Sometimes I get to Friday evenings feeling full of energy and achievement, still wanting more. Other times, I limp past the finish line like a cramped marathon runner, all achy and tired. This was one of those Fridays. It hasn't been a bad week, on the whole. Quite the opposite in fact. A good meeting with my excellent senior team. A successful trip to London and, today, the launch of Speaking Up's Youth Parliament, comprising young people from Cambs, Suffolk and Peterborough. Seeing our excellent teams in action and the enthusiasm of all the Mums and Dad's was lovely.
Spoke to Jim Paice, our local Conservative MP who, unlike Lib Dem David Howarth, fulfilled his commitment to come along. We mused about the £60 billion annual budget deficit facing the next Government and say we're glad that the newly rebuilt school we're standing in will be completed by then. Paice thinks its a lot more than £60 billion, which, if true would mean we're trying to plug a 12-15% gap between known income and planned expenditure in just 2 years time.
Earlier in the week I had been on an ACEVO Working Group looking at how CEOs can better engage staff in their organisations. Although this is considered to be a strength of third sector organisations, the truth is we get more tribunals than any other sector. The group was actually quite good with a range of people from all kinds and sizes of organisation. It was chaired by the genial and super-bright Jon Sparkes, CEO of Scope and also, I am delighted to say, Trustee of Speaking Up. Unlike some clever people who wear their intelligence like bling, Jon is under-stated and keeps it all simple. This makes his gift something to admire rather than grimace at, or feel envy for.
The problem we all face, we discovered, was the disjunction between attempts to de-machine our organisational cultures (more personal appearances, a clearer, more human organisation voice) and the clunking machinery of the Employment Law and personnel rules which many of our organsiations contain. And no time is this clanking louder than in a downturn when the `At Risk' letter go out, formal `consultation' has to take place with about 5000 people who might be affected by 20 job losses and the secrecy about restructure has to be absolute in order to prevent the odd rascal suing you for some breach of employment law.
The solutions are not to be defeated by the machine. To continue to be human. To use your HR people to formalise informality and to keep beating away at the message that there is no conspiracy. Many of us too are seeking to involve staff in strategy and create an organisational conversation. We, for example, use a fortnightly e-bullet called `Heads Up' which I use to flag up where I see things, a sort of CEO blog, but not one that has been put through the internal PR mincer. Just a fairly straight-up account of the issues. Unsurprisingly to me, I know people read it and, to a point, appreciate its tone and content.
My final stop in London is at a well-known social investment company which I love very much (and its not that one) which was doing some market-research on its own positioning in the sector. One of the exercises was when the names of all the agences were thrown on the table on cards and we were asked to group them. There were commercial banks, `charity banks, social lenders, equity-investors grant-givers. Interestingly this organisation did bits of all, with the possible exception of grant-giving. Their positioning was as a boutique social finance agnency which, if they didn't do it, could find you a man or woman that could.
A necessary force, I thought. But what is still missing from this market in my view is a social investment agency that goes much further down the risk pathway than loans, or performance-dependent returnable grants (or quasi-equity). Its the Angel investor market. Those people, like David Gold of Glimmer (he's the only one and he's very small) who say, `I like this idea, this person, this acorn, and I'm going to take a flyer on it'. Very few people do that. The organisations getting social investment tend to be those that have three or more years track-record. This is a blockage on social innovation, one which a Social Investment Bank would not, I believe solve, due to the degree of risk. One in ten successes, while the norm in venture capital, would not, I suspect, impress the Treasury.
The week ends as the week began, in the bedroom upstairs, trying, against tiredness to negotiate clothing on and off the body of my lovely one year old son, Wilf. He's laughing tonight, particularly when I make parping noises on his belly. He loves play, the rougher the better. This boy goes to sleep the second you lay him down and shut the door. I then go read to Ruby, two stories (she always insists on two). Fortunately, tonight's are mercifully short and she's practically asleep by the end. As always, I rub her back, and we run through all the people who love her, something he joins in after a while. She is an adorable child. I think, briefly of David Cameron who lost a child this week. I struggled to contain myself when I heard that news, as I think a lot of people did who have children. You know what it means for the rest of your life, the sense of loss that never goes, that shadow on your heart. I feel a huge sense of sorrow for Cameron and his wife. And, then, predictably perhaps, relief that it was not my child that died on Wednesday morning.
Friday, February 27, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
Getting up Close with Personal Budgets
Yesterday I spoke at an event put on by third sector CEOs body ACEVO about the challenges and opportunities presented by personal budgets (PBs) for social care.
The line up was intereting. First up was David Challis of the University of Manchester who was one of the leaders of the IBSEN government sponsored research into PBs.
In essence his research showed that, over the whole sample, having a PB had a very small impact on personal well-being, compared to those in the control group.
However, there were differences within the sample. Young people, for example, fared a lot better, as did people with learning disabilities and mental health problems. But for older people - the vast bulk of potential PB users, outcomes were actuallý overall marginally poorer.
Now this could have been an 'old versus new' effect which would erode over time but the big take out from David's work was that it cannot be proven yet that PBs improve outcomes as a matter of course.
What he did say, however, was that the changes that did happen for people who
altered their provision slightly were often reported very positively. The meal you pay the pub to deliver rather than having meals on wheels. Being put to bed by your neighbour rather than a paid carer who might appear long beforeor after your preferred bedtime.
David's message to the third sectorwas that this policy could be a massive opportunity to increase their role, ashe has seen happen in Australia and Japan, where TSOs now do many of the roles currently delivered by local authorities such as assessment of needs and allocation of resources. In parts of Australia, for example, it is quite normal for a charity to be assigned the whole responsibility for social care needs within a particular geographic area.To this end they set up brokerage services, as well as provision.
My worry, and one shared with many of the audience is that in most parts of the UK,local authorities are defending this role and ensuring that, long term, it is they, not TSOs or anybody else have this central role. It is they who have the funded brokerage services running already and so forth. In essence, yet another uncontested service delivery contract won to the only candidate allowed into the process.
Next up was Caroline Glendinning, another of the IBSEN researchers. Her presentation focused moreon the logistics and challenges to the social care provider market when you disaggregate demand in the way PBs do. There are unintended outcomes, losses of efficiency in contracting and all sorts of tricksy problems around who ensures carers are checked-out,trained and doing what they should be doing etc. Hers was aless compelling presentation thn Challis' but the take away, for me, is that every major policy shift has unintended consequences that can actually challenge the whole model.
I spoke about our experience of attempting to get a new support service to people using PBs off the ground in Cambridgeshire, something which we started thinking about in 2007.
For me the experience has been frustrating. The LA seem to be investing most of the Social Care Reform Grant into their own initiatives and , so far, there has been little tangible support. I am not actually convinced that LAs want to see TSOs in this space. As providers yes, they ok with that. But working closely with users to shape their budgets, no I remain unconvinced of their will to fund this happening outside of the LA. I hope I am proven wrong.
Final speaker was Stephen Rose of Choices Support, a 35 million pound charity which he has grown from an acorn. Stephen is the opposite of the self-centred, bucaeering social entrepreneur. His low key, modest approach seems almost unbeting of a person of such achievement. His key point was that TSOs themselves can, as providers of services, get involved in helping to broker change for individuals they support. Choices has, he told us, broken its 35 million budget into 6000 individual accounts and they now offer brokerage for free.
Did the session change my views of PBs? I think I now appreciate more fully the role that service providers will play in acting as brokers, despite a degre of conflict of interest. I also now think that any solution we develop may need to have a provision-option built into it. The session also brought to mind that in order to really get momentum into what we are doing - and our process has been relatively slow - we need to obtain development capital quite soon. One way to do this is to partner with a large provider and this is something to which I think we now need to give proper consideration.
Overall I believe that by 2019, PBs will be the norm for most people whether these are held as a cash payment or, at the other end of the scale, within the Local authority. The third sector will be providing more than it does now though I somhow doubt we will see an Australian-style handing over of responsibility from LAs. Nice though that is to envisage, I suspect that is to hope for too much.
The line up was intereting. First up was David Challis of the University of Manchester who was one of the leaders of the IBSEN government sponsored research into PBs.
In essence his research showed that, over the whole sample, having a PB had a very small impact on personal well-being, compared to those in the control group.
However, there were differences within the sample. Young people, for example, fared a lot better, as did people with learning disabilities and mental health problems. But for older people - the vast bulk of potential PB users, outcomes were actuallý overall marginally poorer.
Now this could have been an 'old versus new' effect which would erode over time but the big take out from David's work was that it cannot be proven yet that PBs improve outcomes as a matter of course.
What he did say, however, was that the changes that did happen for people who
altered their provision slightly were often reported very positively. The meal you pay the pub to deliver rather than having meals on wheels. Being put to bed by your neighbour rather than a paid carer who might appear long beforeor after your preferred bedtime.
David's message to the third sectorwas that this policy could be a massive opportunity to increase their role, ashe has seen happen in Australia and Japan, where TSOs now do many of the roles currently delivered by local authorities such as assessment of needs and allocation of resources. In parts of Australia, for example, it is quite normal for a charity to be assigned the whole responsibility for social care needs within a particular geographic area.To this end they set up brokerage services, as well as provision.
My worry, and one shared with many of the audience is that in most parts of the UK,local authorities are defending this role and ensuring that, long term, it is they, not TSOs or anybody else have this central role. It is they who have the funded brokerage services running already and so forth. In essence, yet another uncontested service delivery contract won to the only candidate allowed into the process.
Next up was Caroline Glendinning, another of the IBSEN researchers. Her presentation focused moreon the logistics and challenges to the social care provider market when you disaggregate demand in the way PBs do. There are unintended outcomes, losses of efficiency in contracting and all sorts of tricksy problems around who ensures carers are checked-out,trained and doing what they should be doing etc. Hers was aless compelling presentation thn Challis' but the take away, for me, is that every major policy shift has unintended consequences that can actually challenge the whole model.
I spoke about our experience of attempting to get a new support service to people using PBs off the ground in Cambridgeshire, something which we started thinking about in 2007.
For me the experience has been frustrating. The LA seem to be investing most of the Social Care Reform Grant into their own initiatives and , so far, there has been little tangible support. I am not actually convinced that LAs want to see TSOs in this space. As providers yes, they ok with that. But working closely with users to shape their budgets, no I remain unconvinced of their will to fund this happening outside of the LA. I hope I am proven wrong.
Final speaker was Stephen Rose of Choices Support, a 35 million pound charity which he has grown from an acorn. Stephen is the opposite of the self-centred, bucaeering social entrepreneur. His low key, modest approach seems almost unbeting of a person of such achievement. His key point was that TSOs themselves can, as providers of services, get involved in helping to broker change for individuals they support. Choices has, he told us, broken its 35 million budget into 6000 individual accounts and they now offer brokerage for free.
Did the session change my views of PBs? I think I now appreciate more fully the role that service providers will play in acting as brokers, despite a degre of conflict of interest. I also now think that any solution we develop may need to have a provision-option built into it. The session also brought to mind that in order to really get momentum into what we are doing - and our process has been relatively slow - we need to obtain development capital quite soon. One way to do this is to partner with a large provider and this is something to which I think we now need to give proper consideration.
Overall I believe that by 2019, PBs will be the norm for most people whether these are held as a cash payment or, at the other end of the scale, within the Local authority. The third sector will be providing more than it does now though I somhow doubt we will see an Australian-style handing over of responsibility from LAs. Nice though that is to envisage, I suspect that is to hope for too much.
Thursday, February 19, 2009
30 Hours in Town
This week I am spending two days in London, trying to pack a month's worth of networking into 30 action-packed hours.
Wednesday starts sedately as I read the Guardian's excellent Social Enterprise supplement. Great pieces by my friend Martin Clark, author of `The Social Enterpreneur Revolution', Andrew Mawson, Patrick Butler and superb Vox Pop from Rob Greenland of The Social Business, Kresse Wessing of EAKO and Rod Schwartz of Catalyst. It feels that we're finally on the front-foot as a sector now, confident and clear in what we are saying. And people are now listening as the world-as-they-knew it collapses around them.
First up I meet Peter Mason of Secure Healthcare at the Commonwealth Club. Peter is a public innovator, one of those genuine social entrepreneurs who thinks and acts big - and has the skill to let others come in behind him quickly. His passion is offender health care and his business will, he hopes, soon win enough major contracts in UK prisons to be a key player. Peter does a lot of consulting, something I notice a lot of the more established people now doing. For him, consulting is low-input, high-impact activity, something that his profile and personal brand enables him to do. Impressive.
Next up it is Futurebuilders Investment Committee. These meetings are all incredibly interesting, particular in the current economic situation and the resulting Government action-plan for the Third Sector.
Then on to meet the excellent Clare Gilhooley and her development director from Cambridge House in Southwark who are a major advocacy provider as well as providing a range of community services in Southwark. Cambridge House is a `community anchor' type organisation that, strategically, has to balance being dependent on its local focus with a need to develop diverse income streams from places a little further afield.
The day ends with dinner with Craig Morley who is now CEO of the newly constituted (last week) Challenge Network. Set up with funding from venture-philanthopists, the Challenge Network will be piloting full-time volunteering as part of a `national service' experiment which at least two of the man parties are interested in. So it could all get very big very quickly.
I first met Craig in August last year. He was working for Rio Tinto, the mining group, in a strategy role, having spent a good part of his career with Proctor and Gamble. He was looking at a new career in the entrepreneurial third sector and had, by chance, seen a piece on my book in the FT. So he got in touch. That led to him doing a big piece of probono work for us, then a review of structure and then, at the end of the year he went to work for Challenge Network.
Craig is, I think, the type of person who we, as a sector, need to be more skilled in bringing into our organisations. The training he has had from the likes of P & G, brings skills we just don't have the money to nurture in our own people. And the commitment of somebody who has given up a larger income to work for causes they believe in is, in my experience, often higher than many people who are `lifers' in the sector. It is great to see Craig succeeding in leading a dynamic third sector organisation and good to know Speaking Up played a small part in him getting there.
After six hours of sleep I get up, cross Russell Square and meet David Gold for breakfast. David is CEO of Prospect-Us, but more importantly, he is what I term an `angel' for emerging social entrepreneurs. His support for people and projects through Glimmer of Hope is one of the biggest untouted stories in the sector. David is fabulous at picking winners, backing them with his own money and, perhaps more crucially, his time and networks, and seeing them right through to independence. He is also a lovely man who makes you immediately feel like you matter. In a tough world, people like David are islands of warmth and authenticity. A superstar.
Next I am going to the Office of the Third Sector to meet Tamsyn Roberts who is one of the civil servants working on the social enterprise side there. I am keen to get a deeper sense of how the OTS works and how, overall she sees it all going from a Government perspective.
And finally I am popping in at the offices of Permira to see Paul Armstrong and Jane Gilbert who are helping us write a consultancy brief. They are frighteningly efficient people who always add value to any discussion.
Then its home by six to see the kids and Katy. I miss them so much and even a day away feels too long.
Wednesday starts sedately as I read the Guardian's excellent Social Enterprise supplement. Great pieces by my friend Martin Clark, author of `The Social Enterpreneur Revolution', Andrew Mawson, Patrick Butler and superb Vox Pop from Rob Greenland of The Social Business, Kresse Wessing of EAKO and Rod Schwartz of Catalyst. It feels that we're finally on the front-foot as a sector now, confident and clear in what we are saying. And people are now listening as the world-as-they-knew it collapses around them.
First up I meet Peter Mason of Secure Healthcare at the Commonwealth Club. Peter is a public innovator, one of those genuine social entrepreneurs who thinks and acts big - and has the skill to let others come in behind him quickly. His passion is offender health care and his business will, he hopes, soon win enough major contracts in UK prisons to be a key player. Peter does a lot of consulting, something I notice a lot of the more established people now doing. For him, consulting is low-input, high-impact activity, something that his profile and personal brand enables him to do. Impressive.
Next up it is Futurebuilders Investment Committee. These meetings are all incredibly interesting, particular in the current economic situation and the resulting Government action-plan for the Third Sector.
Then on to meet the excellent Clare Gilhooley and her development director from Cambridge House in Southwark who are a major advocacy provider as well as providing a range of community services in Southwark. Cambridge House is a `community anchor' type organisation that, strategically, has to balance being dependent on its local focus with a need to develop diverse income streams from places a little further afield.
The day ends with dinner with Craig Morley who is now CEO of the newly constituted (last week) Challenge Network. Set up with funding from venture-philanthopists, the Challenge Network will be piloting full-time volunteering as part of a `national service' experiment which at least two of the man parties are interested in. So it could all get very big very quickly.
I first met Craig in August last year. He was working for Rio Tinto, the mining group, in a strategy role, having spent a good part of his career with Proctor and Gamble. He was looking at a new career in the entrepreneurial third sector and had, by chance, seen a piece on my book in the FT. So he got in touch. That led to him doing a big piece of probono work for us, then a review of structure and then, at the end of the year he went to work for Challenge Network.
Craig is, I think, the type of person who we, as a sector, need to be more skilled in bringing into our organisations. The training he has had from the likes of P & G, brings skills we just don't have the money to nurture in our own people. And the commitment of somebody who has given up a larger income to work for causes they believe in is, in my experience, often higher than many people who are `lifers' in the sector. It is great to see Craig succeeding in leading a dynamic third sector organisation and good to know Speaking Up played a small part in him getting there.
After six hours of sleep I get up, cross Russell Square and meet David Gold for breakfast. David is CEO of Prospect-Us, but more importantly, he is what I term an `angel' for emerging social entrepreneurs. His support for people and projects through Glimmer of Hope is one of the biggest untouted stories in the sector. David is fabulous at picking winners, backing them with his own money and, perhaps more crucially, his time and networks, and seeing them right through to independence. He is also a lovely man who makes you immediately feel like you matter. In a tough world, people like David are islands of warmth and authenticity. A superstar.
Next I am going to the Office of the Third Sector to meet Tamsyn Roberts who is one of the civil servants working on the social enterprise side there. I am keen to get a deeper sense of how the OTS works and how, overall she sees it all going from a Government perspective.
And finally I am popping in at the offices of Permira to see Paul Armstrong and Jane Gilbert who are helping us write a consultancy brief. They are frighteningly efficient people who always add value to any discussion.
Then its home by six to see the kids and Katy. I miss them so much and even a day away feels too long.
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Is Employment Law fair to Anybody?
Sir Digby Jones recently called for a `bonfire' of red tape in relation to small business regulation. He reserved most of his fire for the `Health and Safety' at work industry which has grown amid the welter of EU directives.
My particular ire is the red tape attached to the regulations around employment. Now before I start, I do not think the balance between employers and employees is particularly out of kilter. A touch perhaps, but this isn't my point.
My contention is that the way the regulations operate, say, around redundancy, redeployment and so on don't actually help either employer or employee. That `fairness' in its legal sense, doesn't really translate into fairness on the ground for real people, or indeed, fairness to the employer who, amid trying to stick by the rules is taking a lot of time and resource out of the operation.
I can't use specific examples for obvious reasons but I wonder if I am alone in this observation?
My particular ire is the red tape attached to the regulations around employment. Now before I start, I do not think the balance between employers and employees is particularly out of kilter. A touch perhaps, but this isn't my point.
My contention is that the way the regulations operate, say, around redundancy, redeployment and so on don't actually help either employer or employee. That `fairness' in its legal sense, doesn't really translate into fairness on the ground for real people, or indeed, fairness to the employer who, amid trying to stick by the rules is taking a lot of time and resource out of the operation.
I can't use specific examples for obvious reasons but I wonder if I am alone in this observation?
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Bankrupt Britain
Reading the Sundays used to be so much fun. Now they just make me anxious. The Sunday Times profiled `Bankrupt Britain' a report by Malcolm Offord, a respected city economist, which states, essentially, that getting the Government's books under control will mean real cuts in annual public spending of 60 billion by 2014 and 100 billion by 2020 plus, probably a top rate of tax of 50%. On a similar note, both the National Institute of Economic and Social Research and Capital Economics point to annual shortfalls of 60 billion on the Chancellor's numbers.
Using today's level of spending as a start-point, this would mean a cut of of ten percent by 2014 and fifteen percent by 2020. This means a very different decade for the public sector. While the 2000s were years of massive growth, particularly in health and education, the 2010s will probably see not slow-growth but real cuts. Not just freezes in recruitment but redundancies in schools, hospitals, social work departments. It will also mean the end for gold-plated pensions.
It will also herald a new era of public sector reform. This never really got going in the 2000s, partly because there was enough cash coming in to conceal low productivity and reduce urgency but also because, politically, the Government was divided on the issue. But the blazing platform of the recession and its aftermath will change all that. The `social contract' between taxpayers and the public sector is already changing. People will not accept a decline in the quality of public services and will expect reform to bridge the financial gap.
And what will this era mean for the third sector and social enterprise. For many, it will not be pretty. The first instinct of public sector managers is to cut external contractors, particularly smaller, weaker ones, to the bone. Blood-ties to colleagues in public services will see that it is external partners' budgets which are first in the queue for a kicking from commissioners.
But, for those, that survive that kicking (which I believe, anecdotally is already starting) there may be opportunity in adversity. Because of this recession, we will, I believe, find out just what `bad businesses', in truth, many public sector agencies actually are. We will see just how shockingly wasteful and ineffective councils and the NHS can be. Indeed, Sir Digby Jones forthocoming programme, which features Jobcentre Plus, will, I believe, be the first of many. And, on a deeper level, the truth about large parts of the the public sector will come out: that it is inherently prone to inefficiency and, in many cases, unjustifiably protected from competition.
Once the cat is out of the bag (and it will come out, I am sure) the search will really be on for new solutions. Because the truth, and it is something that many of us working close to public services have known as self-evident for years, is that even with less money, a lot more could be achieve than is being achieved with public money right now. The next Government will follow the intimations of Liam Byrne and spin out large numbers of staff into new entities which have three years to thrive or be taken over. Contestibility will reach into places previously considered `inner sanctums' of state dominance - schools, health, welfare.
There will be blood on the tracks, sure. Unions will be very upset. So too will those silly people at the Association for Public Services Excellence. We will see a lot of good people, for the first time, thrown out of work. But, it could also herald a step-change and an opportunity for fantastic providers from the third and private sectors to introduce delivery models that give the public the services they have deserved for a long time.
Will our sector be up for this challenge? Parts of it will not. Indeed, it is not for all organisations to be leading public service reform. There are others whose cultures and practices are so similar to the public sector that they too will be burnt up when the crisis hits. But, there are many who can and do deliver, and which will further improve once the opportunities open up. My experience of public sector tendering tells me there will be no shortage of organisations seeking to take up the challenge once things properly open up.
So, if you're in the public sector, it may be time to don your hard hat and get your business into shape. For your recession is only a few months away.
Using today's level of spending as a start-point, this would mean a cut of of ten percent by 2014 and fifteen percent by 2020. This means a very different decade for the public sector. While the 2000s were years of massive growth, particularly in health and education, the 2010s will probably see not slow-growth but real cuts. Not just freezes in recruitment but redundancies in schools, hospitals, social work departments. It will also mean the end for gold-plated pensions.
It will also herald a new era of public sector reform. This never really got going in the 2000s, partly because there was enough cash coming in to conceal low productivity and reduce urgency but also because, politically, the Government was divided on the issue. But the blazing platform of the recession and its aftermath will change all that. The `social contract' between taxpayers and the public sector is already changing. People will not accept a decline in the quality of public services and will expect reform to bridge the financial gap.
And what will this era mean for the third sector and social enterprise. For many, it will not be pretty. The first instinct of public sector managers is to cut external contractors, particularly smaller, weaker ones, to the bone. Blood-ties to colleagues in public services will see that it is external partners' budgets which are first in the queue for a kicking from commissioners.
But, for those, that survive that kicking (which I believe, anecdotally is already starting) there may be opportunity in adversity. Because of this recession, we will, I believe, find out just what `bad businesses', in truth, many public sector agencies actually are. We will see just how shockingly wasteful and ineffective councils and the NHS can be. Indeed, Sir Digby Jones forthocoming programme, which features Jobcentre Plus, will, I believe, be the first of many. And, on a deeper level, the truth about large parts of the the public sector will come out: that it is inherently prone to inefficiency and, in many cases, unjustifiably protected from competition.
Once the cat is out of the bag (and it will come out, I am sure) the search will really be on for new solutions. Because the truth, and it is something that many of us working close to public services have known as self-evident for years, is that even with less money, a lot more could be achieve than is being achieved with public money right now. The next Government will follow the intimations of Liam Byrne and spin out large numbers of staff into new entities which have three years to thrive or be taken over. Contestibility will reach into places previously considered `inner sanctums' of state dominance - schools, health, welfare.
There will be blood on the tracks, sure. Unions will be very upset. So too will those silly people at the Association for Public Services Excellence. We will see a lot of good people, for the first time, thrown out of work. But, it could also herald a step-change and an opportunity for fantastic providers from the third and private sectors to introduce delivery models that give the public the services they have deserved for a long time.
Will our sector be up for this challenge? Parts of it will not. Indeed, it is not for all organisations to be leading public service reform. There are others whose cultures and practices are so similar to the public sector that they too will be burnt up when the crisis hits. But, there are many who can and do deliver, and which will further improve once the opportunities open up. My experience of public sector tendering tells me there will be no shortage of organisations seeking to take up the challenge once things properly open up.
So, if you're in the public sector, it may be time to don your hard hat and get your business into shape. For your recession is only a few months away.
Friday, February 13, 2009
At the Heart of the Matter
What is the "right" way for chief executives and managers of third sector organisations to respond to a downturn? Are organisations that are based on "values" obliged to behave "better" than others when faced with challenges such as large drops in their income? And, if so, what does "better" look like?
Like many chief executives, I am struggling to make sense of these questions. My organisation, like many others that grew in the boom years, now faces a less certain future. There's no immediate threat; unlike a lot of public limited companies, we don't have any debt, we have committed "owners" in the shape of our trustees, and a lot of our income comes, for now, from the state.
But, like any medium-sized national charity, we will face huge challenges in a year or two, when public spending is dramatically cut by the next (probably Conservative) government. And this will happen at precisely the time when things will be getting harder for the people we are here to help.
Talking to people across the third sector, a variety of views emerges about how best to approach the downturn. Some senior chief executives take a fairly standard corporate line - that their primary duty is to do what is necessary to protect the "business" and its long-term mission. If this means rapid and large-scale job losses and reductions in service, so be it.
This sounds brutal, but isn't necessarily so when we remember that the third sector has its own versions of MFI and Woolies - time-warp businesses that were found out once the good times were over. For the chief executives of such organisations, the recession is the "blazing platform" needed to accelerate much-needed change.
But they are the exception. Most chief executives believe firmly that third sector organisations should have a different approach. One leader pointed to the more complex, "emotionally laden" relationship that exists between charities and their staff - quite different from those in other sectors. It's a powerful psychological contract, which results in staff often giving a commitment to their job well beyond what they are contracted to work, and it's a massive invisible asset on the balance sheet of most third sector bodies. Strip this out and most charities would buckle.
As a result, "engagement" is the watchword for most third sector leaders in this recession. Engagement sounds nice and is almost always "right", but how easy is it truly to engage in the face of impending threats? As I work on my own organisation's response to the downturn, I can see that the urgency of the situation may potentially require some difficult decisions to be made in this sector, long before problems become visible. We will probably need new, leaner business models that take out manual processes; we may need to give up long-held professional practices; serious wage restraint may be needed, as well as more home working and far greater use of IT. There may be more mergers and alliances.
These are all decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later, and should be unsullied by short-termism or the special interests of particular sectors. They require a highly informed appreciation of the medium and long-term challenges. Engagement on all of these is possible, if you're willing to take the time over it.
But, faced with an imminent cliff edge and little quality time available, these are not discussions it's easy to impose on hard-pressed staff, with huge workloads. I can't put my hand on my heart and say I will be able to engage with staff in the way I would like.
What "engagement" for most managers in larger charities adds up to is a heartfelt commitment to communicate change in a sensitive way: to hear people's views; to explain the reasoning behind decisions; to give people as much advance warning as possible; and to seek input from affected groups, where this is possible. In short, to treat people not only with respect as employees, but also as people who have invested a lot of themselves in the organisation.
This emotionally intelligent approach to the consequences of the downturn must be an absolute minimum requirement of any third sector organisation. To ape the private sector, in which the average employee lives in complete darkness, challenges the very idea of a third sector based not on the making of money, but on living values.
To engage fully in the challenges of the downturn will be laudable, but I predict it will remain the exception rather than the rule, particularly in larger charities. For most, engagement will remain fundamentally about communication, rather than about consultation.
Like many chief executives, I am struggling to make sense of these questions. My organisation, like many others that grew in the boom years, now faces a less certain future. There's no immediate threat; unlike a lot of public limited companies, we don't have any debt, we have committed "owners" in the shape of our trustees, and a lot of our income comes, for now, from the state.
But, like any medium-sized national charity, we will face huge challenges in a year or two, when public spending is dramatically cut by the next (probably Conservative) government. And this will happen at precisely the time when things will be getting harder for the people we are here to help.
Talking to people across the third sector, a variety of views emerges about how best to approach the downturn. Some senior chief executives take a fairly standard corporate line - that their primary duty is to do what is necessary to protect the "business" and its long-term mission. If this means rapid and large-scale job losses and reductions in service, so be it.
This sounds brutal, but isn't necessarily so when we remember that the third sector has its own versions of MFI and Woolies - time-warp businesses that were found out once the good times were over. For the chief executives of such organisations, the recession is the "blazing platform" needed to accelerate much-needed change.
But they are the exception. Most chief executives believe firmly that third sector organisations should have a different approach. One leader pointed to the more complex, "emotionally laden" relationship that exists between charities and their staff - quite different from those in other sectors. It's a powerful psychological contract, which results in staff often giving a commitment to their job well beyond what they are contracted to work, and it's a massive invisible asset on the balance sheet of most third sector bodies. Strip this out and most charities would buckle.
As a result, "engagement" is the watchword for most third sector leaders in this recession. Engagement sounds nice and is almost always "right", but how easy is it truly to engage in the face of impending threats? As I work on my own organisation's response to the downturn, I can see that the urgency of the situation may potentially require some difficult decisions to be made in this sector, long before problems become visible. We will probably need new, leaner business models that take out manual processes; we may need to give up long-held professional practices; serious wage restraint may be needed, as well as more home working and far greater use of IT. There may be more mergers and alliances.
These are all decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later, and should be unsullied by short-termism or the special interests of particular sectors. They require a highly informed appreciation of the medium and long-term challenges. Engagement on all of these is possible, if you're willing to take the time over it.
But, faced with an imminent cliff edge and little quality time available, these are not discussions it's easy to impose on hard-pressed staff, with huge workloads. I can't put my hand on my heart and say I will be able to engage with staff in the way I would like.
What "engagement" for most managers in larger charities adds up to is a heartfelt commitment to communicate change in a sensitive way: to hear people's views; to explain the reasoning behind decisions; to give people as much advance warning as possible; and to seek input from affected groups, where this is possible. In short, to treat people not only with respect as employees, but also as people who have invested a lot of themselves in the organisation.
This emotionally intelligent approach to the consequences of the downturn must be an absolute minimum requirement of any third sector organisation. To ape the private sector, in which the average employee lives in complete darkness, challenges the very idea of a third sector based not on the making of money, but on living values.
To engage fully in the challenges of the downturn will be laudable, but I predict it will remain the exception rather than the rule, particularly in larger charities. For most, engagement will remain fundamentally about communication, rather than about consultation.
Thursday, February 12, 2009
Voice 09 Birmingham
It is common to hear these days how Birmingham has changed but what an understatement. This feels like a city reborn, paying homage to the human being in the way that it formerly seemed only to serve the motor-car. This is a city to walk around, where you are never far from great art and where superb modern architecture is offset by Victoriana and, of course, the sixties stuff which now, in its own way, is becoming `heritage'.
Anyway, VOICE 09. Well, I am happy to say I enjoyed myself a lot more this year than I have in previous times. There was definitely a feelgood factor, particularly on the second day, once everyone had arrived.
Highlights. Liam Byrne was, I have to say, very good indeed. Byrne is Cabinet Office Minister, ex Accenture and the kind of politician I wish we had more of: intelligent, pragmatic, nontribal and strategic.
The contrast with last year's Cabinet headliner, Hazel Blears, could not have been sharper. Byrne really understands the potential of social enterprise not just to deal with sharp-end problems but also to become a larger regenerative force. The guy has a `framework', which I really like, and a strong sense of what Britain needs to do if it is emerge from all of this change as a leading country.
David Egger was probably the best individual speaker. He runs DC Kitchen which he founded in order to push the 25% of food which Americans ordinarily chuck away back out to people who might actually want to eat it.
He spoke with passion about the new era he feels we are entering in which the Baby Boomers are turning to public-service to fill the hole in their soul left by the unfulfilled promise of the consumer-society.
This group, twinned with Generation Y(the 18-30 year olds who want a more balanced, less materially driven existence) have the power to push a real change, a change embodied by Obama. A hopeful message, delivered with American polish and professionalism.
Low-lights.
David Cameron. Unlike, Bynre, Cameron produced a stump-speech focusing on training and skills, obviously part of the `grid' of party communication. While Cameron's overall message was consistent (Social Investment bank, Social Enterprise Zones, more involvement in public services) I didn't get any sense that the thinking had moved forward that much and his tone was somehow less clearly enthusiastic than it had once seemed.
Also he failed to connect with the audience. He used an autocue and he felt as distant as he would do were I watching on TV. And I was in the front-row. Given that is our likely future Prime Minister, I hoped for better. I really wish he had the team around him to run the country well but I fear he doesn't. A few stars: Gove, Grayling but, collectively, they don't convince. This, I think, is Labour's best - only - chance: `We may have made mistakes but are this lot really up to it?"
Had a very pleasant dinner (the company not the food) with Patrick Butler of the Guardian, Martin Kinsella of P3, Kate Welch of Acumen Trust and Nick Temple of the newly-minted School for Social Entrepreneurs. Of all the goodies announced by the OTS this week, their 500k was the one thing that made me smile ear-to-ear. The School deserve this. They deliver. They do their own thing and they have a brilliant team. I wish them the very best.
Anyway, VOICE 09. Well, I am happy to say I enjoyed myself a lot more this year than I have in previous times. There was definitely a feelgood factor, particularly on the second day, once everyone had arrived.
Highlights. Liam Byrne was, I have to say, very good indeed. Byrne is Cabinet Office Minister, ex Accenture and the kind of politician I wish we had more of: intelligent, pragmatic, nontribal and strategic.
The contrast with last year's Cabinet headliner, Hazel Blears, could not have been sharper. Byrne really understands the potential of social enterprise not just to deal with sharp-end problems but also to become a larger regenerative force. The guy has a `framework', which I really like, and a strong sense of what Britain needs to do if it is emerge from all of this change as a leading country.
David Egger was probably the best individual speaker. He runs DC Kitchen which he founded in order to push the 25% of food which Americans ordinarily chuck away back out to people who might actually want to eat it.
He spoke with passion about the new era he feels we are entering in which the Baby Boomers are turning to public-service to fill the hole in their soul left by the unfulfilled promise of the consumer-society.
This group, twinned with Generation Y(the 18-30 year olds who want a more balanced, less materially driven existence) have the power to push a real change, a change embodied by Obama. A hopeful message, delivered with American polish and professionalism.
Low-lights.
David Cameron. Unlike, Bynre, Cameron produced a stump-speech focusing on training and skills, obviously part of the `grid' of party communication. While Cameron's overall message was consistent (Social Investment bank, Social Enterprise Zones, more involvement in public services) I didn't get any sense that the thinking had moved forward that much and his tone was somehow less clearly enthusiastic than it had once seemed.
Also he failed to connect with the audience. He used an autocue and he felt as distant as he would do were I watching on TV. And I was in the front-row. Given that is our likely future Prime Minister, I hoped for better. I really wish he had the team around him to run the country well but I fear he doesn't. A few stars: Gove, Grayling but, collectively, they don't convince. This, I think, is Labour's best - only - chance: `We may have made mistakes but are this lot really up to it?"
Had a very pleasant dinner (the company not the food) with Patrick Butler of the Guardian, Martin Kinsella of P3, Kate Welch of Acumen Trust and Nick Temple of the newly-minted School for Social Entrepreneurs. Of all the goodies announced by the OTS this week, their 500k was the one thing that made me smile ear-to-ear. The School deserve this. They deliver. They do their own thing and they have a brilliant team. I wish them the very best.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Till Death Do Us Pay
Breathless day in London...and its still not over.
Sat in the Library of the RSA where its blissfully quiet and welcomingly warm. A pocket of snug civility in the brusque pace of the London rush hour.
Opened the day at the Third Sector Taskforce (of which I was a member)presentation on Welfare to Work (W2W), . It was held in the glass towers of RBS, of which I now own a very small part.
Our key recommendation was that the sector needs a Social Investment Bank if we are to realise our potentia on W2W. Finance for under-capitalised organisations would bring down a major barrier to entry to charities and social businesses.
On top of this we recommended that strong `nudges' (positive incentives to good behaviour) be built into the contracts held by large, mainly private sector `prime' contractors, from whom charities and social businesses will mainly subcontract.
James Purnell, the Secretary of State, welcomed the report while being very clear that the social investment bank was above his paygrade. However, the word on the wire (gossip, essentially) is that the bank will get something but well short of the billions its supporters want.
The bogey around all of this, of course, is mounting unemployment. Those jobs down the supermarket, retail parks and building sites are now being taken by the freshly unemployed. Indeed, the real worry now is of a new generation of workless people to add to the one W2W was set up to catch. Speaking Up is not a W2W provder and, at the moment, I can't see us becoming one very quickly.
As usual, I blame this mainly on Gordon Brown and his bit of the Labour Party. Had they just let Frank Field do this in 1998 (rather than destroy his Ministerial career) when there were jobs aplenty then the problem would be long-solved. Another case of Gordon's political objectives (dissing Tony, becoming PM quickly) coming ahead of doing what is clearly in national interest. Bit of a theme now, one I am surprised the opposition don't make more of.
I slip out early to meet Damien Hatton, founder and CEO of Street League. Damien started his career as a doctor and noticed how bad the health was of homeless people he saw on A and E. So he set up Street League - a soccer initiative - in his spare time. Several years later he's working with several Premier and League Clubs in England and Scotland and being supported by Impetus Trust to take his model national.
We got on well. His story is very similar to my own, except perhaps I am at a slightly different point on the curve. His next stage is to build a high performing team so he has some options himself for the long term.
My advice, as always, is to recruit people you like and enjoy, who share the fundamentals of your vision and who are good enough to replace you if you ever go. Three massive boxes to tick but essential in any senior team. Left Damien feeling I wanted more, he has a great energy.
Next I go the launch of the Social Care Constitution by Demos at Westminster Hall. The logic of the Constitution idea is that we need, as citizens, to know what is meant by `social care', what we're entitled to, how it can be obtained and, in turn, what our obligations are as recipients. On the stand were Phil Hope MP, Minister for Social Care Greg Mulholland from the Lib Dems and Stephen Jackson from the Tories.
There is surprising consensus on the analysis of this problem (demographics etc) and solutions (need for reallocation of resources towards primary social/health care, personal budgets etc) but very little real agreement about what to do next.
The main challenge is to find a solution that is `fair', giving people people choice and individualised solutions but is also `equitable' and socially affordable. Unlike in health-care, co-payments (personal top-ups) are considered to be key to the future funding of social care, with a means-tested `basic' package provided by the state for those without the means to pay.
The limitations of the debate, pointed out by Simon Duffy, of InControl, are that the `costs' of social care are calculated without full account of how resources could be used differently across a range of areas that, together, contribute to a person's social welfare.
At its most simplest, when I become old, to remain active and independent I may well combine a range of resources to make that happen and in which traditional`social care services' (home-helps, nursing homes etc) actually play little or no part, even at the very end (when I will probably, in reality, spend my personal budget on a trip to Switzerland to die at a time of my own choosing, along, I suspect, with many others).
The theme of today, I guess, has been about how we, as a society, cope with the pressure of being just that - a society. How we square the collective obligations to face up to, and possibly reframe, big social issues with a the willingness of the wider society to act in in a timely and appropriate way. And how we use the state and civil society, together, to `bend' the way resources are conceptualised and used.
Dinner in Islington awaits me with my friend Owen Jarvis of Aspire Foundation before an early morning meeting with the CEO of Advocacy Partners, Jonathan Senker.
Sat in the Library of the RSA where its blissfully quiet and welcomingly warm. A pocket of snug civility in the brusque pace of the London rush hour.
Opened the day at the Third Sector Taskforce (of which I was a member)presentation on Welfare to Work (W2W), . It was held in the glass towers of RBS, of which I now own a very small part.
Our key recommendation was that the sector needs a Social Investment Bank if we are to realise our potentia on W2W. Finance for under-capitalised organisations would bring down a major barrier to entry to charities and social businesses.
On top of this we recommended that strong `nudges' (positive incentives to good behaviour) be built into the contracts held by large, mainly private sector `prime' contractors, from whom charities and social businesses will mainly subcontract.
James Purnell, the Secretary of State, welcomed the report while being very clear that the social investment bank was above his paygrade. However, the word on the wire (gossip, essentially) is that the bank will get something but well short of the billions its supporters want.
The bogey around all of this, of course, is mounting unemployment. Those jobs down the supermarket, retail parks and building sites are now being taken by the freshly unemployed. Indeed, the real worry now is of a new generation of workless people to add to the one W2W was set up to catch. Speaking Up is not a W2W provder and, at the moment, I can't see us becoming one very quickly.
As usual, I blame this mainly on Gordon Brown and his bit of the Labour Party. Had they just let Frank Field do this in 1998 (rather than destroy his Ministerial career) when there were jobs aplenty then the problem would be long-solved. Another case of Gordon's political objectives (dissing Tony, becoming PM quickly) coming ahead of doing what is clearly in national interest. Bit of a theme now, one I am surprised the opposition don't make more of.
I slip out early to meet Damien Hatton, founder and CEO of Street League. Damien started his career as a doctor and noticed how bad the health was of homeless people he saw on A and E. So he set up Street League - a soccer initiative - in his spare time. Several years later he's working with several Premier and League Clubs in England and Scotland and being supported by Impetus Trust to take his model national.
We got on well. His story is very similar to my own, except perhaps I am at a slightly different point on the curve. His next stage is to build a high performing team so he has some options himself for the long term.
My advice, as always, is to recruit people you like and enjoy, who share the fundamentals of your vision and who are good enough to replace you if you ever go. Three massive boxes to tick but essential in any senior team. Left Damien feeling I wanted more, he has a great energy.
Next I go the launch of the Social Care Constitution by Demos at Westminster Hall. The logic of the Constitution idea is that we need, as citizens, to know what is meant by `social care', what we're entitled to, how it can be obtained and, in turn, what our obligations are as recipients. On the stand were Phil Hope MP, Minister for Social Care Greg Mulholland from the Lib Dems and Stephen Jackson from the Tories.
There is surprising consensus on the analysis of this problem (demographics etc) and solutions (need for reallocation of resources towards primary social/health care, personal budgets etc) but very little real agreement about what to do next.
The main challenge is to find a solution that is `fair', giving people people choice and individualised solutions but is also `equitable' and socially affordable. Unlike in health-care, co-payments (personal top-ups) are considered to be key to the future funding of social care, with a means-tested `basic' package provided by the state for those without the means to pay.
The limitations of the debate, pointed out by Simon Duffy, of InControl, are that the `costs' of social care are calculated without full account of how resources could be used differently across a range of areas that, together, contribute to a person's social welfare.
At its most simplest, when I become old, to remain active and independent I may well combine a range of resources to make that happen and in which traditional`social care services' (home-helps, nursing homes etc) actually play little or no part, even at the very end (when I will probably, in reality, spend my personal budget on a trip to Switzerland to die at a time of my own choosing, along, I suspect, with many others).
The theme of today, I guess, has been about how we, as a society, cope with the pressure of being just that - a society. How we square the collective obligations to face up to, and possibly reframe, big social issues with a the willingness of the wider society to act in in a timely and appropriate way. And how we use the state and civil society, together, to `bend' the way resources are conceptualised and used.
Dinner in Islington awaits me with my friend Owen Jarvis of Aspire Foundation before an early morning meeting with the CEO of Advocacy Partners, Jonathan Senker.
Monday, February 2, 2009
What Makes a Good Childhood?
Today saw the release of `A Good Childhood', produced by the Children's Society following a three year study and 30 odd thousand submissions examined by a panel of international experts.
Its conclusions are, as these studies often seem to be, totally depressing. In short, children now are more anxious, depressed and stressed than ever due, in the main, to the corrupting influence of a hypercompetitive society which places self-seeking materialism above all others. It then goes on to list a wide range of measures ranging from the banning of sats to the end of advertising targeting kids.
As a parent I often feel mixed about these studies. For part of me feels sure that the the lives of many of our young people is a lot better than it was in my day. I went to a school where kids were regularly `slippered' (hit with a trainer), bullying was rife and mostly unchallenged and the concept of `self-esteem' was had not yet entered the vocabulary. This seems Dickensian today.
I am not one of these people who thinks it was better back then. Quite the opposite. It was bloody miserable. Especially when I compare it to the lengths gone to these days to ensure schools, particularly, to instil and ethos into their pupils.
Even now, I am often taken aback by how gentle many 15 and 16 year old boys are compared to their peers twenty five years ago. Likewise, when I go visiting schools to send my daughter to, the sheer quality of state schools, and the care taken over everything around child welfare, I find very impressive.
All of this, of course, has to compete with the reality that, yes, society is now more obsessed with looks, celebrity and instant gratification. Being fat or ugly has never been fun, but I am sure it is worse today than it was in my day. Cyber bullying has replaced having your head flushed down the bogs and designer phones have replaced a pair of Farrah's as status symbols.
Do I fear for my kids? Yes I do a bit. The early sexualisation of young people cannot be good news. The web and mobiles are just terrifying for a long list of reasons. Body fetishism scares me. The fact that my daughter is quite likely to feel fat and ugly at 8 is grotesque.
But also, I am not that worried. Awareness of how children actually feel is now there is a way it wasn't in the past. As a society, we now know what a good childhood looks like. There are millions of parents out there, like me, willing to strain every fibre in their being to create that good childhood. The effort being made, which exceeds that made in the past, I believe, will surely count for something?
The truth is, I suspect, that we will see, as with all of these things, an increasingly stratified picture. On the one hand, lots of kids with parents willing and able to create a great childhood. On the other, a great many whose parents are too busy working, or with themselves - or not there at all - who emerge into adulthood insecure, ineffective and unhappy.
My belief is that childhood has always been tough for some people. Each generation has its challenges. My own parents grew up in post-war austerity. Their own parents in absolute poverty and neglect. I grew up in relative prospertity but in a society in which it was still seen as OK to hit children. My own kids are growing up in a high consumption, high pressure society in which status is seen as everything.
It will always be tough. This report can be viewed in historical terms as a report which captures the perils of childhood in the 21st century.
Its conclusions are, as these studies often seem to be, totally depressing. In short, children now are more anxious, depressed and stressed than ever due, in the main, to the corrupting influence of a hypercompetitive society which places self-seeking materialism above all others. It then goes on to list a wide range of measures ranging from the banning of sats to the end of advertising targeting kids.
As a parent I often feel mixed about these studies. For part of me feels sure that the the lives of many of our young people is a lot better than it was in my day. I went to a school where kids were regularly `slippered' (hit with a trainer), bullying was rife and mostly unchallenged and the concept of `self-esteem' was had not yet entered the vocabulary. This seems Dickensian today.
I am not one of these people who thinks it was better back then. Quite the opposite. It was bloody miserable. Especially when I compare it to the lengths gone to these days to ensure schools, particularly, to instil and ethos into their pupils.
Even now, I am often taken aback by how gentle many 15 and 16 year old boys are compared to their peers twenty five years ago. Likewise, when I go visiting schools to send my daughter to, the sheer quality of state schools, and the care taken over everything around child welfare, I find very impressive.
All of this, of course, has to compete with the reality that, yes, society is now more obsessed with looks, celebrity and instant gratification. Being fat or ugly has never been fun, but I am sure it is worse today than it was in my day. Cyber bullying has replaced having your head flushed down the bogs and designer phones have replaced a pair of Farrah's as status symbols.
Do I fear for my kids? Yes I do a bit. The early sexualisation of young people cannot be good news. The web and mobiles are just terrifying for a long list of reasons. Body fetishism scares me. The fact that my daughter is quite likely to feel fat and ugly at 8 is grotesque.
But also, I am not that worried. Awareness of how children actually feel is now there is a way it wasn't in the past. As a society, we now know what a good childhood looks like. There are millions of parents out there, like me, willing to strain every fibre in their being to create that good childhood. The effort being made, which exceeds that made in the past, I believe, will surely count for something?
The truth is, I suspect, that we will see, as with all of these things, an increasingly stratified picture. On the one hand, lots of kids with parents willing and able to create a great childhood. On the other, a great many whose parents are too busy working, or with themselves - or not there at all - who emerge into adulthood insecure, ineffective and unhappy.
My belief is that childhood has always been tough for some people. Each generation has its challenges. My own parents grew up in post-war austerity. Their own parents in absolute poverty and neglect. I grew up in relative prospertity but in a society in which it was still seen as OK to hit children. My own kids are growing up in a high consumption, high pressure society in which status is seen as everything.
It will always be tough. This report can be viewed in historical terms as a report which captures the perils of childhood in the 21st century.
Friday, January 30, 2009
`Insourcing' - and why it is bad for you
Amid all the bad news for the third sector, here's some more.
Last week,a body I hadn't heard of before called the Association for Public Service Excellence released `Insourcing: A Guide To Bringing Local Auhority Services Back In-house claiming a "strategic and operational case for bringing services back in-house from the private and third sectors".
Its funny, but although very little makes my head hurt these days, this did.
So why the hot collar? The report, based on case studies of about 55 local authorities, said the benefits to councils of bringing services back under their control included improved cost-efficiency, better-performing and higher-quality services, as well as enhanced community wellbeing.
In a piece for the Guardian, while being careful not to call for renationalisation of any out-sourced services "without serious consideration", its CEO, Paul O'Brien seems to seriously believe, on the basis of his case-studies, that the public sector generally offers better efficiency, performance, quality and value. And that the tide has turned, historically and ideologically, for the sector which he champions.
Indeed his piece was also tinged with that a kind of `told-you-so', leftish schaudenfraude about the problems being faced in the private sector. The same sector, of course, that directly provides 20 odd percent of the tax to pay for public services.
On finishing his piece, I had to wonder where Paul had spent his life this last twenty or so years. If, like me, he has spent it dealing daily with the human consequences of inefficient, underperforming, low quality, expensive public services, then I am fairly confident he would not be able to write about the public sector the way he does.
Indeed, my life-experience tells me that uncontested in-house services provided by people who never had to account to anybody, whose performance was seldom measured and whose interests, as producers of services, were always put well before those of the end user, tend to be grossly inferior, by and large, pound for pound, to those I have seen provided externally. And definitely worse than those found in the third sector.
You see, Paul, and many like him who champion big government just don't understand three very important things: The first is that is services don't have to be run by the public sector in order to be publicly accountable.
Indeed, in my experience, being `in-house' actually doesn't help accountability because those doing the accounting (Councillors) are put in a conflicted position. They `own' the problem and, in my experience, are less likely to be tough on it.
It is much harder, therefore, to take a hard, detached view about the effectiveness of a public service when you also employ the people who deliver them. Accountability is improved by distance, not proximity.
Secondly, Paul and Co don't understand that most of the improvement that we have seen in public services in the last 20 years has been down to the fact that we have done away with monopoly.
Even when `in house' wins, as occasionally happens, it has to do so against competition. This means transparency on cost and outcomes, insofar as councils can be completely impartial to their own in-house bidders.
Look at my own sector, learning disabilities and mental health. It was actually Thatcher who decreed that 80% of community services had to be procured out of house. I am totally confident that had that not happened, provision for these groups would still be in 1985 (as it is in much of the residual 20% remaining `in-house'.
Thirdly, there is a great big misapprehension about the value for money argument. Yes, there will be cases when the public sector looks cheaper. But how often is the full cost of that public provision actually made clear?
The truth is hardly-ever. Indeed, I have never once in 20 years encountered a single public service where anyone involved, even at senior level could answer the question of what it truly costed to provide that service in-house.
And that's before you include the cost of pensions. This is often excluded from the calculations of public sector costs because its equivalence in other sectors would be so costly as to render the public sector hopelessly uncompetitive.
My heat subsided, however, after a good chat with a friend of mine from the private equity world (who has helped us a lot more than any council ever did).
He pointed out that although there is a bit of froth right now about the new age for public services, the truth is that the country can't afford them and that, very soon, the economics of having to provide modern public services that don't cost the earth, will revert to the long-term trend: outsourcing.
I think he's right. After the election, whoever wins will have to put up taxes and reduce public spending in order to keep international lenders willing to lend. To keep the British public on-side, there will need to be proper reform of public services and continues, massive outsourcing.
Enjoy your moment in the sun, Paul. It won't last very long.
Last week,a body I hadn't heard of before called the Association for Public Service Excellence released `Insourcing: A Guide To Bringing Local Auhority Services Back In-house claiming a "strategic and operational case for bringing services back in-house from the private and third sectors".
Its funny, but although very little makes my head hurt these days, this did.
So why the hot collar? The report, based on case studies of about 55 local authorities, said the benefits to councils of bringing services back under their control included improved cost-efficiency, better-performing and higher-quality services, as well as enhanced community wellbeing.
In a piece for the Guardian, while being careful not to call for renationalisation of any out-sourced services "without serious consideration", its CEO, Paul O'Brien seems to seriously believe, on the basis of his case-studies, that the public sector generally offers better efficiency, performance, quality and value. And that the tide has turned, historically and ideologically, for the sector which he champions.
Indeed his piece was also tinged with that a kind of `told-you-so', leftish schaudenfraude about the problems being faced in the private sector. The same sector, of course, that directly provides 20 odd percent of the tax to pay for public services.
On finishing his piece, I had to wonder where Paul had spent his life this last twenty or so years. If, like me, he has spent it dealing daily with the human consequences of inefficient, underperforming, low quality, expensive public services, then I am fairly confident he would not be able to write about the public sector the way he does.
Indeed, my life-experience tells me that uncontested in-house services provided by people who never had to account to anybody, whose performance was seldom measured and whose interests, as producers of services, were always put well before those of the end user, tend to be grossly inferior, by and large, pound for pound, to those I have seen provided externally. And definitely worse than those found in the third sector.
You see, Paul, and many like him who champion big government just don't understand three very important things: The first is that is services don't have to be run by the public sector in order to be publicly accountable.
Indeed, in my experience, being `in-house' actually doesn't help accountability because those doing the accounting (Councillors) are put in a conflicted position. They `own' the problem and, in my experience, are less likely to be tough on it.
It is much harder, therefore, to take a hard, detached view about the effectiveness of a public service when you also employ the people who deliver them. Accountability is improved by distance, not proximity.
Secondly, Paul and Co don't understand that most of the improvement that we have seen in public services in the last 20 years has been down to the fact that we have done away with monopoly.
Even when `in house' wins, as occasionally happens, it has to do so against competition. This means transparency on cost and outcomes, insofar as councils can be completely impartial to their own in-house bidders.
Look at my own sector, learning disabilities and mental health. It was actually Thatcher who decreed that 80% of community services had to be procured out of house. I am totally confident that had that not happened, provision for these groups would still be in 1985 (as it is in much of the residual 20% remaining `in-house'.
Thirdly, there is a great big misapprehension about the value for money argument. Yes, there will be cases when the public sector looks cheaper. But how often is the full cost of that public provision actually made clear?
The truth is hardly-ever. Indeed, I have never once in 20 years encountered a single public service where anyone involved, even at senior level could answer the question of what it truly costed to provide that service in-house.
And that's before you include the cost of pensions. This is often excluded from the calculations of public sector costs because its equivalence in other sectors would be so costly as to render the public sector hopelessly uncompetitive.
My heat subsided, however, after a good chat with a friend of mine from the private equity world (who has helped us a lot more than any council ever did).
He pointed out that although there is a bit of froth right now about the new age for public services, the truth is that the country can't afford them and that, very soon, the economics of having to provide modern public services that don't cost the earth, will revert to the long-term trend: outsourcing.
I think he's right. After the election, whoever wins will have to put up taxes and reduce public spending in order to keep international lenders willing to lend. To keep the British public on-side, there will need to be proper reform of public services and continues, massive outsourcing.
Enjoy your moment in the sun, Paul. It won't last very long.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Don't Just Do It....
On Friday, several major companies closed their final salary pension schemes. Not to new staff - that happened ages ago - but to their existing people.
From now on then, I presume, those guys are on their own, bar what they've already accrued.
Contrast this with the position of most people working in the public sector, including, as it happens, my wife and my brother.
My wife is 33 and, if she pays in 7 percent of her salary from now on, the council will make sure she retires on about fifteen grand a year.
This is a `defined benefit' based on a percentage of her final earnings.
Likewise, my youngest brother (28) has just joined a council as an Environmental Health Officer. Of course, he's just joined their final salary pension scheme which offers a similar deal to my wife's.
About two thirds of final salary.
These kinds of deals were withdrawn by most employers a few years ago now on the basis that they had the potential to send them bankrupt.
Now just compare Katy and my brother's position to my own.
Speaking Up pays 5% of my salary (which is more than both of theirs combined) into a scheme which, I am told in jolly-sounding letters from my pension-provider, will pay me just over £3000 in current value when I retire.
This is because my pension, like most, depends on the performance of stocks and shares.
So the deal for me is this: I put in more money (lots more) than them. This money is all at risk (I could lose the lot, they have `defined benefits'). And that get a heck of a lot less in absolute terms at the end.
Scarily unfair. Indeed, I am sure even the likes of Dave Prentice or Mark Serwotka (heads of Unison and CPSA unions) can see that from a social justice point of view, things just don't tally.
Because what we are all heading for very quickly, therefore, is Pensions Apartheid. Fantastic lifestyles beyond 65 for those in the public sector. B & Q for the rest of us.
Hopefully, Katy's pension will insulate me from the fate of stacking loft-insulation, but what about everyone else?
The serious point I am making here is that it can't be healthy of have yet another major social cleavage opening up in an already deeply fragmented society.
Resentment, already being heard on the phone-ins, will turn into bitter anger.
The point being made on Five Live etc, quite understandably, is the people in the private sector tend to lose their jobs quicker and often have inferior terms and conditions of service(hours, flexibilities etc) than found in the public sector.
Urgent Government action is needed to address this. Indeed, the financial crisis may even force their hand.
This isn't impossible. For if big international lenders come to think that the UK Government might not be able to pay them back, we might, as a nation, simply not have the funds we need to pay for TODAY'S schools and hospitals, never mind the people who used to work in them!
The case then is very clear for a new deal on pensions. Firstly, make sure everyone is paying something in to a scheme on a compulsory basis. No arguments, we all put in.
And, secondly, the end of all defined benefit schemes in the public sector. Today. For ever. You get what you've put in so far, sure, but that's it. After that, it depends on how investments perform.
I am sorry to say this - because it will hurt my household too (Katy and I can work together on B&Q, on neighbouring aisles, perhaps) - but I sincerely believe that the country cannot afford this, either financially or socially.
The figures, you see, are truly frightening.
Did you know, for example, that there are more retired coppers now who recieve a pension than there are police officers in service?
This is because police officers, like fire-fighters and countless other groups, can quit after 30 years service on a good portion of final salary.
But what's really going to pile on the pressure are the retiring Baby Boomers. People born between 1945 and 1951.
This massive cohort are all coming up to in 2010. As a social group, they outnumber the generations after quite considerably.
And we are the ones charged with funding their retirements.
Unfortunately, the public sector in particular is packed with them.
Teachers, social workers, nurses and doctors, all of whom began careers in the sixties and seventies, all now clocking off at the same time.
It just can't be done. And our current politicians will make sure it isn't done, yet.
Gordon Brown will simply not take on the unions this side of an election, especially if he's going to try for a pay-freeze in the public sector (necessary in my view).
The Tories might promise reform but won't want to alienate the public sector vote by being explicit (though they will be ones who eventually do it). The Lib Dems will, as ever, call it as it is, but neither will they win.
So, for a couple of years at least, this will go untouched. But watch 2010-2015. The clamour for change will become irresistable.
And this week's news of the end of final salary pensions in the private sector will be seen as the Beginning of the End for Pensions Apartheid.
I might as well buy my orange overalls now.
From now on then, I presume, those guys are on their own, bar what they've already accrued.
Contrast this with the position of most people working in the public sector, including, as it happens, my wife and my brother.
My wife is 33 and, if she pays in 7 percent of her salary from now on, the council will make sure she retires on about fifteen grand a year.
This is a `defined benefit' based on a percentage of her final earnings.
Likewise, my youngest brother (28) has just joined a council as an Environmental Health Officer. Of course, he's just joined their final salary pension scheme which offers a similar deal to my wife's.
About two thirds of final salary.
These kinds of deals were withdrawn by most employers a few years ago now on the basis that they had the potential to send them bankrupt.
Now just compare Katy and my brother's position to my own.
Speaking Up pays 5% of my salary (which is more than both of theirs combined) into a scheme which, I am told in jolly-sounding letters from my pension-provider, will pay me just over £3000 in current value when I retire.
This is because my pension, like most, depends on the performance of stocks and shares.
So the deal for me is this: I put in more money (lots more) than them. This money is all at risk (I could lose the lot, they have `defined benefits'). And that get a heck of a lot less in absolute terms at the end.
Scarily unfair. Indeed, I am sure even the likes of Dave Prentice or Mark Serwotka (heads of Unison and CPSA unions) can see that from a social justice point of view, things just don't tally.
Because what we are all heading for very quickly, therefore, is Pensions Apartheid. Fantastic lifestyles beyond 65 for those in the public sector. B & Q for the rest of us.
Hopefully, Katy's pension will insulate me from the fate of stacking loft-insulation, but what about everyone else?
The serious point I am making here is that it can't be healthy of have yet another major social cleavage opening up in an already deeply fragmented society.
Resentment, already being heard on the phone-ins, will turn into bitter anger.
The point being made on Five Live etc, quite understandably, is the people in the private sector tend to lose their jobs quicker and often have inferior terms and conditions of service(hours, flexibilities etc) than found in the public sector.
Urgent Government action is needed to address this. Indeed, the financial crisis may even force their hand.
This isn't impossible. For if big international lenders come to think that the UK Government might not be able to pay them back, we might, as a nation, simply not have the funds we need to pay for TODAY'S schools and hospitals, never mind the people who used to work in them!
The case then is very clear for a new deal on pensions. Firstly, make sure everyone is paying something in to a scheme on a compulsory basis. No arguments, we all put in.
And, secondly, the end of all defined benefit schemes in the public sector. Today. For ever. You get what you've put in so far, sure, but that's it. After that, it depends on how investments perform.
I am sorry to say this - because it will hurt my household too (Katy and I can work together on B&Q, on neighbouring aisles, perhaps) - but I sincerely believe that the country cannot afford this, either financially or socially.
The figures, you see, are truly frightening.
Did you know, for example, that there are more retired coppers now who recieve a pension than there are police officers in service?
This is because police officers, like fire-fighters and countless other groups, can quit after 30 years service on a good portion of final salary.
But what's really going to pile on the pressure are the retiring Baby Boomers. People born between 1945 and 1951.
This massive cohort are all coming up to in 2010. As a social group, they outnumber the generations after quite considerably.
And we are the ones charged with funding their retirements.
Unfortunately, the public sector in particular is packed with them.
Teachers, social workers, nurses and doctors, all of whom began careers in the sixties and seventies, all now clocking off at the same time.
It just can't be done. And our current politicians will make sure it isn't done, yet.
Gordon Brown will simply not take on the unions this side of an election, especially if he's going to try for a pay-freeze in the public sector (necessary in my view).
The Tories might promise reform but won't want to alienate the public sector vote by being explicit (though they will be ones who eventually do it). The Lib Dems will, as ever, call it as it is, but neither will they win.
So, for a couple of years at least, this will go untouched. But watch 2010-2015. The clamour for change will become irresistable.
And this week's news of the end of final salary pensions in the private sector will be seen as the Beginning of the End for Pensions Apartheid.
I might as well buy my orange overalls now.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
One for the Road
One of the things I like most about my job is trying to win new work. Four of us spent two days this week traversing the country to pitch for new contracts.
Our journey together actually began on Sunday evening. My new Director of Business Development, Paul Morrish, had, using his immense personal charm, got us all into our dark office late on Sunday evening to rehearse and perfect our presentations.
That done we headed down to Essex on Monday and, thanks to our late-night efforts, delivered a polished and professional pitch to the panel. I have attended many of these in my time and it was one of the strongest I have witnessed.
Then off we went, up the M11 and across the A14 and M6 to Birmingham. We were on first thing so, quite sensibly, we stayed over and spent the morning rehearsing rather than stressing whether we would get there.
Again, a bravura performance. Paul's orchestration of us all was excellent and, in Sue Lee, I probably have one of best people in the UK in terms of the specialism needed to win this work.
So, did we win?
We don't know yet. We should win at least one. The vibes were good in both cases. I saw a clear desire on the part of commissioners to get it right.
What could, however, stand in our way, are two things. Firstly, we are a dearer, higher quality option than most in our sector.
In the years of milk-and-honey, this hasn't hurt us but, going forward into recession/depression, I worry that "value" will now seen increasingly seen in pure pounds and pence, bang-for-buck terms.
Put simply, if our great presentations and willingness to discount don't win it for us this time, I will be very worried indeed about what the future holds.
Failure will, I think, mean we will have to reinvent our offer completely. A lot cheaper. Possibly not quite as good.
Conversely, if we do win, I will feel assured that there is a place in this market for our kind of propostition. Our high-quality, upper-quartile price model will be intact.
The second thing that could stand in our way, depending on how the land lies locally is that the incumbents are both local organisations that will, quite possibly, be imperilled if they lose these contracts.
I have known commissioners in the past to take no heed of this and procure the best service regardless.
But I have also known them to feel obliged to `shop local', particularly when an organisation is at risk, even when the proposition is weak.
This is something I don't like but it sometimes happens. These particular commissioners, however, seemed, to me, to be pretty sensible.
I just wish that telephone would ring.
Our journey together actually began on Sunday evening. My new Director of Business Development, Paul Morrish, had, using his immense personal charm, got us all into our dark office late on Sunday evening to rehearse and perfect our presentations.
That done we headed down to Essex on Monday and, thanks to our late-night efforts, delivered a polished and professional pitch to the panel. I have attended many of these in my time and it was one of the strongest I have witnessed.
Then off we went, up the M11 and across the A14 and M6 to Birmingham. We were on first thing so, quite sensibly, we stayed over and spent the morning rehearsing rather than stressing whether we would get there.
Again, a bravura performance. Paul's orchestration of us all was excellent and, in Sue Lee, I probably have one of best people in the UK in terms of the specialism needed to win this work.
So, did we win?
We don't know yet. We should win at least one. The vibes were good in both cases. I saw a clear desire on the part of commissioners to get it right.
What could, however, stand in our way, are two things. Firstly, we are a dearer, higher quality option than most in our sector.
In the years of milk-and-honey, this hasn't hurt us but, going forward into recession/depression, I worry that "value" will now seen increasingly seen in pure pounds and pence, bang-for-buck terms.
Put simply, if our great presentations and willingness to discount don't win it for us this time, I will be very worried indeed about what the future holds.
Failure will, I think, mean we will have to reinvent our offer completely. A lot cheaper. Possibly not quite as good.
Conversely, if we do win, I will feel assured that there is a place in this market for our kind of propostition. Our high-quality, upper-quartile price model will be intact.
The second thing that could stand in our way, depending on how the land lies locally is that the incumbents are both local organisations that will, quite possibly, be imperilled if they lose these contracts.
I have known commissioners in the past to take no heed of this and procure the best service regardless.
But I have also known them to feel obliged to `shop local', particularly when an organisation is at risk, even when the proposition is weak.
This is something I don't like but it sometimes happens. These particular commissioners, however, seemed, to me, to be pretty sensible.
I just wish that telephone would ring.
Rest in Peace, Neil Sears
Yesterday I heard about the suicide of Neil Sears, head teacher of a special school in Cambridgeshire where, five years ago, we began our work in schools.
Neil was one of Young People Speaking Up's earliest backers and was instrumental in bringing other heads and senior teachers on board throughout the county. He was found dead on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the end of the school day.
When I heard about Neil's death (he was 52), I was, of course totally stunned. He was an inspriational, likeable figure, just the right kind of personality for the head of a school which was in the process of transforming itself into becoming mainstream.
I was last at the school in the second half of last year on a `Back to the Floor' visit to see our Young People's project in action. Afterwards, I spent most of the lunch hour with Neil, talking about the school, how well it was developing.
He was one of these people I always felt glad to see. He always made me welcome, pumped my hand, told me how delighted he was with our work in the school, what a big difference it made to the kids.
He also talked very openly about things. Over the lunch-hour it became clear that although big stides had been made in getting the integration going with the mainstream school down the road, it had been hard-going. He was, though, overwhelmingly positive.
All the children were eating dinner while we stood talking. Laughing, chatting occasionally being brought to order, strictly, but kindly by Neil.
His devotion to the young people in his care was recognised and reciprocated by the clear affection, even adulation, he inspired in pupils, parents and staff. I remember leaving thinking how glad I was he was in charge there.
I am seldom impressed when I go into our schools. So many of the staff seem tired and disengaged. But even after 13 years at Meadowgate, Neil showed none of that, publicly at least. He came to our AGMs, brought the kids to events, always willing to go beyond what would be expected. He was probably our biggest single supporter in all the schools in which we now work.
About three years ago I think, he took the Headship of the school after a long stint as Deputy. I spoke to him at the time, a few months before his appointment, encouraging him to go for it. Neil wasn't a massively confident man, but he went for it and got it, to the delight of many us, myself included.
I don't know how the job sat with him in his own mind but I get the sense, somehow that he struggled with parts of it. Whether the job played a part in all of this I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised, somehow, if it did.
When somebody this good takes their life, it just feels terrible. His pain must have been profound and his loneliness unbearable.
The world has lost a great teacher and a brilliant leader this week. Not one that was ever celebrated or known beyond his own town but someone who has left a mark on many lives.
Including mine and those of my staff who saw him twice a week for the last five years. Their sense of loss is, of course, intense and all the more powerful for their close acquaintance with him.
Today is a truly day for everyone who knew Neil Sears.
Neil was one of Young People Speaking Up's earliest backers and was instrumental in bringing other heads and senior teachers on board throughout the county. He was found dead on Tuesday afternoon, shortly after the end of the school day.
When I heard about Neil's death (he was 52), I was, of course totally stunned. He was an inspriational, likeable figure, just the right kind of personality for the head of a school which was in the process of transforming itself into becoming mainstream.
I was last at the school in the second half of last year on a `Back to the Floor' visit to see our Young People's project in action. Afterwards, I spent most of the lunch hour with Neil, talking about the school, how well it was developing.
He was one of these people I always felt glad to see. He always made me welcome, pumped my hand, told me how delighted he was with our work in the school, what a big difference it made to the kids.
He also talked very openly about things. Over the lunch-hour it became clear that although big stides had been made in getting the integration going with the mainstream school down the road, it had been hard-going. He was, though, overwhelmingly positive.
All the children were eating dinner while we stood talking. Laughing, chatting occasionally being brought to order, strictly, but kindly by Neil.
His devotion to the young people in his care was recognised and reciprocated by the clear affection, even adulation, he inspired in pupils, parents and staff. I remember leaving thinking how glad I was he was in charge there.
I am seldom impressed when I go into our schools. So many of the staff seem tired and disengaged. But even after 13 years at Meadowgate, Neil showed none of that, publicly at least. He came to our AGMs, brought the kids to events, always willing to go beyond what would be expected. He was probably our biggest single supporter in all the schools in which we now work.
About three years ago I think, he took the Headship of the school after a long stint as Deputy. I spoke to him at the time, a few months before his appointment, encouraging him to go for it. Neil wasn't a massively confident man, but he went for it and got it, to the delight of many us, myself included.
I don't know how the job sat with him in his own mind but I get the sense, somehow that he struggled with parts of it. Whether the job played a part in all of this I don't know but I wouldn't be surprised, somehow, if it did.
When somebody this good takes their life, it just feels terrible. His pain must have been profound and his loneliness unbearable.
The world has lost a great teacher and a brilliant leader this week. Not one that was ever celebrated or known beyond his own town but someone who has left a mark on many lives.
Including mine and those of my staff who saw him twice a week for the last five years. Their sense of loss is, of course, intense and all the more powerful for their close acquaintance with him.
Today is a truly day for everyone who knew Neil Sears.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Feet Not Touching the Ground
I left my house at 6am on Tuesday this week and didn't hit my own bed (well, the spare actually, the walls were shaking due to my wife's snoring) till 10pm Thursday night. Three fourteen hour working days with tons of travel. Bushwhacked.
So it has been a busy week for the CEO of Speaking Up! All of Tuesday was spent with my excellent CEO Kathleen Cronin interviewing interim managers at Odgers in London. Miss, miss, miss and finally HIT.
We seem, in our choice of interim, to have found one of those rare beings that bring order where there is chaos and sense where there is none. `Halleluliah!!' - as my two year old has, worryingly, just started saying every time she comes home from nursery.
Dinner at Carluccios with the lovely Louise Burner from Impact Beyond. Louise is the poshest person I know (she went to school with Princess Di) and also one of the best consultants I have encountered.
She is helping 25 people from right across Speaking Up, from users right through the CEO, write a plan for the 2010s. Louise comes free with our excellent package of support through CAN Breakthrough. But you can find her yourself at www.impactbeyond.org.uk.
Wednesday was one of those rips through London in which I seem to specialise these days. Breakfast in Russell Square Gardens (quite delightful btw) with my old mucker Owen Jarvis of Aspire Foundation then off to the final meeting of the ACEVO DWP Taskforce chaired by the human-spark that is Tony Hawkhead, CEO of Groundwork.
Almost single-handedly Tony has turned the death-formula of a 25 person committee to look at the issue of third-sector delivery of welfare-to-work services into a fun gathering at which things are getting done. Last meeting today as the report is ready. Not my subject area, so little to say, but interesting.
W2W will however be severely challenged by 3m unemployed. Sadly, the Labour Government is 10 years late on this agenda. Had they done it when Frank Field first put it forward in 1998, and there was some money around, the problem would be gone now. Nice one, Gordon (you helped stop it first time round).
Then onto the graduation for 30 odd people from Level 2 Unlimited. Now this was my type of thing. Every person in the room a social entrepreneur. All doing things. I did my usual presentation of my own story, laced with a few pointers (not that this crowd needed telling).
Lovely reception. Had my lunch with Cliff Prior who is one of the brightest people in the sector, somebody who is always worth hearing if you ever get the chance.
Then I handed the stage to Trevor Lynn, founder of Mow and Grow and Level 3 investee of Unltd Ventures. Trevor is a real-proper social entrepreneur. `Cutting Grass, Cutting Crime, Cultivating Success'. That's his strapline which kind of says it all.
Like all the best social entrepreneurs, Trevor has put together a model in which he gets paid for cutting grass, paid for training people to cut the grass and paid for turning the grass into compost.
He's managed to franchise the business and looks set to become a superstar. He also lives near Bury St Edmunds where he's now setting up Mow n Grow. We're meeting very soon in front of the roaring fire at Bury's magnificent Angel Hotel.
As Trevor winds up I rush off to meet with Nat Sloane of Impetus Trust at the British Library. Nat is probably my biggest individual mentor. He made a decision five years ago to back me and Speaking Up. Our partnership has been long and, I think now, mutually beneficial.
Impetus took a flyer on me when I must have looked a massive risk. Half a million quid's worth of a flyer. Using their own money. Now I am a grown-up social entrepreneur, I appreciate more and more just what a big thing they did. I hope, one day, to be helping Impetus to find the success stories of tomorrow.
The long day ends at Admirality House for `Meeting of the Minds' - a Social Enterprise Coalition event hosted by the Minister for the Third Sector, Kevin Brennan, bringing together key people from social enteprise, Government and business.
Meet some great and not-so-great people but I am sorry the evening has to end at 9.30pm. Apparently "deals" are being made at other tables. I miss out on this obvious dividend but it feels like a good use of time. Miss the train home. Wind up in bed at 1.30am.
Then I am off at six thirty to Nottingham where we have a big Speaking Up service. We have very recently lost a valued staff member there, Charlotte Knitter, who tragically died of a stroke at only 33 years of age. The team are traumatised, some are clearly not sleeping well or finding it easy to work.
My whole senior team are up there, yes, because there's work to do but also to show support. This person's death came as a total surprise as she was in perfect health. She was simply very, very unlucky.
Our day ended with a meeting with a potential partner up there. It was an interesting one as they are long-standing and local and we are a more recent presence and a `national'. That took some getting over in the meeting but I hope some progress has been made.
While this was definitely not an immmediate meeting-of-minds, it was the start of a dialogue which will, I think, get somewhere. As the economy goes south, I believe third sector groups of all shapes and sizes will need to make alliances that don't come easily.
As I arrive back in Bury St Edmunds at half-past nine on Thursday night, kiss my sleeping kids and collapse with a dried-up dinner, I am reminded of the proverb about mountains being climbed one step at a time.
Friday has seen me working from home. Highlight of the day was taking Ruby swimming in a near-empty pool, her hands clasping hold of me, her human Life-raft. Her simple delight in the water. The adventure of floating. I, bouncing along with her, in my own version of rapture.
The house I have just moved into h
So it has been a busy week for the CEO of Speaking Up! All of Tuesday was spent with my excellent CEO Kathleen Cronin interviewing interim managers at Odgers in London. Miss, miss, miss and finally HIT.
We seem, in our choice of interim, to have found one of those rare beings that bring order where there is chaos and sense where there is none. `Halleluliah!!' - as my two year old has, worryingly, just started saying every time she comes home from nursery.
Dinner at Carluccios with the lovely Louise Burner from Impact Beyond. Louise is the poshest person I know (she went to school with Princess Di) and also one of the best consultants I have encountered.
She is helping 25 people from right across Speaking Up, from users right through the CEO, write a plan for the 2010s. Louise comes free with our excellent package of support through CAN Breakthrough. But you can find her yourself at www.impactbeyond.org.uk.
Wednesday was one of those rips through London in which I seem to specialise these days. Breakfast in Russell Square Gardens (quite delightful btw) with my old mucker Owen Jarvis of Aspire Foundation then off to the final meeting of the ACEVO DWP Taskforce chaired by the human-spark that is Tony Hawkhead, CEO of Groundwork.
Almost single-handedly Tony has turned the death-formula of a 25 person committee to look at the issue of third-sector delivery of welfare-to-work services into a fun gathering at which things are getting done. Last meeting today as the report is ready. Not my subject area, so little to say, but interesting.
W2W will however be severely challenged by 3m unemployed. Sadly, the Labour Government is 10 years late on this agenda. Had they done it when Frank Field first put it forward in 1998, and there was some money around, the problem would be gone now. Nice one, Gordon (you helped stop it first time round).
Then onto the graduation for 30 odd people from Level 2 Unlimited. Now this was my type of thing. Every person in the room a social entrepreneur. All doing things. I did my usual presentation of my own story, laced with a few pointers (not that this crowd needed telling).
Lovely reception. Had my lunch with Cliff Prior who is one of the brightest people in the sector, somebody who is always worth hearing if you ever get the chance.
Then I handed the stage to Trevor Lynn, founder of Mow and Grow and Level 3 investee of Unltd Ventures. Trevor is a real-proper social entrepreneur. `Cutting Grass, Cutting Crime, Cultivating Success'. That's his strapline which kind of says it all.
Like all the best social entrepreneurs, Trevor has put together a model in which he gets paid for cutting grass, paid for training people to cut the grass and paid for turning the grass into compost.
He's managed to franchise the business and looks set to become a superstar. He also lives near Bury St Edmunds where he's now setting up Mow n Grow. We're meeting very soon in front of the roaring fire at Bury's magnificent Angel Hotel.
As Trevor winds up I rush off to meet with Nat Sloane of Impetus Trust at the British Library. Nat is probably my biggest individual mentor. He made a decision five years ago to back me and Speaking Up. Our partnership has been long and, I think now, mutually beneficial.
Impetus took a flyer on me when I must have looked a massive risk. Half a million quid's worth of a flyer. Using their own money. Now I am a grown-up social entrepreneur, I appreciate more and more just what a big thing they did. I hope, one day, to be helping Impetus to find the success stories of tomorrow.
The long day ends at Admirality House for `Meeting of the Minds' - a Social Enterprise Coalition event hosted by the Minister for the Third Sector, Kevin Brennan, bringing together key people from social enteprise, Government and business.
Meet some great and not-so-great people but I am sorry the evening has to end at 9.30pm. Apparently "deals" are being made at other tables. I miss out on this obvious dividend but it feels like a good use of time. Miss the train home. Wind up in bed at 1.30am.
Then I am off at six thirty to Nottingham where we have a big Speaking Up service. We have very recently lost a valued staff member there, Charlotte Knitter, who tragically died of a stroke at only 33 years of age. The team are traumatised, some are clearly not sleeping well or finding it easy to work.
My whole senior team are up there, yes, because there's work to do but also to show support. This person's death came as a total surprise as she was in perfect health. She was simply very, very unlucky.
Our day ended with a meeting with a potential partner up there. It was an interesting one as they are long-standing and local and we are a more recent presence and a `national'. That took some getting over in the meeting but I hope some progress has been made.
While this was definitely not an immmediate meeting-of-minds, it was the start of a dialogue which will, I think, get somewhere. As the economy goes south, I believe third sector groups of all shapes and sizes will need to make alliances that don't come easily.
As I arrive back in Bury St Edmunds at half-past nine on Thursday night, kiss my sleeping kids and collapse with a dried-up dinner, I am reminded of the proverb about mountains being climbed one step at a time.
Friday has seen me working from home. Highlight of the day was taking Ruby swimming in a near-empty pool, her hands clasping hold of me, her human Life-raft. Her simple delight in the water. The adventure of floating. I, bouncing along with her, in my own version of rapture.
The house I have just moved into h
Thursday, January 8, 2009
250 dead children
I have never seen a dead child. There is something about life foreshortened that makes the incidence of death more powerful. As a parent, I try not to imagine the impact the death of one of my children would have on me. I know that I would probably, for a time at least, not want to live. Death would feel like a warm escape.
Which is why this week's news bruises the heart so much. Children should not die in war. They are not `agents'. They do not even vote. Yet here they are, piled up under rubble, maimed in ambulances.
I am not a flag-waver for the Palestinian cause. As a people they are poorly led. And Political Islam has, in effect, led the world to wash their hands of their cause. As Michael Portillo said this week, it is clear that there is only one solution: two states. The problem is getting people, particularly on the Palestinian side to accept this position rather than seeking to drive Israelis into the sea.
Coupled to this, I have always supported the state of Israel. Its energy, alchemy (turning desert into a homeland) and its ability to defend itself like a cornered boxer have always impressed me.
So this week's action, like that in Lebanon a couple of years ago, leaves me with a heavy heart. I just can't support what they are doing right now. It is callous and unstately. Yes, I don't think we would tolerate missiles raining down on us from Northern Ireland or whatever. But, even at the height of Republican violence, we would never have done to Derry or West Belfast what is being done right now in Gaza.
I don't want to sound like a naive dove on this. I know that states have to take some tough-bastard decisions at times. I am glad I not the person actually having to make those kinds of calls. Yet I think Israel diminishes itself through this action. It is a cliche now to say this but the next generation of suicide bombers was recruited this week by the Israeli military. Indeed if I were 15, full of anger and testosterone, I am sure I would be putting myself forward there right now. Its what happens.
One's big hope, of course, is Obama. Naively perhaps as his advisers will, I am sure, want to steer him away from where Clinton, Bush and so many others have failed. Obama will, as is his gift, be able to see both sides. But even he cannot force others to do this. This is a war over land, religion and between two ancient tribes. And it is long from being over.
Which is why this week's news bruises the heart so much. Children should not die in war. They are not `agents'. They do not even vote. Yet here they are, piled up under rubble, maimed in ambulances.
I am not a flag-waver for the Palestinian cause. As a people they are poorly led. And Political Islam has, in effect, led the world to wash their hands of their cause. As Michael Portillo said this week, it is clear that there is only one solution: two states. The problem is getting people, particularly on the Palestinian side to accept this position rather than seeking to drive Israelis into the sea.
Coupled to this, I have always supported the state of Israel. Its energy, alchemy (turning desert into a homeland) and its ability to defend itself like a cornered boxer have always impressed me.
So this week's action, like that in Lebanon a couple of years ago, leaves me with a heavy heart. I just can't support what they are doing right now. It is callous and unstately. Yes, I don't think we would tolerate missiles raining down on us from Northern Ireland or whatever. But, even at the height of Republican violence, we would never have done to Derry or West Belfast what is being done right now in Gaza.
I don't want to sound like a naive dove on this. I know that states have to take some tough-bastard decisions at times. I am glad I not the person actually having to make those kinds of calls. Yet I think Israel diminishes itself through this action. It is a cliche now to say this but the next generation of suicide bombers was recruited this week by the Israeli military. Indeed if I were 15, full of anger and testosterone, I am sure I would be putting myself forward there right now. Its what happens.
One's big hope, of course, is Obama. Naively perhaps as his advisers will, I am sure, want to steer him away from where Clinton, Bush and so many others have failed. Obama will, as is his gift, be able to see both sides. But even he cannot force others to do this. This is a war over land, religion and between two ancient tribes. And it is long from being over.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
The Good Life?
I am softening my return to the CEO-cockpit with a couple of WFH (work from home)days.
What is striking about these days is just how productive they actually are. No interuptions (except the odd baby crawling in), no travel, no meetings or chit-chat. If you start at 8.30am, you can stop at 6pm confident that you've done two days at the office in one.
My interest in WFH is growing. My consultant friends say they do 3-4 days at home and perhaps a day out with clients. Once the client trusts you, they are happy for you to WFH. Consultants love WFH because, of course, they hate `dead time' - driving, big meetings etc.
My recent house-move has made working fom that bit better. The new place is set in woodland and opens out onto thousands of acres of farmland, criss-crossed by seldom-used footpaths. Runners' heaven. In the morning, I watch the sun rise over the great cedars in the park. From my desk I look out at ancient woodland that goes back over two hundred years and will survive even my own children's lifetimes.
Being `in nature' in the way we are now has an interesting effect not only on your mind (I am convinced trees are calming) but also on your outlook. Why be barrelling along on train to London each day when you can be spending the same time on a pre-breakfast run?
What can make you feel richer than the falling of winter sunlight on the evergreen leaves an ivy? Since moving here in December, I can honestly say I have never felt happier in a place.
I realise that my bliss is soon to be shattered. Next week I will be on the train like everyone else, starting early, finishing late and leaving myself very little spare.
Which makes me wonder whether or not my consultant friend might, after all, have it sorted?
What is striking about these days is just how productive they actually are. No interuptions (except the odd baby crawling in), no travel, no meetings or chit-chat. If you start at 8.30am, you can stop at 6pm confident that you've done two days at the office in one.
My interest in WFH is growing. My consultant friends say they do 3-4 days at home and perhaps a day out with clients. Once the client trusts you, they are happy for you to WFH. Consultants love WFH because, of course, they hate `dead time' - driving, big meetings etc.
My recent house-move has made working fom that bit better. The new place is set in woodland and opens out onto thousands of acres of farmland, criss-crossed by seldom-used footpaths. Runners' heaven. In the morning, I watch the sun rise over the great cedars in the park. From my desk I look out at ancient woodland that goes back over two hundred years and will survive even my own children's lifetimes.
Being `in nature' in the way we are now has an interesting effect not only on your mind (I am convinced trees are calming) but also on your outlook. Why be barrelling along on train to London each day when you can be spending the same time on a pre-breakfast run?
What can make you feel richer than the falling of winter sunlight on the evergreen leaves an ivy? Since moving here in December, I can honestly say I have never felt happier in a place.
I realise that my bliss is soon to be shattered. Next week I will be on the train like everyone else, starting early, finishing late and leaving myself very little spare.
Which makes me wonder whether or not my consultant friend might, after all, have it sorted?
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Calling 2009
New Years Eve 2008. Like everyone else I am taking stock. The year ahead feels `safe' - in the sense that I can, to a reasonable extent, forsee what may and may not happen in my own organisation. In fact, it could even be `good', if we get certain decisions right. And, unlike a lot of people I know, I am pretty sure I will be working this time next year, if not New Years Eve 2010!
So how do I see the risks? One is that my organisation, like all of them, was built on a booming economy and an expanding public sector. Being successful in such conditions is not an act of genius.
Keeping it up in a major recession will show how many of us have been swimming naked. My hunch is that the downturn will provide the jolt to our sector it has need for a very long time. Performance will matter more, both individually and organisationally. My fear is that a lot of our organisations do not have a way of working in the Robert Peston era.
For Speaking Up, a lot depends on how fast we can do the things all organisations need to do. Understand that we could, with the wrong decisions, go into rapid decline in the 2010s. Realise that value will shape all contracting and grants and reshape accordingly. Deal with problems more rapidly than ever before. Forget old rivalries and collaborate with people who share our mission. Understand what is special about us an power-inject this into our weaker areas of delivery. Rapidly turn nice new ideas that have been hanging around for a while into touchable products and services people will PAY FOR today.
So what of the wider sector? Here's my own predictions for 2009.
1. The End for a significant number of charity brands. Probably not the top ten but a lot in the next hundred. What the public don't really get to know is that our sector contains its own version of Woolies, MFI and all the other crap businesses that were found wanting once the boom ended. The lucky ones will find refuge in mergers that, frankly, should have happened years ago. Others will just spiral and die.
2. Loads of CEOs leaving or being fired. Most third sector CEOs have never led in this situation. Many will not be able to move fast enough or radically enough to sort our their organisation. The job will prove too much for a great many.
3. The end of the sector's easy-going relationship with Government. The lines are already opening up as the sector competes with just about every other for the Government's attention. The truth is that we are quite important to the Government, but not that important in a year like the one we're about to have.
4. The beginning of the end of the civil wars within the sector. The spats of the past (NCVO/ACEVO/DSC/NAVCA etc) were just about affordable pre-downturn. Now we need to work as one as never before. Watch out for emerging discussion this year about common platform, infrastructure and even leadership across the main sector bodies.
5. Winners as well as losers. Not all third sector organisations will have a bad recession. Some will grow, improve and use the `blazing platform' presented by the downturn to engineer some long-needed improvements in their offer. Change is the child of crisis. Expect to see some organisations pulling their finger out in the next couple of years.
So how do I see the risks? One is that my organisation, like all of them, was built on a booming economy and an expanding public sector. Being successful in such conditions is not an act of genius.
Keeping it up in a major recession will show how many of us have been swimming naked. My hunch is that the downturn will provide the jolt to our sector it has need for a very long time. Performance will matter more, both individually and organisationally. My fear is that a lot of our organisations do not have a way of working in the Robert Peston era.
For Speaking Up, a lot depends on how fast we can do the things all organisations need to do. Understand that we could, with the wrong decisions, go into rapid decline in the 2010s. Realise that value will shape all contracting and grants and reshape accordingly. Deal with problems more rapidly than ever before. Forget old rivalries and collaborate with people who share our mission. Understand what is special about us an power-inject this into our weaker areas of delivery. Rapidly turn nice new ideas that have been hanging around for a while into touchable products and services people will PAY FOR today.
So what of the wider sector? Here's my own predictions for 2009.
1. The End for a significant number of charity brands. Probably not the top ten but a lot in the next hundred. What the public don't really get to know is that our sector contains its own version of Woolies, MFI and all the other crap businesses that were found wanting once the boom ended. The lucky ones will find refuge in mergers that, frankly, should have happened years ago. Others will just spiral and die.
2. Loads of CEOs leaving or being fired. Most third sector CEOs have never led in this situation. Many will not be able to move fast enough or radically enough to sort our their organisation. The job will prove too much for a great many.
3. The end of the sector's easy-going relationship with Government. The lines are already opening up as the sector competes with just about every other for the Government's attention. The truth is that we are quite important to the Government, but not that important in a year like the one we're about to have.
4. The beginning of the end of the civil wars within the sector. The spats of the past (NCVO/ACEVO/DSC/NAVCA etc) were just about affordable pre-downturn. Now we need to work as one as never before. Watch out for emerging discussion this year about common platform, infrastructure and even leadership across the main sector bodies.
5. Winners as well as losers. Not all third sector organisations will have a bad recession. Some will grow, improve and use the `blazing platform' presented by the downturn to engineer some long-needed improvements in their offer. Change is the child of crisis. Expect to see some organisations pulling their finger out in the next couple of years.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Taming the Morons
Last night I went out for a drink with a friend of mine who is a local Councillor here in Bury St Edmunds. He brought with him a publication he'd been sent that week by the Local Goverment Assocation (LGA) produced in concert with RADAR, the disability rights organisation.
The publication in question was a guide to how our Councillors should deal with disabled people. A kind of Debretts' for when you meet someone in a wheelchair. I didn't quite know how to respond to the publication.
It read a bit like the kind of guide you see when you're about to travel to a very obscure country, where certain things you might say or do be deemed highly offensive.
Do Councillors, for example, need to `not stare' and `appear positive and friendly' when faced with someone with a serious facial disfigurement? Or replace the words `moron' and `imbecile' in their vocabularies with `person with a learning difficulty'. Or see people who are mentally unwell as not suffering anything (however obviously they may be)but as experiencing `mental health challenges'.
While it is laudable that we let Councillors know about respectful conduct, I am not sure that publications like this are the answer. Half the people reading will, like I did, piss their sides at the clumsy, patronising earnestness of it. The other half will, in trying to take it all on board, extract any residual naturalness that may exist in future conversations they might have with disabled people.
Yes, where once there may have been quite normal, albeit clumsy, offense-risking exchanges like the ones I witness every two months at our Service User Parliament ("This poor young man in the wheelchair here" etc), there will now be a more stilted and somehow less human dialogue between elected members and people with disabilities who they represent.
For by taking the normal everyday `risk' out of interaction between disabled people and their Councillors, one is also eliminating something core to all human interaction. The net effect being, in weird, unintentional kind of way, to dehumanise disabled people.
Which I am sure wasn't the idea at all.
The publication in question was a guide to how our Councillors should deal with disabled people. A kind of Debretts' for when you meet someone in a wheelchair. I didn't quite know how to respond to the publication.
It read a bit like the kind of guide you see when you're about to travel to a very obscure country, where certain things you might say or do be deemed highly offensive.
Do Councillors, for example, need to `not stare' and `appear positive and friendly' when faced with someone with a serious facial disfigurement? Or replace the words `moron' and `imbecile' in their vocabularies with `person with a learning difficulty'. Or see people who are mentally unwell as not suffering anything (however obviously they may be)but as experiencing `mental health challenges'.
While it is laudable that we let Councillors know about respectful conduct, I am not sure that publications like this are the answer. Half the people reading will, like I did, piss their sides at the clumsy, patronising earnestness of it. The other half will, in trying to take it all on board, extract any residual naturalness that may exist in future conversations they might have with disabled people.
Yes, where once there may have been quite normal, albeit clumsy, offense-risking exchanges like the ones I witness every two months at our Service User Parliament ("This poor young man in the wheelchair here" etc), there will now be a more stilted and somehow less human dialogue between elected members and people with disabilities who they represent.
For by taking the normal everyday `risk' out of interaction between disabled people and their Councillors, one is also eliminating something core to all human interaction. The net effect being, in weird, unintentional kind of way, to dehumanise disabled people.
Which I am sure wasn't the idea at all.
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Ego and I
About a year ago, following discussions with those who know me and care for me, I decided to raise my own profile as a third sector leader. It made sense. I had things to say, a book coming out and an urgent need to bring new investment into my organisation.
This has involved doing the usual things: a regular colunm in Third Sector, occasional pieces in national newspapers, the odd profile spot in the wider media, a range of non Exec roles and not a little networking.
The effort worked. I now have a bigger profile. I take part in the debates and, I hope, ruffle the odd feather. But it has come at a price. During the first half of the year I neglected my organisation. People felt, with me out promoting my book all the time, that I had, effectively left. As a result, they didn't feel I was there for them. And if I wasn't `there', why should they be? My appraisal mid-year said it all. Either go and do it now or stay and be a proper CEO.
My response was to reallocate my time, get my eye back on the ball and re-engage with my organisation. Still do the other stuff - but make sure people knew that, when it got sticky - my priority was to be back on the farm.
Whether I have succeeded or not I don't honestly know. The vibes are a lot better, I know that. And I feel a lot better. The heat and light of being out all the time is enjoyable at the time but can, when you look back, feel like slightly frittered time. There is something important about having a proper job and not just being part of the London-based scene. You really can spend all of your time working the media, the conferences, Whitehall and the seminars. Although I find it agreable enough work, it doesn't feel quite like real work, if this makes sense.
And then there's ego. For most of my adult life I have experienced, as many people do, an odd combination of both high and low self-esteem. I have always, on one level, known I have some ability and that I can do most things I apply myself to do. On the other hand I easily default to to the `I'm not good/clever/interesting enough' mindset that has kind of been there from the beginning.
This year I have probably received more praise and recognition than in all of the years of my life combined. This has had, in the short term, a very positive effect. But it doesn't last. You kind of end up where you always were. Whereever that happens to be.
The year I have had has made me ask the hard questions about why I do what I do. I think I now realise that some kind of search for recognition has always been part of it. That achieving social good is also part of an agenda which is quite strongly linked to my own psychological needs.
Where does this leave me going into 2009? A bit less personally ambitious perhaps. What the bit of recognition I did get showed me that while immediately gratifying, the focus on self that it brings is not particularly nourishing. Indeed, the thought of focussing on myself a little less going forward brings with it a sense of relief.
The only fear this leaves me with is that I know that I, like many others who have made things happen socially, is that without my demons pushing me so hard, I may actually be less driven to make good things happen.
Which is something I may just decide to live with.
This has involved doing the usual things: a regular colunm in Third Sector, occasional pieces in national newspapers, the odd profile spot in the wider media, a range of non Exec roles and not a little networking.
The effort worked. I now have a bigger profile. I take part in the debates and, I hope, ruffle the odd feather. But it has come at a price. During the first half of the year I neglected my organisation. People felt, with me out promoting my book all the time, that I had, effectively left. As a result, they didn't feel I was there for them. And if I wasn't `there', why should they be? My appraisal mid-year said it all. Either go and do it now or stay and be a proper CEO.
My response was to reallocate my time, get my eye back on the ball and re-engage with my organisation. Still do the other stuff - but make sure people knew that, when it got sticky - my priority was to be back on the farm.
Whether I have succeeded or not I don't honestly know. The vibes are a lot better, I know that. And I feel a lot better. The heat and light of being out all the time is enjoyable at the time but can, when you look back, feel like slightly frittered time. There is something important about having a proper job and not just being part of the London-based scene. You really can spend all of your time working the media, the conferences, Whitehall and the seminars. Although I find it agreable enough work, it doesn't feel quite like real work, if this makes sense.
And then there's ego. For most of my adult life I have experienced, as many people do, an odd combination of both high and low self-esteem. I have always, on one level, known I have some ability and that I can do most things I apply myself to do. On the other hand I easily default to to the `I'm not good/clever/interesting enough' mindset that has kind of been there from the beginning.
This year I have probably received more praise and recognition than in all of the years of my life combined. This has had, in the short term, a very positive effect. But it doesn't last. You kind of end up where you always were. Whereever that happens to be.
The year I have had has made me ask the hard questions about why I do what I do. I think I now realise that some kind of search for recognition has always been part of it. That achieving social good is also part of an agenda which is quite strongly linked to my own psychological needs.
Where does this leave me going into 2009? A bit less personally ambitious perhaps. What the bit of recognition I did get showed me that while immediately gratifying, the focus on self that it brings is not particularly nourishing. Indeed, the thought of focussing on myself a little less going forward brings with it a sense of relief.
The only fear this leaves me with is that I know that I, like many others who have made things happen socially, is that without my demons pushing me so hard, I may actually be less driven to make good things happen.
Which is something I may just decide to live with.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Moving On
Not from Speaking Up but from my old house to my new one. We did this ourselves, which reminded me why the removal industry continues to thrive. Our house move, like everybody's I talk to, was a bit of an on-off saga, with an added bit of last minute, solicitor-induced tension. It is not something I intend to do ever again.
Not that I should ever need to. We have moved to a house just on the edge of a beautiful public parkin the countryside just 2 miles from Bury St Edmunds. Foxes bark in the night and there's that blackness to the night that you get outside the towns. The house is an 1860s cottage which has been recently extended to create a family home. It is little short of perfect for us.
Moving all our stuff made me realise, as we all do from time to time, the amount of waste we create in the course of our lives. We did ten runs to the tip as the accumulated detritus of our lives piled up behind us. We really are high-impact beings.
All this is on my mind as we ponder whether to have a third child, where to work, how much to drive, commute, earn and consume. Even a modest life generates a big demand on resources and tons of waste, never mind a really profligate one. Will it be seen as responsible in 50 years time to have three or four kids. Will the Optimum Population Trust be seen as sages ahead of their time as we all hunker down to a one-child policy?
Becoming 40 soon (well, in a few months) is prompting all sorts of questions. I have recently decided pretty much that I won't spend my 40s commuting to London every day to head up a national)(something I hadn't discounted till now). But this raises a lot of questions about how I spend the next 20 years of my working life. Presuming that Speaking Up, at some stage soon, will require fresh leadership, I have to find a way to balance my ambition to make a difference with the needs of my family life and the fact that I want to live in a fairly sustainable way. Portfolio is one option but I seem too young for that. Another is to start a new enterprise just now is a high-commitment, high risk, low income option. Without major backing I couldn't do this just now in the way I did at the age of 25 when I started Speaking Up.
Anyway this is all a bit serious and I have two fractious kids to feed so I will go now.
Not that I should ever need to. We have moved to a house just on the edge of a beautiful public parkin the countryside just 2 miles from Bury St Edmunds. Foxes bark in the night and there's that blackness to the night that you get outside the towns. The house is an 1860s cottage which has been recently extended to create a family home. It is little short of perfect for us.
Moving all our stuff made me realise, as we all do from time to time, the amount of waste we create in the course of our lives. We did ten runs to the tip as the accumulated detritus of our lives piled up behind us. We really are high-impact beings.
All this is on my mind as we ponder whether to have a third child, where to work, how much to drive, commute, earn and consume. Even a modest life generates a big demand on resources and tons of waste, never mind a really profligate one. Will it be seen as responsible in 50 years time to have three or four kids. Will the Optimum Population Trust be seen as sages ahead of their time as we all hunker down to a one-child policy?
Becoming 40 soon (well, in a few months) is prompting all sorts of questions. I have recently decided pretty much that I won't spend my 40s commuting to London every day to head up a national)(something I hadn't discounted till now). But this raises a lot of questions about how I spend the next 20 years of my working life. Presuming that Speaking Up, at some stage soon, will require fresh leadership, I have to find a way to balance my ambition to make a difference with the needs of my family life and the fact that I want to live in a fairly sustainable way. Portfolio is one option but I seem too young for that. Another is to start a new enterprise just now is a high-commitment, high risk, low income option. Without major backing I couldn't do this just now in the way I did at the age of 25 when I started Speaking Up.
Anyway this is all a bit serious and I have two fractious kids to feed so I will go now.
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