help groups led by volunteers. On top of this, Sunlight runs a major catering operation and a number of community cafes in the town.

`All very nicebut what accounts for all the media and politician-attention this place gets?' I am hearing you say... `Is it all spin or is this something that merits special attention'.

I am glad to report that, for once, the hype lives up to reality. This is not just another high-octane community centre. There are a number of differentiators from most of what I have seen so far.

1. The business model. There are two aspects to Sunlight - the Development Trust and the Community Interest Company (CIC). The CIC pursues commercial opportunities - and now runs the whole of Medway Council's catering operation. Profit from this is used to support aspects of the Development Trust's work such as their offer of free space to new community groups or one-off grants to residents for key pieces of equipment (e.g. the new set of chef's whites bought for a local lad just off to college). Having profitable elements creates the space to ignite community action which otherwise would founder early through lack of support. The result is a much larger number of self-help groups than one would expect. And that means lots of good outcomes for little financial outlay.

2. The ambition. Most third sector organisations like to stay in their box. Manage public services? No thanks, that's government's job etc. Sunlight aspire not only to provide workspace to the GPs and Social Services teams in the area, tney want to run these services and plough the profit back into the community. The Sunlight team have bid, so far unsuccessfully, to manage the primary care & GPs surgery run from its building - but have been blocked from doing so by the PCT. Should they eventually pull this off - and add perhaps an outsourced Job Centre Plus - you've got a model of public service provision that could be the template for the 2010s and beyond. Which accounts for the interest of one D. Cameron and his team I suspect.

3. The community's involvement. Most community centres are run by well-meaning middle class people and follow a low-risk public sector template. So if you are poor and or vulnerable you can use the place OK but that is very much as far as it goes. You'll never work there, expect perhaps as a volunteer doing something very marginal. At Sunlight most of the staff come from the community. Many are former `users' of the centre and have developed into employees. Sure, this doesn't make for the smoothest of receptionists or the most cleanly polished floors I have ever seen - but it does make the place BELONG to the community. Obviously there are difficulties - the story of an overpromoted local finance officer made me wince - but these outweigh the benefits.

4. The ethos. Ethos is a difficult thing to pin down. It is everything but nowhere is it written down formally. The ethos of Sunlight is clearly one of what MBA students call its `core competencies'. People know what matters in Sunlight and align their behaviour accordingly. One example. In the cafe while we were there a woman three tables away burst into tears following a visit to the GPs (bad news, obviously). Within moments, a member of the cafe staff had come from the kitchen with a free cup of tea and was with the lady for half an hour. This is obviously beyond contract stuff, not in any job description - just the way the place works. No formal Compassion Policy. No Charter of Care or operations manual. Just a great ethos.

5. Entrepreneurial Leadership. Peter Holbrook, the CEO of Sunlight, doesn't like being talked up. He is very quick to point out that it is others, not him, leading the many facets of Sunlight's work. However, he provides an example of the kind of entrepreneurial leadership that makes the difference between an ordinary place doing ordinary things to an extraordinary place that is creating a new paradigm for how we tackle the challenges of our most deprived communities.

If cloning were already possible, I daresay that Peter and Sunlight would be rich from selling his DNA (as well as being a talented and energetic man, he is one of kindest and most compassionate people I have ever met). However, the fact that we can't yet recreate Peter at scale doesn't mean we can't support people like him to make things happen in communities all over the UK. You see, in the public sector, someone like Peter would probably lose his job or get burned up very quickly. He'd break some rule, take some level of risk deemed `inappropriate' and refuse to accept the glacial pace of change that public sector organisations seem to believe is acceptable. His counterpart - the drone we currently entrust with millions of pounds of public money does none of these disruptive things. But he doesn't do a lot else either. A socially enterprising government needs to say to PCTs and Councils that they have to support the Sunlights of this world (and without tying them up in constricting service-agreements) - or the people leading councils etc will lose their jobs. Sounds a bit harsh, crude, simplistic etc - but I can't see any other way to galvanise change.

6. A Whole Person Approach. Most services in this country are set up by people who have done a very long specialist training and believe that what they do is most important thing in the very world. They then fight with other professionals (who believe the same thing about what they do) for resources and before long you have a whole health and social care system set up around the people leading and managing services. Clients (me, you etc)of course come with a whole range of needs, some of which don't require a professional at all, just the company of others, or support from someone who had been there themselves. At Sunlight, a lot of the things on offer are not professional-led, they are led by residents. There is a recognition that people might want to do other things, access other areas. This is positively encouraged. People are not `owned' - or indeed seen as the `responsibility' of others and shunted off. If someone comes to Sunlight in crisis, having been beaten up and thrown out by their husband, they are not `signposted' elsewhere. There is an immediate and effective response. Someone stays with them through the process they need to go through and they aren't allowed to pinball around agencies or fall through gaps. Very different from the public sector and indeed many third sector agencies.

Overall my visit to Sunlight confirmed a lot of what I already believed. The bits of Sunlight occupied by the public sector were very telling of what is wrong and what any new Government needs to deal with quickly. Offices were large for the numbers employed, though often just full of junk and big piles of paper. You needed key-codes to get in even to offices. Peter I noticed couldn't easily access some areas. The Social Services assessment bit, for example, is full of kids equipment which, couldn't be used by the community even through it is empty much of the time. Although people were perfectly pleasant, there was still a touch of that feeling of `This is Us, you are the public/other, we have our rules and systems, fuck-off and wait till we're ready to see you'. People naturally don't trust this as much as Sunlight's approach. Which is why Sunlight want to take over those services.

And the third sector...well you know I am often critical. But the organisations I metwere welcoming and upbeat, despite the shitty contracts they had with the public sector and being jammed into their offices like sardines.

We drove away four hours later (Peter had given up practically his whole day for us)not only inspired but INFORMED that there is another way with public services. This is why so many people right now are finding their way to Gillingham.

What Ordinary Enterprises Can Learn from the Third Sector

I have been asked to give a talk on this in the near future. Here is what I might say....

`How ordinary enterprises can learn from the third sector'. An interesting question as it is normally asked the other way round.

And I am perhaps the wrong person to ask on one level in that I have tended to bring learning in from the private sector to Speaking Up, rather than take my ideas from elsewhere in the third sector, much of which I think is run pretty badly.

But what can for-profit businesses learn from the way we lead and manage the Third Sector?

FIVE things come to mind.

The first is that we are excelent at securing employee commitment - that elusive `beyond contract' dedication. We do this because we are able to tap into people's deepest values. We offer people the opportunity to do paid work which resonates clearly with their personal sense of purpose. Most third sector organisations are able to do this, but particularly the smaller, more shambolic ones. These organisations are often close to the front-line and staff feel near to the issues.

Secondly, we are less hierarchical and more participative. The Third Sector CEO is not the God he is in the private sector. The culture of the heroic CEO just doesn't give. There is a stronger egalitarian ethos in most third sector organisations. As a result, there is a bigger emphasis on consensus in decision-making. People expect to be part of decision-making. Consultation is generally more widespread. This slows things down but ensures there is greater buy-in from those expected to implement decisions. The CEOs role is one of facilitator and broker more than commander.

Is this an advantage? I think it can be. Leaders in TSOs do not often go unchallenged. There is a greater check on left-field decisions. The down-side is that this can block progress, but it also means there is greater scrutiny of what is happening.

Thirdly, we are more stable, less short-termist and go bust a lot less. TSO take fewer risks. They see their mission in long-view. Seldom do they `bet the farm' on a big new idea. They seek to ensure the organisation's ability to do good is protected in perpetuity. We evolve and adapt without necessarily taking organisation-threatening risks. This is in common with many privately owned SMEs so not unique to the third sector. But it is also a result of our Governance arrangements which put the CEO and his team under a Board of Directors with legal responsibility for the mission long-term. The corrollary of this is that the third sector is undoubtedly less innovative and slower to respond to rapid change than it often needs to be- but it means fewer wasteful forays too.

Fourthly, we are trusted and values-driven. Trusted by users, by staff and by donors and commissioners. We are viewed as mission-led. Although our people earn reasonably well, we are viewed as being concerned, principally, with making the world a better place. Third sector organisations feel good to the people involved either as a user, a donor/customer, a volunteer or member of staff. We touch that part of people that wants and needs to be part of something bigger.

Fifthly, we are able to work to a variety of bottom lines. Contrary to what you might think, every third sector CEO has to make a profit. If he doesn't the organisation will quickly cease to exist as reserves are low and the banks don't help us. But we have to operate other bottom lines too, notably our social bottom-line and the interdependencies between them. Managing this balance makes a third sector CEO's task that bit more complex than than a CEO in an ordinary enterprise, I believe. This complexity finds its way into our commercial life too. While we operate in competitive markets we also have to create collaborative relationships with those same organisations we might compete with. Missions such as `Kill Caterpillar' have no place in our sector. Co-opertition is the norm.

Which brings me nicely onto mergers. There are relatively few mergers in the third sector. There just isn't the financial drivers to incentivise them compared to the private sector. While this means that opportunities to merge are often overlooked, it also means that mergers that are not a good idea - where the cultures of two organisations will not work together - don't get off the drawing board.

My own organisation is currently preparing to merge with another. While the strategic alignment has been clear from the off, it has also been critical that we stress-test the cultural fit between the two organisations. If it were wrong (and it wasn't) this would have been a deal-breaker. For the merger wouldn't ultimately have served our long-term purpose. I am personally of the view that a lot of private sector merger activity is driven by short-term goals and doesn't actually deliver much long-term value to either the holder of shares or the customer.
In this sense, the third sector I think has a more realistic view of mergers.

Overall, then, there are a number of things that ordinary enterprises can learn from the third sector:

1. Become better at securing employee commitment by making your company values and actions more consistent with the values of your employees. This means moving beyond rhetorical commitment to company action which makes employees feel they are there to do more than create shareholder value - an important and noble goal in itself, but often not enough to get people to go beyond contract.

2. Become less overtly hierarchical more consensual and participative. This means slower decisions but often better decisions and ones which people feel they own and will therefore implement with more determination. This also helps to build commitment to the company.

3. Take the long view. This is extremely hard for listed companies in which CEOs last on average less than three years.

4. Be trusted by having strong values and showing commitment to making the world a better place. This means going beyond CSR and the usual corporate Greenwash. The young in particular are very sensitised to this. A company with integrity will I believe attract the best `Generation Y and Z' talent in the future.

5. Teach your managers to work to a number of bottom-lines, not just one. We do this and it means that our organisations can account for themselves on a number of levels. I believe in time that all companies will need to account for themselves much more than they do now. Start now by training your managers to achieve and balance different types of success.

My overall view is that there is a huge infusion of learning to be had from the third sector. As part of Social Enterprise Day in November, we are inviting a range of corporate heads to job-swop for a day with a CEO of a social business. The learning of course cuts both ways. I have taken a great deal from the private sector. Your focus, your use of metrics, your professionalism and your ability to move quickly are all facets we in the third sector need to take from you.

Heroic Help

Heroic Help
One of the third sector’s unsung success-stories of the last couple of years is the charity Help for Heroes (H4H).

Set up in October 2007 by former Royal Greenjack Bryn Parry and his wife, it started as a sponsored bike ride. Today, only two years on, it has now raised many millions to directly help wounded servicemen and their families and is a household name.

There's a few things I like rather a lot about H4H. One is that it clearly provides something nobody else, particularly the Government, is delivering very well right now: direct, practical, timely help for wounded men. Help that the wounded themselves praise to high-heaven.

Especially when compared to the bureaucracy and insensitivity they often face from the Government. Indeed the contrast between HM Government and the no-nonsense, low-overhead, empathic approach of H4H could not be more stark.

Another is that H4H have drawn public attention to a forgotten group. While 200 service personnel have now died in Afhganistan, there are now estimated to be up to 4000 very seriously wounded men (and they are almost all men) who will need care-for-life, often with brain injuries as well as physical ones.

Little provision has been made in the public finances for them long-term. H4H, while scrupulously apolitical, has skillfully guided public and media attention, onto the issue.

A final thing I really like about H4H is that it has come in from left-field within the existing charity world leaving certain other forces charities feeling red-faced.

Good. That is what new organisations are supposed to do. Filling gaps and shaking up sectors that clearly hadn't been quite on the ball. All sectors benefit from competition and vigorous new entrants. It raises everyone’s game.

Or, in the case of H4H, actually changes the game. For H4H has, in quite an extraordinary way, caught the public mood, which was previously lacking means of expression, and turned it into something incredibly positive and powerful.

For me, H4H is primary evidence of the UK’s strong civil society and the openness of our system to motivated individuals to make good new things happen.

Wouldn’t it be great, therefore, to see Parry and his team headlining this Autumn’s conference platforms, rather than the predictable parade of top CEOs, think-tankers and quango-heads?

Fat chance I suspect. Because the chattering classes of the third sector tend to avoid discussing the our military heroes very openly (it is deeply unfashionable, I sense). But the truth is that we should all actually be garlanding Parry and H4H for their impact – and showing us all how it is done.

Because H4H represents the very best of the third sector and, yes, I will say it, the very best of Britain

The Death of Ivan Ilych

Am reading Tolstoy’s `Death of Ivan Ilych’ – a book that starts with a death – an agonizing one with `screams that lasted three days’ – probably cancer.

Then it charts the life of Ivan Ilych, an outwardly successful, conformist 19th century Russian judge who forgoes any forms of domestic happiness or emotional life for security, career-achievement and social respectability then, on dying, finds himself utterly alone, his colleaugues planning their promotions, his wife indifferent.

Only his peasant nursemaid and young boy enable him to sob and weep and be held, as he wants to be, by a family and friends that care.

The lesson? Don’t live your life to impress others and conform. They don’t care and your life will be wasted.

Elephant in the Room

I have been wondering for months whether to say this or not. To risk what people will say and think of me if I do. Yet it is something that privately people say to me all the time.

But I am going to say it anyway.

Our employment laws - and the way they have been interpreted by the courts are - I believe, are unjust.

I don't say this just because I am biased (which I am) but also because I actually care about justice.

So these laws...where do I start?

Perhaps most obviously, they make it unreasonably costly and difficult to deal with any kind of issue involving employees, be it organisational change or dealing with underperformance or indiscipline. Everything has to be treated like a legal process (which, of course, it now is, even in the very early stages).


Employers often live in fear of these laws ( I know, I am one). For these laws act as a stealth-tax on our income, time and mission/profit.

I am making a strong claim here so let me make a few statements and see what you think.

1. It should be reasonably easy for a company, or charity, to part company with somebody who isn't delivering their side of the bargain. Shouldn't it? Am I wrong here?

2. It ought to be possible, without a great deal of fuss, or expense, to make reasonable changes to people's jobs to suit the changing needs of users and customers. Wouldn't you agree? But it isn't.

3. It ought to be quite possible for a company trying to stay alive to keep its best people without risking all sort of legal hassle. But it isn't. Quite the opposite in fact.

Instead many organisations are faced with a legal minefield in any of the above situations.

Dodging the mines means expert navigation from HR experts and lawyers. Organisations least able to afford this - like small charities - can end up in a lot of trouble.

Not, I hasten to say, for doing anything particular bad or immoral (not forgetting that some employers are shits). But, quite often, due to breaking fairly minor rules around consultaiton or accommodation to people's sensibilities about what they think their jobs should be.

And I should know because I have been there more times than I like to remember. Indeed in our early days, one such case almost brought down the business.

Yes, the whole future of a charity which now helps 5000 people a year put at risk because the law said we didn't consult someone `properly' about their redundancy. That cost us several thousand pounds we didn't have at the time.

Did the punishment fit the crime here? Was this `justice'? While there are aspects of the American system of capitalism I abhor, its lighter touch on employment law is something I would welcome.

I would welcome opinions, anonymous or not.

But if you do agree, and I believe most people actually do, then let's break this conspiracy of silence and tell the truth as we see it.

What If...Steve Jobs Ran the Public Sector?

Steve Jobs - the man who founded and runs Apple - is a hard man to please.

He is the ultimate hard-driven entrepreneur - a narcissistic over-achiever with the kind of personality that believes he can, literally, change the world by force of his own will.

He is known at Apple for asking the impossible - then getting it. The company's phenomenal innovation - which puts the rest of the industry to shame - is widely credited to this man's drive and the ridiculously high standards he sets.

For example, not only does he insists that all Apple devices look beautiful on the outside but also on the inside too. Even the sealed units the buyer never sees.

Jobs however is no tech-guy. He doesn't understand circuits or programming particularly. He is the ultimate user and his genius seems to be in getting people to produce the kind of gadgets that make us all gasp with awe.

So, onto my main point.

Jobs has made Apple into a company that achieves far, far more than should be possible. He works by a mixture of terror, exhortation and the inculcation of the very highest standards.

Is Apple a one-off, or could Jobs transform public services for the better?

The parallells, on first impression, feel ludicrious. Ipods and bin-emptying are not the same thing.

But over-achievement? Customer delight? Genius in design?

Public services could use a bit of this.

Jobs would, of course, have his work cut out. I suspect that the culture of consensus that dominates most public sector bodies would come under massive attack from day one.

He would also struggle, I think, to inculcate the notion of excellence into organisations for whom excellence was something limited to corporate literature sent out with the Council Tax bill.

But it would be an interesting experiment. One the world would, I am sure, learn something from.

And until we receive the public sector equivalent of the I-phone, it is something I will call for, however silly it makes me look.

Plane Glory

My boy is mad about planes. He's only 20 months old but everytime he sees one he points and starts yabbering.

So today I took him to an airshow. I wasn't expecting a great deal beyond boredom and nowhere to change his nappy yet, goodness, was I wrong.

Watching all manner of aircraft take off, jig around in the air, pretend to be dog-fighting, about to drop a payload etc was riveting (as was watching Wilf's delight with proceedings).

The crowning moment came with the Spitfire. It did a kind of duel, not with a Messerschmitt but with an American Mustang (much the superior plane, being 5 years later).

Seeing the Spitfire rise, bank and descend against an azure August sky made my heart soar and my eyes prick with primitive pride.

For these aircraft, and the people in them, during a period of only a few days,over similar fields and skies, sixty-nine years earlier, basically gave Hitler pause for thought. Aerial defeat would have made a sea-borne assualt on the UK eminently more possible.

As the Spitfire touched down and its pilot emerged, I didn't think about the few to whom we owe so much etc but about the fact that sometimes our lives contain very short periods - days, hours, minutes that are of definitive importance.

Not to the future of the free world perhaps but to ourselves, the people around us and, for the odd person, wider society. Moments which shape everything else forever.

I can think of two, maybe three in my own life. Two are intensely personal, the third being the day I decided to leave my job to set up Speaking Up.

And then Wilf distracted me from my reverie with a squeal that announced the arrival of a Lancaster Bomber...

Do Intentions Matter in Social Enterprise?

Do Intentions Matter in Social Business?

I was talking the other week to a mate of mine with a commercial background who told me he thought that social enterprise was a was a `slippery concept'.

His big point is that the line between `social business' and pure, for-profit business' is actually misleading.

`How so?’ I asked.

`Well’, he said, `think of mobile phones in Africa. There is this company he knows that is mad for making money. So mad in fact that they risked a lot of capital, time and energy on sticking mobile phone infrastructure across a load of African countries. Tricky places to do business. Lots unpleasant Goverments to deal with. High risks’.

He continued `The company is doing OK and money will be made. But the bigger net effect is that lots of African entrepreneurs are now able to develop businesses, build up the economy etc, thus producing a lot of more `social benefit' than, say, a maize-growing co-op run by a social business. A “double-bottom line”, if ever you've seen one!’

`So’, he asked with a flourish,`Which is the more convincing social business? The one doing more good (whatever the starting intentions) - or the one with all the right intentions, ownership models etc.?’

I sat and I pondered. One on hand, my friend's view is a rehash of Adam Smith - the idea that selfish intention translates into communal benefits.

On the other though, he raises an interesting question: Might he actually be right - to a point? That certain ordinary companies' outputs - like the mobile phone one - can also produce quite clear `social benefits' which, were they produced by a social-firm, be celebrated in the end of year social accounts.
And, leading from that, could such a firm be rightfully garlanded as a social business?

The response to all this from the majority in the social enterprise world would always be that the mobile phone co. is not social enterprise. Both the lack of social intent and private ownership would count them out, regardless, it seems of how much good they do.

Where am I ? What it comes down to, I guess, is whether a social business should be defined mainly by the production of socially accountable outcomes (in this case the development benefits produced by mobile phone use in Africa) or whether it always has to defined in terms of intention, the way it is run, its ownership structure and so on.
I personally think that outcomes (what really happens) should have a greater bearing than the way things are put together – though I do also think these things matter too.
Therefore for me, the mobile phone company is a kind of social business. Not quite in the same way as most readers of In Touch – granted – but if their business generates massive social returns, I guess it has to has to be, doesn’t it?

So far so philosophical.

But ask yourself this. The phone rings. Its a 21 year old who had just been given £5m in their trust fund to change the world. He wants your advice.
Knowing what you know now , how would you advise them to do with it in order to make the biggest social benefit? £5 million into a series of CICs - or into those funky guys putting mobile phones into Africa who are looking for their next slug of investment?

I think I know what I'd be saying.

Its 1989 again

Or you would think so given how many times I have heard or seen the Stone Roses in the media this week. Yes, its 20 years (where did that GO?) since the release of THAT album. I was a student then. A second year politics undergrad at Newcastle. As usual I was a little late getting on to them, missing not only their local gig at Uni but also a chance the year before to see them in a dive in M60.

Listening to the album now it still sounds very good. But is it great? Is it up there with the Beatles, Dylan and the Clash? Is it great art or just brilliant rock music? Ask me 20 years ago I would have said yes to all three questions.

Today I am not so sure. I am not sure the Roses represented anything much beyond a kind of Manc casualism. While something in their music touched me when I was 20 it doesn't move me today in anything like the same way, now that I have heard a lot more.

No, I think the Roses are great mainly in the sense that they were perfect in their time. Like Oasis in 94, like the Arctic Monkeys in 06. I am not sure people listening new to them now will quite see the fuss. Yes a great album by a band which had a new sound and some striking songs but not, in the wider musical scheme of things, a band of unusual innovation, statement or emotional reach.

Still, you can't really beat ` I Am the Resurrection' - go to Spotify and play it NOW.

On Denmark

Just returned from a fortnight in a sleepy suburb of a town I am sure you won't have heard of called Soro, not far from Copenhagen.

Two weeks in a non-touristed area of a new country gives you a sense of how a place works. You use the roads, the shops, the trains. I also talked to people. Taxi drivers, people in shops (they all speak English). I happen to have a Danish friend who has also lived in the UK.

So what are my main impressions? Well this is a Sensible Country. People drive with their lights on in the daytime. There is a strong sense of`rules' both on the road (where traffic accidents are uncommon) and off, where people have a Germanic sense of order, cleanliness and public solicitude.

The Danes themselves are, overall, more relaxed, quieter, less ostentatious and possibly a little duller than Englanders. They are, generally, well educated and
the society as a whole is definitely less divided socially than our own (though this is changing I am told).

In terms of politics and society, Denmark typifies Continental Europe. Taxes are high (about 50% of basic income) and unemployment benefit is about 80% of your work income. People work less intensively than in the UK and there is, generally, more gender equality, with Dads doing more at home than in the UK. While there is a much-talked about problem with free-riders (people `taking' the system for all it is worth), many Danes regard that as preferable to the kinds of problems created when an underclass has revenge on its mind.

Would I live there? Probably not, though I am not sure I would mind living there if I was born and raised in Denmark. There is a stronger form and structure to life here which the person I am now would fund a little too rigid. Careers are more traditionally defined and Danes change jobs far less. Professions are stronger. The state is, clearly, a bigger force than in the UK or US, where you're more `on your own'. The upside of this is clear: a safer, cleaner and probably less pressurised society than our own (Denmark is, apparently, the happiest country in the world). The downside is that the place lacks `edge' and you have to pay about £30,000 for a new Ford Focus (the state adds a whopping sales tax on just about everything).

My contact with public services was interesting. The libraries in Denmark are not like ours. They are a bit like a swank version of Waterstones that include funky play areas for kids. Its all open plan, lots of PCs, a swing for the kids and staff moving around, interacting, not sat behind desks. Everyone uses them. That's the key, I think. In the UK, they are for the committed, the elderly and the vulnerable. Staff are surly and god help you if you ever bring a book back late. Most of us, frankly, stay clear of the places.

On the trains, they are, again, quite swank, but no nicer than when I first went there in 1999. It was here we had our only crap, totally un-Danish experience when, having lugged our 20lb buggy and two small kids on the train, to be asked to leave the carriage by a young conducter who deemed the train too full (it was about half as full as trains I often travel on in the UK).

Thinking we were about to be escorted to the specialcarriage with the fitted play-area and coffee lounge, I obligingly got us all off but was then told that the next train would be in an hour, we could try our luck then. Needless to say, the special child-friendly Danish carriage doesn't exist! For anyone who has small kids, you can imagine how this felt and how utterly buggered up all our feeding, sleeping etc schedules were for the whole day. I felt like standing my ground, Brit-style, but sensed my fellow passengers would have no truck with a bolshy foreigner trying to flout the rules.

Overall though, the place is better than here for kids, though the UK is fast-catching up. My liking of Denmark comes from its people who are mild, friendly and socially-minded. I would rather lose my wallet in a Danish town centre than a British one. And I think I would rather walk through one on a Saturday night, if I am honest. It is clearly a place more at ease with itself in which there is a sense of perspective. More negatively, I think it is teeny bit boring. You haven't got the kind of diversity and fashion we have. And it capital doesn't pulsate even as much as some of our provincial cities.

Do visit if you get a chance. But take your wallet and a few good books.

No Dumb Blond

At an evening bash I went to the other week, the after-dinner speaker was Philip Blond of the think-tank Demos. He was so good that I waved away the banofee pie. Superstardom surely awaits.

So what’s Philip Blond all about? Well, he is the catchingly titled 'Red Tory'. With compelling confidence, Blond lambasts not only Brownite statism (which we all expected) but also rampant individualism, materialism and monopoly capitalism (which, frankly, we didn’t). Both left and right get it in the neck.

As a third-sector person, a lot of what Blond said resonated. He argued that the `vertical lines’ between citizen and state have, over time, rubbed out the `horizontal’ ones which bind us together as a society. Where once we looked to each other, we now look to the state.

Or, alternatively, we seek personal liberation in possessions, easy sex or a kind detached `self-realisation’.

To support his case, Blond cited studies showing that the least cohesive communities of 35 years ago were more cohesive than the strongest ones of today. Think about that.

As he was speaking I thought about the pre-1945 world of mill-town Lancashire that my grandparents used to tell me about. The Co-op. The club. The penny insurance for the doctor. The immense pride in self-reliance.

My grandparents contrasted this lost world to the isolation, fear and humiliation they felt in old age.

I found myself attracted to a lot of what Blond had to say. We do need to regenerate the kind of social capital and community cohesion which many of us so crave. On which the health of society and our organizational missions depend.

And the public sector has, I agree, diminished our society rather than formed its highest expression, particularly in the last 12 years. It now feels less about public service than public servants.

Does this make me a Red Tory too? Probably not. I wasn’t entirely sure that Red Toryism is actually, when you strip it down, actually much more than Wet Toryism. There was one other big question. Can we, in 2009, push the toothpaste back in the tube and return to the more mutual world of my grandparents?

I say not. The atomization of society today is a product of a host of unstoppable technological and social economic factors – not all of them bad. Give me my life over that of my grandparents, any day.

Finally I am not sure I buy Blond's theory that our society is actually broken, though I see his point. Few places in the world, outside the UK, have struck such a sensible balance between individual self-determination and powerful bonds of care and obligation between its citizens. Bonds expressed most powerfully indeed in our own third sector.

Signing Off

This will be the last blog for two weeks as I explore the delights of Denmark - and maybe even Sweden if we are feeling adventurous.

But, house-burglars of the world, don't come to Rose Cottage unless you want to find the Matzen family between you and my laptop, Paul Smith suit and Smiths 12 inches.

Because we are house-sharing again. Yes, its the modern, cheap and far more interesting way to holiday than three grand on a condo in Florida/Crete/Algarve etc.

Our destination is Soro, one of the oldest towns in Denmark. The Matzen family have an amazing wooden house which is massive and beautiful. Trains to Copenhagen take an hour and our friends Elise and Tomas are an hour the other direction at Odense.

This holiday feels just in time. I am ACHING for a break. This last few months have been really full. The last week has seen a drastic improvement in my health and state-of-mind but it has been real fast, seat of pants stuff.

The usual mix of fun, teamwork, elation and disappointment at work. These days I am better at sitting back and remembering that the earth will still be turning, whatever happens at Speaking Up. Staying calm is, I am learning, a first-order virtue in a CEO role.

I am leaving my team in charge for a couple of week. This is of course no problem for me but they are stretched and I do worry about overload if anythign major happens when I am gone. As I have said on this blog before, I have one of the best senior groups a CEO could hope for. Hard-working, supportive and talented. One or two of them are much better all-rounders than me and will, I am convinced, go on to much bigger things than I am ever likely to do.

I learned early on not to be scared of talent, of having bright people around me. Such people make you as a CEO look good, even if it is clear how much brighter they are in many respects. For it is you that bring them in.

Only an idiot appoints people less talented than themselves. Better, in some areas of organisational life, to be one of the Weakest Links than a Giant Among Pygmies!

My council life this week has been a succession of calls to mainly older residents about the things that make their lives a bit miserable such as clanking drains, overhanging trees, dodgy pavements etc.

Not always things I can fix but I do find this work - the listening and the solving of life's little problems, oddly enjoyable. It is a bit like being Mr Benn, the TV cartoon, going into the wardrobe and coming out someone else - a COUNCILLOR.

I think I find this work a refreshing change. Plus I rather enjoy workign with the older generation, always have, probably because of my superb and sadly deceased grandparents: Jack and Jenny, Alec and Hilda. All long gone and affectionately rememembered.

Time to go. A bientot!

Telling It How It Is

I shared a platform last week with the famously mouthy civil servant Louise Casey. You may remember her for ASBOs and her desire to convicts wearing bright jackets on community serice.

And no she hasn't changed. Go hear her if you get the chance. Not only because she has enormously interesting things to say - but also because of how she will make you feel.

Casey is unusual not for her views (she sounds like a lot of the people I meet on the doorstep) but for the fact that she is willing to state them within the elite policy community in which she operates. Views which many of us express and share privately - but wouldn't share in public for fear of looking `bad' or out of step with the prevailing elite-view.

And it is this disjunction between the elite-set terms of public debate and what most people feel that concerns Casey the most. As public servants (in the broadest sense) we often do not, she says, comfortably reflect or express the public's views or concerns in what we do.

This has taken us to a point where many of the public feel that things such as the Human Right Act are there to protect other people, that the only way to lose a job these days is to say something deemed `racist' and that public bodies care about arcane, politically correct agendas- equality,rights and `elf and safety' more than actually helping them.

Watching someone like Louise Casey speak made me realise, thunderbolt-style, just how contricted much of our public discoure actually is. How unfree and self-censoring we actually are. And I decided there and than to follow her lead and take even more risks when on a platform - even if this means fewer invitations to speak or write.

Fogbound

As my life has gotten more hectic since my election, my mind fuller, by body tireder, my sleep shorter and my General Well-Being (to borrow the Cameroon expression) scoring, at best, seven out of ten, I am coming to a rather awkward realiation that I may have taken too much on.

I say may. It could be that things will settle down and equilibrium will magically reninstate itself. Perhaps. Or maybe not. Two things brought me to rude awakening. One was catching something. I don't know what - Swine Flu. Ordinary flu. Or just a Bad Cold. Either way, I was just bajaxxed by it. Complely knocked-over. I went to work of course and carried on but against all my inclination which was to sleep.

The other was my children. They are a barometer of how connected I feel to other people. When feeling is subdued in me, as it gets at times, it is only with them - the two beings in the world about whom I care most - that I notice. I go through the motions ok and I'm not sure they notice but I do. An absence. A gap once filled with joy. A lack of energy in my heart. A dryness of mind.

What do I do? Well, its really, for now, about soldiering on. Getting shut of my cold. Sleeping properly. Getting through things. Then looking at what might go if this doesn't work. Not the Council, nor my job but possibly other things. Let's just see.

The challenge for all of us is to reach that sweet spot between being fully alive and engaged - and probably fully loaded - then avoid tipping into the fog beyond.
I tilt between the two. In love with life and Fogbound.

Where you are?

Small Victories

Yesterday I scored my first `six' as a Councillor when I secured a dropped kerb and some pavement repairs for a disabled 85 year old resident, Mrs Roberts.

She had me round the other week and, after a tour of the problem (her new scooter couldn't mount the Eiger-like kerb near her house) she recounted stories great Lib Dem councillors of yore, which proved an very well judged strategy to spur me into action. I turned down the cup of tea and told her I would do my very best and come back in a week.

So I took photos on my Council Blackberry and emailed them in, half expecting a `Computer Says No' type response and rehearsed my indignant response as I pressed Send.

However, I was in for a nice surprise. A couple of days later I got a call. For the first time since election I felt the tingle of power as a nasally chap from the highways department described, in loving detail, the action to be taken following my representations. They would add, they said, a jet-wash of the scummed-up pavements near Mrs Roberts' house as an extra!

That this result felt incredibly satisfying I cannot deny. Being a third sector CEO is like pushing water uphill and herding cats, all at the same time. It is hard most of the time to feel like you're making any difference at all. The results are so far down the line.

Today, though, I felt like the man from Delmonte about to drop in to and say yes. A sweet feeling. And I might take that offer of a cuppa this time!

Red Light Flashing

As I have said before, this job takes me into some interesting places. Yesterday it was into the home of Lilly, a lady in her 80s who is using a personal budget (PB). Historically, Lilly just got services sent into her home. Now she has to manage the money and can, in theory at least, decide who and how that service is delivered.

Which is where we come in. Carolann, our Support-Planner, to be specific. Carolann is working with Lilly to help her to identify and plan for what she wants. This means working as a mixture of advocate (ensuring her voice is heard) and broker (helping her think through how she might use any remaining cash to make her life better).

I believe this type of service is the future of Speaking Up and (if we merge) Advocacy Partners. Not today or tomorrow but in perhaps five to ten years time. For this is way the world is going. People like Lilly don’t just need advocacy but a mixture of support, preferably all from the same trusted person. The old boundaries are coming under increasing pressure as the potential of new hybrid services is realized.

This is new ground. Space we need to be in as the next decade unfurls. It is, I guarantee, going to be a very hard few years for public services and charities delivering public sector contracts. Public spending through local councils and PCTs has gone up 50% in real terms in the last seven years. And it is now expected to drop quite significantly year on year. Not back to 2002 levels but quite a way. Every single seminar or presentation I attend as CEO is saying the same thing: Red Light Flashing.

The challenge for us at Speaking Up is immense. No less than to re-invent what we do and how we do it. If we fail to do this I believe that we will, very quickly, be overtaken by newer, cheaper operators. To avoid this we have to accept that we need to start working differently very quickly. Reshaping our processes in advocacy and Active Voices so that we can boost outcomes without spending any more. And make a shrinking budget deliver the same good.

How do we do this? Well, that is what I am hoping our staff and users can tell me. Getting more from less is never easy. It involves difficult choices, new ways of working and, yes, being more decisive about who needs our service the most.

These are never easy calls to make. But if our mission is to make it to the 2020s, we must not shy from this

How it Was For Me

I have been a CEO in the not-for-profit sector for about 15 years.

It all started when I worked in social care for disabled people. I noticed how poor the outcomes were when set against the colossal sums spent on people’s care and support. What I also noticed was how much better the outcomes were for disabled people who had the ability to represent themselves effectively. Have a voice. Speak up. So one day I made a decision to start a new organisation dedicated to just this. Speaking Up.

My journey began as a start-up with me as the only employee. Unpaid of course - I was 25 so money didn’t matter. It is a great time of life to take risks. I got the start-up funding after a year, and my second employee was a disabled man. Today I lead 150 people up and down the UK, a mix of disabled and non-disabled people.

In 2009 the mission stays the same: we still exist to support people with disabilities or mental health problems (and, occasionally, both) to control their own lives. We do this through mentoring, advocacy and self-help activities. Our strapline is Voice, Action, Change. One leading to the next. We work with 4000 people a year and are becoming a well-know charity and social business.

What has been distinctive about my journey is that I have been a CEO through every stage of organisational development. From seedling to sapling. From sapling to mighty oak. Each has made different demands, required a different ‘me’. Early stage leadership is all about passion, energy and workrate. It also involves being a polymath-operator, moving from selling to delivering then onto finance and governance all over the course of a single morning!

As we moved from ’seedling’ to ’sapling’ the demands changed. The passion that got me going up until now had to give way to a more considered approach. I had to step back and audit the skills I needed to deliver my mission through others. At this stage, the selection of key `cornerstone’ individuals becomes the major hurdle for a CEO to overcome.

This done, we grew into a mature ‘tree’ of an organisation, and the demands change again. Our organisation has evolved from being a unitary thing – myself and the people immediately around me – to a hydra-like being, with lots of different functions and, in our case, geographies.

As CEO, my task was then is to create a shared sense of purpose, co-operation and common values which, in turn, allowed a strategy to emerge. The management aspect of leadership becomes exclusively about creating a brilliant senior team around you and nurturing them. Not simply leading from the front like a First World War Colonel leaping over the trench. Imploring others to come with me!

Finding those people, trusting them to deliver and keeping them individually and collectively focused is now my main role as CEO. Developing the organisation, overseeing the development of strategy and providing clear leadership are now the chief skills. Very different from the early ’social entrepreneur’ days – which is why so many entrepreneurs leave early on and professional management comes in.

So why did I stay? Well, I knew I had to evolve with my organisation or leave – and I felt I could adapt to its needs. The journey was not without bumps and my skills have always lagged behind the demands of the job. But I worked hard to develop myself – getting an MBA on the way – and, eventually, turned myself into a proper CEO.

How different is it in the third sector from the private? In some ways, I suspect it isn’t that different at all as a CEO anywhere. The stuff I have written just now is probably true of any growing organisation, whether it exists to make money or not.

The difference perhaps comes in the nature of third sector organisations which are less deferential and hierarchical, and the role of Trustees that hold CEOs accountable and, in theory at least, set strategy. Things are slower, on the whole, and generally speaking organisations develop at a less frantic pace and take fewer risks. Procedure also plays a bigger role, making some third sector organisations feel more like the public than the private sector.

Overall though, I believe that most high quality third sector CEOs would do well in the private sector if they chose to go there. For most of them though, the third sector is where they remain. Either because their values have taken them there. Or, like me, they get hooked early on and stay addicted to its challenges.

If you’re thinking of a career in the third sector my best advice is to show some interest first and volunteer either as a trustee or front-line volunteer. This will help you understand the sector’s values and mark you out from the thousands who profess to want to come into the sector but show no evidence of previous interest.

If you are considering social entrepreneurship, go for it. But think carefully about whether you can cope with the work-rate, lack of structure and wide skill-set it demands. Many start, few succeed. From there, if you do succeed, always be aware that the skills that got you going to begin with won’t be the same skills to lead a larger going concern.

Overall though, don’t be deterred. The sector has a skills shortage and people with fantastic training are thin on the ground. Don’t be put off by lack of experience. Just be prepared to be challenged. It certainly won’t be what you are used to!

Twitter Correction

My new Twitter site (I lost the login details of an earlier, aborted attempt to get onto Twitter) is

www.twitter.com/deardenphillips

My username is also `deardenphillips'

Sorry for confusion

Am tweeting daily so please become my followers!

C

`Building Britain's Future' - Why this is bad for social enterprise

How should social entrepreneurs respond to Building Britain's Future, Gordon Brown's recently announced plans for the next Parliament?

Well, if I were you, I would be pretty skeptical. If you run a social enterprise that delivers public sector contracts, Building Britain's Future will not change the fact that your business is likely to come under seismic pressure from the most dramatic cuts in public spending since the late 1970s. Public spending is the last great bubble to burst.

So let's get real here. You know it. I know it. Most of the Cabinet knows it! Britain has run out of money for new public spending commitments, especially un-costed ones like in Building Britain's Future, which promises enforceable rights to public services far into the future. These ‘entitlements', according to the respected Institute of Fiscal Studies, were unsustainable even before the recession came along. Now they are just fantasy. Brown's promises therefore are not worth the fag packet they were written on. And to even imply that the public spending jamboree is going to continue is, for me, bordering on irresponsible.

Which is why Building Britain's Future was, for me as CEO of a public sector oriented social business, such a big ‘miss'. What could have turned it into a ‘hit'? Number one for me was a convincing story about how Labour in power would use the opportunity afforded by recession to bring in game-changing reforms in the way public services are provided. Breath-taking, audacious reform which would see the social business sector play a decisive role in both shaping and delivering new style public services for the 21st century. Services that not only delivered more, cheaper and better, but delivered in ways which put individuals and communities centre stage, like the stuff you see in places like Sunlight, led by the inspirational Peter Holbrook - things the state could never and will never do. This is the real opportunity agenda for social enterprises working with the public sector. And, at the moment, it is going begging.

What about business-to-business or consumer-facing social businesses? I think you should be equally wary. You will already have been deep in recession for at least a year and are probably yelping with pain. Unfortunately for you, Brown's measures at £5bn (little of it new) don't make a tiny bit of difference to when or how quickly recovery begins. Britain is a £1.1tn economy of which the government spends about £650bn. In terms of recession-impact Building Britain's Future is a flea-bite on an elephant. It won't help you one bit.

What Building Britain's Future will do, however, is cement the perception internationally that Brown isn't willing to acknowledge the need to control our debt. This will do social businesses like yours no good at all. It adds to the risk in 2010 or 2011 of quickly rising interest rates, tax increases and the vapourisation of consumer confidence…again. This is the real nightmare we must avoid at all costs. If this happens - and it will if whoever in government doesn't get a grip on public debt - we will sink into a second ‘dip', which will signal game over for many social businesses that, from what I hear anecdotally, are already on the edge of survival.

Yes, Building Britain's Future is, from a social enterprise perspective, more of a hazard than an opportunity. It is pure politics, designed to shore up Labour's core vote. Nothing more, nothing less. It isn't serious policy. There is nothing in it for our sector. If it was there would be a price tag and some specifics about the role social entrepreneurs will play. Hell, even Barack Obama name-checks us these days! No, sorry, Building Britain's Future takes us further away from a critical breakthrough than ever.

Follow me on Twitter

In an probably doomed attempt to be modern (I am forty next month, so forgive this), I have signed up to Twitter and will be `Twittering' at appropriate intervals/ events henceforth.

The format (at 140 characters) is designed to challenge the verbose, such as I, but I am hoping it will force brevity, concision and better writing.

I hope therefore not the be the man who put Twit into Twitter and if you want to follow my ID is

CraigDeardenPhillips

Best

C

A World of Change

Whoever wins the next general election, it is now clear that from next year onwards, we are facing the fiscal equivalent of the battle of the Somme. A defining challenge will confront the UK's public managers: they will need to be more efficient with public money while not undermining the effectiveness the population now expects of public services.

Yes, it seems a tall order. But while many predict a 1990s-style meltdown in public services, I, for one, don't believe this will happen. In fact, I think there are reasons for optimism.

First, this is because in future there simply won't be the resources to fund the cycles of structural changes in public sector organisations that have marked the past decade. Beyond a painful early adjustment to the new financial reality - in which many public managers will, unfortunately, lose their jobs - I predict we will see a period of enforced stability, which will enable public managers to cast their gaze outwards, on the needs of the public and the improvement of services.

Second, command-and-control is in retreat in the public sector. Centralised models of management are well known to be inimical to individual initiative and organisational effectiveness, even in organisations that are accountable to politicians and the public. Public managers need the power to manage and this could lead, in time, to a decline in the back-covering, "wading-through-treacle" side of public management.

Third, the coming crisis will invite massive levels of individual creativity from public managers. Crisis begets invention and the "mavericks", who think and do things differently, will be in high demand. The state sector could become a far better place for "public entrepreneurs" with a talent for piecing together new approaches, rather than people exclusively skilled in working the bureaucracy. Such mavericks are already plentiful in the public sector, but have often been marginalised or forced to leave to work in other sectors where their talent is valued.

So what will the successful public manager of 2020 be like? She will be outward-looking and deliver clear results, attested to by users, communities and partner agencies as much as by her own bosses. She will be able to work the politicians and defend herself, but she will be judged on her results. She will be able to do clever stuff with resources, marrying public money with other resources, and she will build first-class relationships, while keeping her own staff "people-facing".

The successful public servant of 2020 will not be a lifetime public servant. She will bring a world view, skills and experience from other sectors and take learning back there. The career civil servant will be virtually gone.

This is a world away. We could regress, but I don't think we will. People expect world-class public services, even though the levels of public investment of 2003-10 may never occur again. We have to find a way to bridge that gap through empowerment, creativity and entrepreneurialism during a very difficult time.

1000 Rabbits

I did my run later than usual last night, a magnficent Suffolk evening. Young corn stood green and upright in the fields, fully formed but hard and waxy. It was 8.30pm by the time I got out and just before 9.30pm when I ran into the park next to my house on the final stretch. The gates had been locked. All the cars and people had gone and I snuck in via a small, little-used gate.

As I emerged from a wooded area into open grassland, I came across what looked like a thousand rabbits, all seemingly aware of the `all clear' that dogs and people were no longer allowed and had come to feed on the lush grass in the meadow.

The arrival on scene, therefore, of myself and Terrier-Dog caused a mass scattering. Like Watership Down, a riot of rabbits fled for cover as the Terrier pulled on his extended lead to do what 100 years of breeding had made him for.

These gentle and nervous creatures looked up, zigzagged for cover, some fast, some slow. The babies taking their time, but all moving quickly to the nettles under which they could dive into the safety of the warren.

Within seconds, the carpeted meadow was, again rabbit-free, as the massed ranks waited, safely burrowed, for the second all-clear of the evening.

Back to Reality

It has been a bit of a fortnight. An unexpected election. An MBE. A major development at work to steer through. How do I feel? Dazed, if I am honest. And daunted by the weight of what I have taken on.

I have spent some of the last week - the bit in which I wasn't working furiously - starting to re-order my life so that I can not only be an effective CEO, father, husband and Trustee but also a first-class County Councillor.

This has meant talking to my colleagues and trustees who, bless them, are incredibly supportive, my family, from whom I will be asking for further ladle-fulls of forebearance and one or two Councillor colleagues who will, I have no doubt, be wondering why I don't spend all my time on council business.

Because since being elected I have found that hardly anyone elected as a County Councillor has a job. Unless it is being a District Councillor, or "twin tracker" as they are called. Added together, this makes full time local politics a viable way of life for many people who stand for election, particularly those with existing pensions.

Not for me of course, or many people under the age of 50. I have to do everything for the Council in, on average about 12-15 hours per week. This means I have to prioritize. It also signals I can't get over-involved in the politics of the county council. Which, from what I have seen, might be a good thing.

For what I have noticed (perhaps these things are clearer when you are new) is that many aspects of the Council's modus-operandi are fairly anachronistic when you look at what we know about what makes for organisational success. Take diversity as an example. Its members (elected Councillors) are drawn almost exclusively from the over 50s. Most are male, most middle-class and white. Young people under 30 are invisible as are black people. While a cross section of part of Suffolk, the full chamber in no way reflects its diversity.

Related to this is the old-fashionedness of much of its political life. The Council is,I think most people would find, over-politicised. Even fairly pragmatic issues can end up dividing along party lines. A kind of mini-Westminster feeling. While, of course, we need clear parties and programmes, we also need a sense of reality too. This is not Government and we are not, thank-goodness, MPs.

Indeed it was the whipping system in the Council which brought about the policy of closing our middle school system, the unpopular policy against which contributed to mt election by people who normally vote Tory. For despite about 90% opposition locally, our former Tory Councillor voted for closure and paid, ultimately, with his seat. People just didn't get it. Their Councillor was there for them - wasn't he? Well no, he was there for his party.

I say this not to make a political shot - I expect the same from whichever party is in power (though again `in power' over-states the real situation). It is to say that, locally and probably nationally too, we need a politics that goes beyond party. Elected people need, as in the US, to be locally accountable as well as answerable to their party. People who vote for us need to know we will, in the final analysis, put them first.

Now that I am elected, my mission is to be a first class Councillor, not a local politician focused on the machinations of the council. I aim to be seen on the streets of Hardwick more than in the steel-and-glass of Endevour House, the council's glamorous HQ. People's faith in our system and our elected representatives is at an all-time low. If I can do anything at the small-time level at which I operate, to restore people's belief in the system, I will consider myself a success.

Sheep-Dipped

Yesterday I attended my induction as a new Councillor.

It all took place at theglass-and-metal `Endevour House', the gleaming HQ of Suffolk County Council. Though the place felt more like RBS or Goldmans than a local authority, I prefer the open-plan, corporate feel than the fustiness of most LA bases.

The induction itself was performed with extreme efficiency. It felt like I imagine a Club Class flight would do. Smiling, attentive, highly proficient staff ensuring you are taken care of the whole time, not able to do enough for you. For a while I almost forgot I was in the public sector, not five star hotel!

The piece-de-resistace is the Members' area which is a bit like a cross between the RSA and the British Library. Here you can snuggle down with the latest copy of the New Scientist or that day's East Anglian Daily Times, check the web and pop in to see your political colleagues in a neighbouring room.

One thing that jumped out at me as a third-sector person is how big a factor IT is in the way life works inside the Council. It is simply first class. And as new Councillor I was given a laptop, Blackberry and all the kit I needed on day one to be fully-functioning citizen on the Council's e-world.

So, at the end of a long day, I walked,badged and IT'd out into the street. The door was opened for me and I was helped with my stuff to the special spaces for Councillors in the car park.

The experience seems designed to illuminate who the real bosses are - the elected representatives. But I also sensed that it is also about assimilation. Bringing you into the corporate bosom to be part of the family. A seduction of sorts.

Lovely though it is, I am deliberately stepping back a little from this. I want my time to be spent on the streets of Hardwick not the corridors of Endevour House.

And my loyalties in the correspondingly right places.

Lib Dem Gain - Hardwick

In the midst of the `Tory Tide' of local government success, there were odd little eddies and swirls in other directions.

One of these was Bury St Edmunds where, with the support of my team, I turned over a ten percent Tory advantage to win, a Green came from nowhere to beat Labour and an Indepdendent took another seat leaving just one of four in the hands of the Tories.

The day of the results was bizzare. I awoke with a clear and calm sense that I hadn't won. The three polling stations had been busy (44% turnout) which I felt meant a Tory win. I arrived at the count with my Green colleague Mark Ereira-Guyer in `end of term' mood not really expecting a lot.

Then the excitement. My pile of votes was growing at a much faster rate than those of either of my opponents, one of whom was pacing the floor and biting his nails.

All of a sudden, I was being told I had won and then it was announced.

For more info go to http://elections.suffolkcc.gov.uk/candidate.aspx?areaID=46

Immediately a very nice young man approached me from Suffolk County Council came up, shook my hand and gave me a big booklet full of all sorts of helpful advice about what is to come. Then I went to talk to the local press, again two very nice, polite young men.

For the next three hours I felt in shock. Dazed a bit confused. Katy came and met me and we drove into town, me texting and emailing, but not really there.

By teatime, it had sunk in. I had won the election and am now County Councillor Craig Dearden-Phillips. My elation had turned into anxiety. How was I going to do this on top of everything else? Then I saw my kids and started to feel upset. Was this going to be at their expense?

In the evening, we took out both sets of parents to celebrate, though the feeling of apprehension hadn't entirely left me. Thankfully, as the night progressed, that sense of possibility had restored itself and I managed to enjoy myself.

A night's sleep and a meeting today with the 11 other Lib Dems who now formed the Official Opposition, after the decimation of the Labour Party. This meeting put me right. Our Group Leader told me to look after my job, my wife, my kids and the community before worrying about Shire Hall stuff. I felt pacified.

So a big two days and not the ones I was expecting. But, if you play to win, as I did, I guess it is better to expect to do so every so often.

Awaiting the People's Verdict

Today the voters of Hardwick Division go to the polls. Win, lose or draw this has been a worthwhile experience for me. This election is difficult to call as the cross-winds of local and national issues collide and confuse the picture. It feels a bit like being on the X Factor and waiting for the calls to come in. Nervy, elated, a bit helpless.

Our campaign has been really strong - three leaflets and every door knocked on (3500 in all). The only hiccup has been our clash with another candidate who has wrung as much advantage as he can from an early and very promptly and professionally-dealt with problem in our campaign information. When problems are sorted quickly and apologies offered you expect people to accept this and move on, not milk it for all it is worth.

I guess that is politics. However,I refuse to play that particular game. My rule number one upon deciding to do this was to be myself, not get pulled out of shape. To do so is stressful and self-defeating. And it doesn't make you look good.

Today I have lots of people out as Tellers, Drivers and Callers. We have well over a thousand people to ensure turn out for us. I have been touched by the levels of support I have received, meaning that I have not had to deliver a single leaflet or do anything that is not voter-facing. My team of 15 volunteers does all of it for me, leaving me to talk to people. There has been a great atmosphere in the camp, and, as I may have said before, the spirit in the campaign reminds me of the early days of Speaking Up.

Better run, I have to run round the Polling Stations now and show my face. Win, lose or draw, this has been great fun. I recommend it to anyone.

A Fork in the Road (Goodbye Jonathan - and well done)

News came through last week of the departure of Jonathan Bland, CEO of Social Enterprise Coalition these last ten years.

First things first, it needs to be acknowledged by more people that he has done a fantastic job of building the profile of social enterprise in this country. While we can all argue the toss about how he has gone about it, there is no doubt in my mind that he deserves huge credit for getting us where we are, particularly in Government circles.

Here, on relatively low resources, he has helped develop awareness that, most recently, produced the commitment to 25,000 new social enterprise jobs. Whatever your views of his vision for social enterprise (and we all have our views on this) he has been a tenacious, passionate and effective advocate of social business and I think he sometimes doesn't get enough credit.

Personally, I believe Jonathan should feel deeply satisfied with his contribution down the years and I wish him the very best in his new life in Finland.

So what next for SEC and for the sector in general? It feels we are possibly at a fork in the road. Broadly speaking we divide into two camps, one that prefers close definition of social business, linking it with particular ownership and reward structures, as an `alternative model' to regular business and another camp which prefers a looser approach which looks as much at the social outcomes of any given organisation, regardless of its structure or ownership.

To date, the strategy of SEC, from what I can see, has been more towards definition. And, in a sense I can see why. Government in particular needs to be able to differentiate social enterprise from wider business if it is to treat it as a clearly distinct entity. Likewise, the public, human-nature even, seems to clamour for definition.

Part of this quite understandable. In a cynical age, many are keen for a label that santifies what might otherwise be quite ordinary profit-maximising businesses. Ownership represents a clear shorthand for what otherwise might not be a particularly verifiable concept.

The downside is that definition has been, for a long time now, the dominant discussion, rather than outcomes. Like a boomerang, it seems to return, no matter how hard you think you have thrown it.

Definition also has the more risky downside of sectioning-off social enterprise to the tiny minority of organisations with appropriate legal structures. So even a fast-growing sector will only ever, at its peak, perhaps encompass a relatively small number of businesses.

So strategically, the arguments rage. On the one hand, you have some saying that social business will never get out of the blocks unless it drops its fixation with definition and others saying that without definition, social business will become so amorphous as to risk becoming little more than high-octane CSR.

Where am I on this? Being the liberal-schniberal I am, I see merit on both sides of the debate as I understand it. I am worried about a world in which we cannot say who we are and what makes us different. Equally, I want us to be able to talk to the Shell's and Unilever's of this world about how they too might be able to become social businesses in the sense of achieving a better balance between profit, people and planet - plus, and this is CRUCIAL, giving transparency on this.

Can we square this particular circle? Well, any sector is, remember, full of, and indeed defined by diversity. And I am not just talking about political parties or movements. The CBI, TUC and Federation of Small Businesses all have different `wings' with varying aspirations while still managing, just about, to be cohesive and effective forces.

I see social business as similar. We need to embrace everyone who is committed to social reporting and a better balance between profit and other types of outcome. Personally I err towards definition along outcome-lines than structure lines, but this doesn't mean we cannot all stand together.

I think SEC, going forward needs to both acknowledge, publicly, that social enterprise as a number of `faces' (just as mainstream business does), support the varying needs of the sector in an even-handed way but, and this is perhaps the departure needed from current strategy, reach out to suitable private corporations to bring them into the fold. A bigger tent in other words.

Yes there are risks. Yes some people will jump up and down and form break-aways. And yes we should support them to do so. Any church worth its salt is a broad church.

We should not fear this. A broader `movement' will be a stronger one,in my view because the fundamentals of anyone who is part of it will be similar - business for multiple purposes, not just profit. For me, colours on mast at last, is what defines social business to me more than anything else.

And this is where SEC now needs to go while also keeping everyone we already have `on the bus'.

You Can't Dencentralise and Empower Without PR

Win or lose in this election, I will not regret having done it. First of all, you meet a lot of people. You get to understand what is on people's minds. I am also quite impressed by just how much people understand politics and current affairs.

What also hits me is the preciousness of democracy. The fact that it is the public that chooses whether I am a Councillor next week, not a committee or a bureaucrat. They have the choice.

And while choosing a Councillor doessn't translate into anything like real control or empowerment on most issues, it is a golden thread of accountability that defines the type of society we are.

I would like to see more of this: recall, citizen referenda and citizen-led legislation like you see in the US. Politics beyond politicians which invigorates civil society - and keeps politicians on their toes.

Competition is key to this. Without competition, the benefits of democracy disappear too. In the neighbouring division to mine, in which I live, there are no leaflets, poster or visits.

Because there is only one winner. Now and always. He gets around 50% of the vote but no more. Most people know the situation and, surprisingly, don't engage. And he feels more accountable to his party's whips than the people who put him there. This isn't the right balance, I feel.

By contrast the competition in my Division is intense and three-way. At least two candidates, including myself, are visiting every household in the Division and leafleting intensively.

If we win, we know we have to be active, energetic representaives, not the do-nothing types you find in the Labour or Tory monocultures that you find in inner-cities or the rural shires.

For this reason, PR is needed. Alternative vote at local level would retain the link but ensure that whovever won had the endorsement of the majority. It would also enliven debate and engagement.

Which is why Cameron's announcement and interview yesterday can be seen as politicial bluff. Because if he was remotely serious he wouldn't exclude electoral reform from his list.

Electoral reform is the oxygen of decentralisation and wider engagement in politics. Without it, most votes don't count for a thing. If Labour had any sense they too would come out for PR, like Alan Johnson has done.

`Typical Lib Dem' I hear you thinking. Well yes, you are right. For Lib Dems have always championed the radical decentralisation now being aired by the mainstream parties. But you can't give power away to any meaningful degree without a voting system that also recognises the value of each and every vote.

When Work Isn't Working

I was on the phone yesterday to CEO-friend of mine. It was lovely to speak to him, as ever, but he's not happy man. Not at work anyway.

Like a lot of CEOs, he's just not enjoying the job. He struggles to believe that his organisation is making a difference and he despairs at the mountain of crap he has to deal with every time he goes to work.

He contrast this life with his earlier one with a much smaller organisation. This felt far more `real' and he felt that, however difficult things got, he was making a tangible difference, not, as he put it, `wasting his time' in his current role.

We discussed the nature of senior jobs. Are they all a bit like this? Low on satisfaction, high on hassle. With an accompanying sense that only a small droplet of social good emerges from the oil-refinery of inputs and outputs over which one presides as a CEO.

Obviously not all the top jobs are bad. There is fun to be had. I, for one, am in a more fortunate situation than my friend. But he has a point. We talked a bit about money.

What you get above 45k is, he says is commensurate with the level of stress you have to ensure. The top salaries are essentially buying not only your skills but also your ability to absorb negativity and, perhaps most crucially, your consent to set aside your own fulfilment through meaningful work in exchange for a good standard of living.

Again, this reflects, I think, only some jobs - but more than perhaps we'd all be comfortable admitting. At times (normally during long meetings), I too feel I am divorcing myself from what I used to actually enjoy in order to earn more than I once did.

Where does this leave us? My friend is seriously considering his options. He yearns for a more meaningful if less well paid existence. Something brand new is on his mind.

For me, I am staying where I am, for now. My situation is cushioned by an amazing senior team and board. I consider myself one of the lucky ones. But, in the middle distance, I envisage change, if only to restore that vital connection between myself and the direct delivery of benefit.

Learning the Hard Way

I am mostly enjoying my new life as a small-time politician. The campaign takes me back to the early days of Speaking Up. All volunteers, young and old, all in it together. I love the challenge of working out people's skills and melding together a team that clicks. I also relish the buzz of the campaign.

My `Campaign Crew' is a motley group ranging from 82 to 22. I have senior professionals, I have call-centre staff, pensioners and students. Unusually most of my crew are not Lib Dem party members and three are members of other political parties. I've not worked with this kind of diversity for a long time. After years of working with only with my senior team and board this is actually a refreshing kind of challenge. Fortunately I am loving it. Mostly.

This week the campaign had its first hiccup. One of the team, a prominent member of the local party, wrote part of my second leaflet and included in it an incorrect fact about one of my opponents' voting record. 3500 of these had been printed and 500 delivered before I got an angry call from the gentleman whose good name we had besmirched.

Understandably upset, he demanded that we withdraw the leaflet and apologise. Then the paper called and suddenly I am part of a story about the depths to which local politicians will go to gain petty advantage.

My more experienced colleagues tell me, like kindly uncles, that this is all par for the course. Local politics is, they say, pretty aggressive and personal at times (my opponent pulled no punches in his communication). It all left me a little...unsettled, if I am honest. Which I am sure was the desired intention.

Where does this leave me? Do I accept that local poltiics is a bit of a knockabout and give as good as I get? Or do I seek to act in the way I do in other areas of my life where I try, wherever possible, to seek the common ground and get things done through trust. A path I have always found to be the most productive.

For now, I am going with the latter, whatever people tell me. The people I really admire in politics - Frank Field, Vince Cable etc - are all `real people' as much as they are professional politicians. The public actually like this about them. While I am sure they are superb operators, they are smart enough to realise that the highly adversarial means of doing politics in this country are actually not particularly effective at achieving its ends. And that they are a turn off for voters, especially the young.

If elected, I will seek to work in the way I always have to make good things happen. And, yes, this includes a personal note of apology to my opponent, despite his reaction, which was not what I am used to in such situations. When I look back in a few years time at this blog I may laugh at my naivety. But is there any point doing this if you're not going to be yourself and bring to the table what has worked well so far in your life? If that's the case, why bother?


The lessons of this week have been harsh ones though. Check your facts. Be in control of your message. Anticipate how opponents might try to convey not only what you stand for but how you operate as a person. This is, I am learning, a tough game, even at local level. The gloves are off and if you leave yourself open, as I did, you will get one in the head. I don't believe there is anything inherently `personal' in any of this stuff (candidates apparently have great fun together at the count, once the war for votes is over), but, in the meantime, anything you do which can count against the way voters perceive you is fair-game.

The Anonymous Pol

I am feeling very virtuous right now. For a small-time politician anyway. On my rounds I picked up a lot of concern about a local road near a school where there is no crossing.

I wrote a letter to the paper (the titan Bury Free Press) and was immediately called by a journalist.

Time to come clean but risk being outed a a pol or to milk the story but risk exposure? Being risk-averse, and reasonably clean, I fessed up but pointed the journo to the local mums.

However, I am, as anyone knows me, never one to miss an opportunity. So I did pop round to let the Mums know I had called the paper and they wanted to run the story. And, that, yes, I was stepping out now, because I thought it would run better without politics.

For a moment I felt the cynicism melt away as bid goodbye, jumped into my Scrapage Focus (a grand and its yours) and sped away. OK so I don't make Friday's paper. But this felt like a good result in these overcast times. And it certainly felt right. Two votes rather than, say, 20. Maybe I will live to regret it. But, somehow, I don't think I will.

Politicians - you're all the bloody same!

Its not a great week to be out knocking on doors as an aspiring small-time politician. People just don't want to know. MPs of all parties have done fantastic damage to not only to politics but also to the social fabric.

The scandals of the week have given documentary, indeed granular, proof of the grasping, maximising nature of many of our politicians. And to all the curmudgeons who say `They're only in it for themselves', well the proof is there now for all to see.

On the doorstep, all you can do is say you agree and tell them what a nightmare it is at local level where we don't get paid etc. A lot of people tell me they are not going to vote, as a protest. Others, even committed voters, just don't know what to do next. This has, flummoxed them.

And this is perhaps the most worrying aspect to all this. The cynics were always there, a small minority. Most people in this country recognise the need for politics, they might not engage that much but their tacit consent is key to our system working. If it is withdrawn, we're all in trouble.

All of this opens door not only to mass disengagement but also the political fringe. I suspect the BNP will benefit in many areas because of this.

What also interests me is the way nearly all MPs - the better people as well - all pretty much got what they could. Obviously this is so much the norm in Westminster that people soon lose any inhibition once elected. I wondered to myself what my claim would have looked like were I an MP for, say, Bury St Edmunds. Would I have a second home? Might I have used all the available means to furnish it without dipping into my own pocket. Could I have resisted the temptation to realise capital gains when I finally sold it?

I would like to be able to say No, No and No to all of these questions. But I am not sure it would always be quite so straightforward. While the moralist within me would want to resist, the human in me would ask futher questions: If all my peers claim for these things, wny shouldn't I? Is it within the rules, after all, to claim things which are incurred in setting oneself up as an MP who has to, effectively, live in two places? And, at the end of the day, I may not be an MP forever and my career prospects have already ben pretty shredded by getting into politics all those years ago.....

I think all of this is, in the wider context, pretty weak. But I can see how many MPs, otherwise pretty OK people, will have got to where they are now.

Anyway, my campaign is going well I think. I have a great team ranging in age from 22 to 82. What I enjoy is the sense that we're in it together and everyone is there because they want to be. It reminds me in many ways of the early Speakining Up. And, yes, I have having a lot of fun.

24 Hour High

Possibly my most active 24 hours for some time. At this time (10pm) yesterday I was at UEA Norwich watching and admiring the incredible Doves play a very loud set to the East Angles. It takes a lot to get me out to live events these days (I don't like armpits, dives or hanging-around) but for Doves I waive my rules.

A bit like Elbow, Doves are all fairly un-glam, post-ego northern blokes around my age who just do what they do. They wear shit clothes, don't do `chat' with the audience beyond the occasional `Thank-you, Norwich' (which I like), but are clearly honoured by people's interest and enthusiasm. I left with my heart yearning for more, and ears ringing loudly all the way home.

A seven to seven day at work today. Six big meetings, back to back. Wondered how I would do it but actually started enjoying myself quite quickly. Funny how this happens. I even found the disciplinary-type meeting I had today oddly satisfying (I often feel physically ill in advance of these things). Reminded me I can be tough if I have to be.

Spent quality time with my Chair, my SMT and several individual SMT. I have an unsually talented senior team. In this I am incredibly lucky. All of them are super-bright, motivated and, to a person, honest and nice. I think I pick well but I simply follow the maxim that you should try to appoint people better than yourself. They never cease to impress me.

Finally got back to the kids who I haven't seen all week. Get a welcome I don't really deserve. See my mother who has been down all week and I haven't spent an hour with. Feel on a `work-high', the drug I spent most of my 20s and 30s, hooked on. The come-down will arrive in about....36 hours. It actually feels like I have taken something. Which is why I need to be careful. I can't sip from this bottle too often or I go backwards. Time to stop I think...