On 19 June, I was at a country fair in a park in Suffolk. At 4.30pm, a horse took fright and bolted with an empty carriage, running full-pelt into a crowd. One person died and eight others were seriously injured. Myself and my little kids missed it all by an hour. A truly horrendous event.
The Nowton Park Country Fair was run by St Edmundsbury Borough Council, which also runs the park. I say this because I felt glad the state was there to deal with this. Yes, it is up to the council to deal properly with the aftermath, to oversee the inquiry and, possibly, to pay out compensation. Imagine if this park had been handed over to a half-ready community group with no real experience in event management.
I have been one of the people hammering away for this park to be given to the community to operate as a charity or social enterprise. I am now not so sure that this was the right idea. In truth, we're not ready.
Let's imagine things had gone my way and the park was now run by a social enterprise, of which I was a trustee. It is quite possible that I would have been sent to face the media or, harder still, a grieving relative. Alternatively, I could have spent the next month of my working life mired in dealings with the Health and Safety Executive.
But I won't be. A man called John at the council is doing all of this. And I am really grateful that John is there to deal with all of this properly, not me. Obviously, these incidents are rare - they can't be used to justify the retention of control of everything by the state. But they put up a flag upon which is written "be careful what you wish for".
Few in Whitehall will have heard about the runaway horse in Bury St Edmunds, but the debate about the big society rumbles on. Tories such as Steve Hilton, the Prime Minister's director of strategy, want to bring the big society to life by making it the main thrust of the forthcoming white paper on public service reform.
He wants to see more mutuals, community groups and charities running public services, including parks and playgrounds. Meanwhile, other Tories, many of them outside David Cameron's immediate circle, want a stronger, free-market flavour. Hello Capita, Serco, payment by results and the rest.
Sitting behind the free marketers' view is the idea that the big society can't really be counted on to deliver savings or improvements in public services, a view shared by the trade unions and many in the voluntary sector. Where the right wing of the Tory party differs is in its belief that the private sector can do it better.
As the third sector, we will soon have to decide where to place our support: a vision of public sector reform that puts us at the heart of things, or one that puts the private sector clearly in the driving seat.
Despite the tragedy of the past weekend and it salutary lessons, I know where I am putting my money.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Sunday, June 26, 2011
Leading in a New World
Tomorrow evening I am, along with Liam Black of Wavelength, hosting a gathering of leaders of social enterprise spin-outs from the North of England and Scotland.
It's about 'Leading in a New World - and the challenges of running your own ship once liberated from the Big Machine of the public sector. For most of the men and women present, life will have got a lot more interesting since stepping out. But it will also throw up a load of challenges too. Not least of these is how to carry the whole weight of an organisation, often a pretty big one, into unknown new space.
Since stepping down as a CEO, and working alongside new CEOs and MDs I have learned a lot about leadership. The first thing I have realised is that I wasn't as bad a one as I thought. My shortcomings as a CEO were such that, by the end, I didn't actually rate myself that highly. I couldn't do numbers, I got stressed too easily and I couldn't manage process that well. Also, the job sucked me dry of creativity. I left feeling a husk of my former self.
However, watching the best of the leaders I now work with operate, I realised I wasn't so bad after all. For what I lacked in executive skill-set I made up for in other ways. People seemed to trust me. They knew what I was about and felt comfortable with that. Although I had visible weaknesses I didn't try to pretend I didn't and, somehow, this built loyalty and support, rather than disenchantment. And, even at the end, I managed to hang on to some degree of emotional intelligence, even as the organisation became increasingly systems and process-dominated.
Of all the leaders I work closely with now, the two I admire most are also people whose weaknesses are as apparent as their strengths. One of them will be in the room tomorrow, in fact. What I like most about them is that their values radiate from them. And not just their service-values either. Their core beliefs and priorities as human beings are very clear from the moment you speak with them. They have integrity. They show care. They are not just task-centred, but people-centred too.
In their different ways, they both have an energy and warmth which makes them good to work with. Not always easy, but always stimulating. Both are soft-hearted, but can also be very tough if crossed. But you always know where you are with them.
I think what I've learned over the last year, from both my work with Stepping Out and my observations of Suffolk County Council is that the human side of leadership is absolutely critical. It sounds an almost facile thing to say, but, so often, you see CEOs who don't appear to grasp this important truth. They think it's just about the tangible results, the outcomes. Of course it is, but you don't actually achieve these, organisationally, without the commitment which really great leaders embody.
That's where I think Suffolk County Council went wrong. While our leadership, both on the the political and executive side, had great ideas and the right policies (in my view), real, felt, support for what they were doing was, in the end, limited to handful of their own side. They were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aloof, arrogant and focused merely on the task-in-hand, not the people side.
The real challenge when you're leading is that, every day, you have a welter of things bearing down on you. Cross cutting demands. It's solitary work and you often feel low in energy and pre-occupied. You become incredibly pragmatic, at times too much so, because it can cut across your values. Staying the person you are, and the one people need you to be, is, in my view, the principle challenge of leadership for these new CEOs.
It's about 'Leading in a New World - and the challenges of running your own ship once liberated from the Big Machine of the public sector. For most of the men and women present, life will have got a lot more interesting since stepping out. But it will also throw up a load of challenges too. Not least of these is how to carry the whole weight of an organisation, often a pretty big one, into unknown new space.
Since stepping down as a CEO, and working alongside new CEOs and MDs I have learned a lot about leadership. The first thing I have realised is that I wasn't as bad a one as I thought. My shortcomings as a CEO were such that, by the end, I didn't actually rate myself that highly. I couldn't do numbers, I got stressed too easily and I couldn't manage process that well. Also, the job sucked me dry of creativity. I left feeling a husk of my former self.
However, watching the best of the leaders I now work with operate, I realised I wasn't so bad after all. For what I lacked in executive skill-set I made up for in other ways. People seemed to trust me. They knew what I was about and felt comfortable with that. Although I had visible weaknesses I didn't try to pretend I didn't and, somehow, this built loyalty and support, rather than disenchantment. And, even at the end, I managed to hang on to some degree of emotional intelligence, even as the organisation became increasingly systems and process-dominated.
Of all the leaders I work closely with now, the two I admire most are also people whose weaknesses are as apparent as their strengths. One of them will be in the room tomorrow, in fact. What I like most about them is that their values radiate from them. And not just their service-values either. Their core beliefs and priorities as human beings are very clear from the moment you speak with them. They have integrity. They show care. They are not just task-centred, but people-centred too.
In their different ways, they both have an energy and warmth which makes them good to work with. Not always easy, but always stimulating. Both are soft-hearted, but can also be very tough if crossed. But you always know where you are with them.
I think what I've learned over the last year, from both my work with Stepping Out and my observations of Suffolk County Council is that the human side of leadership is absolutely critical. It sounds an almost facile thing to say, but, so often, you see CEOs who don't appear to grasp this important truth. They think it's just about the tangible results, the outcomes. Of course it is, but you don't actually achieve these, organisationally, without the commitment which really great leaders embody.
That's where I think Suffolk County Council went wrong. While our leadership, both on the the political and executive side, had great ideas and the right policies (in my view), real, felt, support for what they were doing was, in the end, limited to handful of their own side. They were perceived, rightly or wrongly, to be aloof, arrogant and focused merely on the task-in-hand, not the people side.
The real challenge when you're leading is that, every day, you have a welter of things bearing down on you. Cross cutting demands. It's solitary work and you often feel low in energy and pre-occupied. You become incredibly pragmatic, at times too much so, because it can cut across your values. Staying the person you are, and the one people need you to be, is, in my view, the principle challenge of leadership for these new CEOs.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Mission Possible in the Kingdom of Fife
Spent a fascinating day in the 'Kingdom of Fife' last Friday as Chair of 'Mission Possible?', a conference examining the future of public services in Fife. For the unenlightened, Fife sits just north of Edinburgh, on the other side of the Firth of Forth. It contains a mix of legacy mining towns, such as Kirkcaldy and Leven, as well as posher parts such as St Andrews, alma mater of Will n' Kate.
I love going to other countries and getting a feel of their issues. Scotland's are similar to our own but in bold. Public spending is a bigger part of their economy (Fife Council is by far the biggest employer) and levels of business start-up are lower than in England. Coupled to that, Fife has to contend for investment with its better-known neighbours to the south, Glasgow and Edinbugh.
Which sets the scene for Friday's event, convened by 'Fife Partnership', a collaboration of all the public and voluntary sector bodies in the area, all, helpfully, contiguous - and aided by a decent history of working well together. Thanks to devolution, 'local' now matters in Scotland far more than in England, where localism is still in its birth-pangs. Councils like Fife have a general power of competency. It is both felt and appreciated. Indeed, the chances of a Holyrood Minister telling them how often to empty their bins is less up there, for sure.
To the event. It was kicked off by Cllr Peter Grant, the SNP leader of the council. I like the Nats. They have a style of their own which is a mixture of intelligent, pragmatic and modern. They just feel fresher and more vital than the standard-issue Scottish politicians that we are now so used to seeing.
He was followed by a deputy CEO Steve Grimmond, who began his career setting up co-ops in Dundee and, unusually for a senior local government officer, has an acute understanding of the limits of municipalism and the need to view resources as a whole, not just public money to be thrown, from high at society's problems. Steve is the kind of leader I think local government needs - he sees well beyond what is immediately in front of him.
After my speech was the highlight of the event. Occasionally, you stumble across a world-class speaker. One who lifts you, gets inside your brain, pulls out your heart and leaves the stage to prolonged applause.
The person in question was Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. Not a name familiar 'Down South', but an internationally recognised leader in public health. Burns' presentation compressed 40 years of learning into 40 short minutes.
Scots, he told us, do not suffer worse health only because of smoking, above-average drinking and deep-fried Mars Bars. Indeed, control for this and you still find Scots dying and and in poor health in far greater numbers than elsewhere in Europe. What is happening is that massive numbers of people, many young, are out of control, living kamikaze lives which lead, often, to suicide, alcoholism, serious mental illness and death.
Burns takes a decidedly non-medic view of health. He doesn't believe there's these two worlds, one of 'healthy people', the other of unhealthy'. He thinks we all flit in and out of good health all the time. What keeps us on the right side of health is a mixture of our habits, our relationships and our ability to cope with the world around us. People who are resilient can stay healthy more easily as their stress is kept in check and their lives stay in shape. The opposite is true of people whose life experiences have not protected them so that they can cope with life-events.
Scotland, he argues, has a lot of people whose early lives have not afforded them that protection. So they act-out, they become addicts or drunks, commit violent crime or at worst kill themselves. It is a fact that Scotland's suicide and murder rates make some of the rougher parts of London look like a playground.
The answer to Scotland's health problems, therefore, is not a health service based on treatment but a better, more nurturing society in which early care and support, in particular, is improved. The voluntary sector, he believes, has a vital role in developing the kind of supportive relationships which both protect people and reduce their risks to themselves and others.
Burns' quest for understanding led him to study the accounts of younger holocaust survivors. People taken in by strangers and adopted. Nearly 70% experienced extreme trauma as adults, with many experiencing profound mental health problems. But 30% didn't - and it was this 30% which is of interest. This group were those whose positive life-experiences since had afforded them greater protection from their early trauma. Something was protecting these people. It is this that we needed to recreate in our society.
This led to Burns' main point: that we need to take an asset-based view of people in general. Build on what's there, what's already good, not be forever seeking to treat the problem, like a surgeon excising a cancer. Our whole public investment is based on attacking these 'negatives', most of it doesn't work yet we persist. Even when we know other approaches, particularly the asset-based approaches to working with people championed by the voluntary sector are proven to work.
The action didn't stop there. Harry Burns was followed onstage by a leading Scottish police officer called Karyn McCluskey who is Head of Violence for Scotland, following a successful stint in the Met and other English forces. McCluskey, however, is not your standard copper. She trained as a nurse, is also a published academic and has a bit of the Louise Casey about her, in her impassioned, no-nonsense style.
She started by showing CCTV footage of a gang of hooded lads in Glasgow killing a man with a stab wound to the heart, then another of a man being macheted. The purpose was not, however, only to shock. It was to illustrate the limits to policing. She went on to explain how a community-based programme designed to create peer pressure of a different kind - community pressure - was reducing involvement in gangs.
This was heart-stopping stuff. The police work closely with the community on a scheme which brings gang members into close contact with the recently bereaved mother, of the man who will never work again due the 'Glasgow smile' carved by a machete into his face, like some kind of grotesque clown.
While this stuff cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the most damaged, it has a huge effect on many and the 'Gang Amnesty' headed up by Karyn and her team - which offers immediate support- a team to go out - to gang members wanting an alternative, has been a success.
This was turning into the best event I had been to in a long time. And it wasn't over yet. Three local people spoke powerfully of how they had successfully mixed the resources within their communities with those of the state and other sectors and achieved powerful change.
Andrew Arbuckle told of how the community had taken disused brownfield land in his coastal town and created a new space which had transformed the fortunes of the area. Dr Margaret Hannah spoke about the Shine Project which has produced an entirely new form of support for older people, building, again, on their assets, networks and capabilities.
Finally, Josie Mitchell, a long-term resident of 'The Broom', one of the worst estates in Scotland 25 years ago, explained, movingly, how the residents there had formed up a housing association which now runs an estate which is a model of successful regeneration. Their very simple aim, now achieved, was to make the Broom a place where people wanted to come and live, not escape from.
Three golden threads ran through this event, which, by the way, put many of the London-based events I have been to of late to shame in terms of quality. The first was that where the state works successfully alongside people, rather than does-unto them, the results are transformative.
The second is that it is key, in an age of austerity, to create a strategy based on ALL of our assets - public, community, private, and then map these, AS ONE, onto our high level goals.
The third key message is that control and command in general - the modus operandi of most public organisations today, doesn't work and has to change.
That starts with politicians - and it has to start now.
I love going to other countries and getting a feel of their issues. Scotland's are similar to our own but in bold. Public spending is a bigger part of their economy (Fife Council is by far the biggest employer) and levels of business start-up are lower than in England. Coupled to that, Fife has to contend for investment with its better-known neighbours to the south, Glasgow and Edinbugh.
Which sets the scene for Friday's event, convened by 'Fife Partnership', a collaboration of all the public and voluntary sector bodies in the area, all, helpfully, contiguous - and aided by a decent history of working well together. Thanks to devolution, 'local' now matters in Scotland far more than in England, where localism is still in its birth-pangs. Councils like Fife have a general power of competency. It is both felt and appreciated. Indeed, the chances of a Holyrood Minister telling them how often to empty their bins is less up there, for sure.
To the event. It was kicked off by Cllr Peter Grant, the SNP leader of the council. I like the Nats. They have a style of their own which is a mixture of intelligent, pragmatic and modern. They just feel fresher and more vital than the standard-issue Scottish politicians that we are now so used to seeing.
He was followed by a deputy CEO Steve Grimmond, who began his career setting up co-ops in Dundee and, unusually for a senior local government officer, has an acute understanding of the limits of municipalism and the need to view resources as a whole, not just public money to be thrown, from high at society's problems. Steve is the kind of leader I think local government needs - he sees well beyond what is immediately in front of him.
After my speech was the highlight of the event. Occasionally, you stumble across a world-class speaker. One who lifts you, gets inside your brain, pulls out your heart and leaves the stage to prolonged applause.
The person in question was Sir Harry Burns, Chief Medical Officer for Scotland. Not a name familiar 'Down South', but an internationally recognised leader in public health. Burns' presentation compressed 40 years of learning into 40 short minutes.
Scots, he told us, do not suffer worse health only because of smoking, above-average drinking and deep-fried Mars Bars. Indeed, control for this and you still find Scots dying and and in poor health in far greater numbers than elsewhere in Europe. What is happening is that massive numbers of people, many young, are out of control, living kamikaze lives which lead, often, to suicide, alcoholism, serious mental illness and death.
Burns takes a decidedly non-medic view of health. He doesn't believe there's these two worlds, one of 'healthy people', the other of unhealthy'. He thinks we all flit in and out of good health all the time. What keeps us on the right side of health is a mixture of our habits, our relationships and our ability to cope with the world around us. People who are resilient can stay healthy more easily as their stress is kept in check and their lives stay in shape. The opposite is true of people whose life experiences have not protected them so that they can cope with life-events.
Scotland, he argues, has a lot of people whose early lives have not afforded them that protection. So they act-out, they become addicts or drunks, commit violent crime or at worst kill themselves. It is a fact that Scotland's suicide and murder rates make some of the rougher parts of London look like a playground.
The answer to Scotland's health problems, therefore, is not a health service based on treatment but a better, more nurturing society in which early care and support, in particular, is improved. The voluntary sector, he believes, has a vital role in developing the kind of supportive relationships which both protect people and reduce their risks to themselves and others.
Burns' quest for understanding led him to study the accounts of younger holocaust survivors. People taken in by strangers and adopted. Nearly 70% experienced extreme trauma as adults, with many experiencing profound mental health problems. But 30% didn't - and it was this 30% which is of interest. This group were those whose positive life-experiences since had afforded them greater protection from their early trauma. Something was protecting these people. It is this that we needed to recreate in our society.
This led to Burns' main point: that we need to take an asset-based view of people in general. Build on what's there, what's already good, not be forever seeking to treat the problem, like a surgeon excising a cancer. Our whole public investment is based on attacking these 'negatives', most of it doesn't work yet we persist. Even when we know other approaches, particularly the asset-based approaches to working with people championed by the voluntary sector are proven to work.
The action didn't stop there. Harry Burns was followed onstage by a leading Scottish police officer called Karyn McCluskey who is Head of Violence for Scotland, following a successful stint in the Met and other English forces. McCluskey, however, is not your standard copper. She trained as a nurse, is also a published academic and has a bit of the Louise Casey about her, in her impassioned, no-nonsense style.
She started by showing CCTV footage of a gang of hooded lads in Glasgow killing a man with a stab wound to the heart, then another of a man being macheted. The purpose was not, however, only to shock. It was to illustrate the limits to policing. She went on to explain how a community-based programme designed to create peer pressure of a different kind - community pressure - was reducing involvement in gangs.
This was heart-stopping stuff. The police work closely with the community on a scheme which brings gang members into close contact with the recently bereaved mother, of the man who will never work again due the 'Glasgow smile' carved by a machete into his face, like some kind of grotesque clown.
While this stuff cannot penetrate the hearts and minds of the most damaged, it has a huge effect on many and the 'Gang Amnesty' headed up by Karyn and her team - which offers immediate support- a team to go out - to gang members wanting an alternative, has been a success.
This was turning into the best event I had been to in a long time. And it wasn't over yet. Three local people spoke powerfully of how they had successfully mixed the resources within their communities with those of the state and other sectors and achieved powerful change.
Andrew Arbuckle told of how the community had taken disused brownfield land in his coastal town and created a new space which had transformed the fortunes of the area. Dr Margaret Hannah spoke about the Shine Project which has produced an entirely new form of support for older people, building, again, on their assets, networks and capabilities.
Finally, Josie Mitchell, a long-term resident of 'The Broom', one of the worst estates in Scotland 25 years ago, explained, movingly, how the residents there had formed up a housing association which now runs an estate which is a model of successful regeneration. Their very simple aim, now achieved, was to make the Broom a place where people wanted to come and live, not escape from.
Three golden threads ran through this event, which, by the way, put many of the London-based events I have been to of late to shame in terms of quality. The first was that where the state works successfully alongside people, rather than does-unto them, the results are transformative.
The second is that it is key, in an age of austerity, to create a strategy based on ALL of our assets - public, community, private, and then map these, AS ONE, onto our high level goals.
The third key message is that control and command in general - the modus operandi of most public organisations today, doesn't work and has to change.
That starts with politicians - and it has to start now.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Lobbying On Health
Like many of us I have been adding my voice to the often aptly named cacophony of views on how our health services can be delivered in the future.
The Lib Dems have clearly scored a victory in this debate but I am not necessarily celebrating. While there were big problems and risks in the Lansley reforms-as-were, there was much good too which is now at risk. One of these is the role of non NHS providers, including, if we're not careful, social enterprises. These could be the baby thrown out with the privatisation bathwater.
To this end, I have been lobbying, among others, Norman Lamb, who really understands health and the party to speak with colleagues, particularly their Lordships, who might not be aware of the small miracles being achieved by the Central Surrey Health's and City Partnership Hull's of this world. Achievements any self-respecting Lib Dem should be proud of.
The plain truth of the matter in health and social care is that different parts of the system require different combinations of competition and collaboration. The argument to keep competition out of say, a big city hospital's coronory services in order to be able to deliver a specialism it otherwise couldn't can be matched, just as powerfully, by the case to introduce competition into areas like speech therapy or physio, where only one, often very sloppy, NHS provider, can legally claim public money for its work.
My point here is that different permutations of competition and collaboration, integration and break-up, are required across the system. This point is somewhat lost in the binary discussion in even the intelligent newspapers - and in politics. Their Lordships - who are often above this sort of thing - have been joining in with our own Lord John Pugh sounding off about Stephen Bubb's involvement with third sector capital provider Social Investment Business. This is exactly the kind of nonsense I fear could lead Lib Dem peers to try to kybosh social enterprise health providers too on the grounds that they are are kind of privatised service.
It has been interesting watching this unfold. Cameron is clearly highly sensitive to public opinion and a pragmatist, possibly too much of one. Too many U turns and he'll start to look very weak. Politically the Lib Dems needed to play this one as a win and, for once, seem to have got the politics right after a shocking year.
Lansley, on the other hand, is heading for Northern Ireland, as they used to say.
The Lib Dems have clearly scored a victory in this debate but I am not necessarily celebrating. While there were big problems and risks in the Lansley reforms-as-were, there was much good too which is now at risk. One of these is the role of non NHS providers, including, if we're not careful, social enterprises. These could be the baby thrown out with the privatisation bathwater.
To this end, I have been lobbying, among others, Norman Lamb, who really understands health and the party to speak with colleagues, particularly their Lordships, who might not be aware of the small miracles being achieved by the Central Surrey Health's and City Partnership Hull's of this world. Achievements any self-respecting Lib Dem should be proud of.
The plain truth of the matter in health and social care is that different parts of the system require different combinations of competition and collaboration. The argument to keep competition out of say, a big city hospital's coronory services in order to be able to deliver a specialism it otherwise couldn't can be matched, just as powerfully, by the case to introduce competition into areas like speech therapy or physio, where only one, often very sloppy, NHS provider, can legally claim public money for its work.
My point here is that different permutations of competition and collaboration, integration and break-up, are required across the system. This point is somewhat lost in the binary discussion in even the intelligent newspapers - and in politics. Their Lordships - who are often above this sort of thing - have been joining in with our own Lord John Pugh sounding off about Stephen Bubb's involvement with third sector capital provider Social Investment Business. This is exactly the kind of nonsense I fear could lead Lib Dem peers to try to kybosh social enterprise health providers too on the grounds that they are are kind of privatised service.
It has been interesting watching this unfold. Cameron is clearly highly sensitive to public opinion and a pragmatist, possibly too much of one. Too many U turns and he'll start to look very weak. Politically the Lib Dems needed to play this one as a win and, for once, seem to have got the politics right after a shocking year.
Lansley, on the other hand, is heading for Northern Ireland, as they used to say.
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Social Enterprise the Irish Way
Just back from Louisburgh, a place which sounds like it should be in Tennessee or Wyoming but is in fact in Co Mayo, Ireland. It was a 24 hour flying visit to speak to the 2011 Finalist for Social Enterprise Irelands's Social Impact Awards.
What a setting. We flew into Knock, an airport built by a priest on a hilltop so that people could come see the nearby shrine. These days it is the gateway to the remoter towns of the west, for one of which I was headed.
I was picked up by the Cex of SEI, Sean Coughlan and we spent a pleasant hour and a half going over the recent election there followed by the visit of our Queen.
Irish politics, if you haven't noticed, has undergone a seismic shift with the dominant party (Fianna Fail) reduced to 19 seats - which would be the equivalent of Labour or the Tories getting less than 80. For the first time, it seems, old party allegiances have been abandoned in a collective protest against the economic collapse and the cronyism of the Irish state.
This, coupled with the Queen's visit, which is helping put to bed the longstanding issue between the UK and Ireland, make this feel like a time of reappraisal, Sean believes - and I agree.
I have been all over Ireland but never to Mayo, Louisburgh is set among mountains and sea. The weather changes quickly,making it a place of ever-shifting colour, light and shade. It never feels the same for long. The event was at the home of Declan Ryan, one of the founders of Ryanair, who is Chair of Social Enterprise Ireland and the One Foundation, Ireland's biggest social investor.
Declan is an aviation nut who now sets up airlines in emerging countries. Unlike a lot of big business guys, he is very unassuming and is the opposite of the 'Big I Am'. In fact, me being slow, it took me quite a while to work out who he actually was - halfway through a conversation in fact.
The event itself is about selecting from a field of about eight, the three strongest candidates for a significant social investment from the One Foundation, an investment that will enable significant scaling up. I didn't get to talk to everyone but at dinner I had a chance to talk to two candidates at length.
One was Sean Love. A former Director of Amnesty Ireland, Sean has paired up by novelist Roddy Doyle to set up Fighting Words. Staffed mainly by volunteers, it runs free creative writing and storytelling workshops for students of all ages to enhance creative writing skills and build their confidence in writing ability and self-expression.
In just over two years the centre has hosted 13,000 primary school children, 6,000 secondary students and 5,000 adults. Ireland is full of 'name' writers and artists, many of whom, with no accolade, show up and deliver sessions. Sean is heavily oversubsribed and wants to scale the programme.
Another was Krystian Fikert, a young Polish man set up MyMind in 2006, while employed with Google, in response to what he saw as the complicated nature of the Irish mental health system. MyMind provides affordable and accessible mental health services within the community, which aims to bypass the need for clinical referral, long waiting lists and high- cost services through ePsychologist, an innovative online support model.
What struck me about the group, overall, was their quality and energy. It reminded me a bit of that first day of the Ambassador programme when 20 of the UK's best all came together for the first time.
They have their work cut out. Ireland's economy is weak. Problems are growing almost as quickly as the pot is shrinking. These guys will depend on the country's new Government being willing to press the reset button in many areas of public policy - such as mental health, suicide prevention, education and the environment.
Which means taking on vested interests such as unions and the media. Easier in a small country where Ministers and MPs are often a phone call away. But harder, given the scale of mountains to climb.
I decided, after a bit of faffing around to waive my fee for this one. Not because I am a great guy but because I got as much out of this trip as anyone got out of me. Most of what I see I have seen before, in earlier version.
This was a bit different. I felt I was with the best of a generation, the people who are going, one way or another, to be the shapers of this country's future. To spend time among them was my privilege.
What a setting. We flew into Knock, an airport built by a priest on a hilltop so that people could come see the nearby shrine. These days it is the gateway to the remoter towns of the west, for one of which I was headed.
I was picked up by the Cex of SEI, Sean Coughlan and we spent a pleasant hour and a half going over the recent election there followed by the visit of our Queen.
Irish politics, if you haven't noticed, has undergone a seismic shift with the dominant party (Fianna Fail) reduced to 19 seats - which would be the equivalent of Labour or the Tories getting less than 80. For the first time, it seems, old party allegiances have been abandoned in a collective protest against the economic collapse and the cronyism of the Irish state.
This, coupled with the Queen's visit, which is helping put to bed the longstanding issue between the UK and Ireland, make this feel like a time of reappraisal, Sean believes - and I agree.
I have been all over Ireland but never to Mayo, Louisburgh is set among mountains and sea. The weather changes quickly,making it a place of ever-shifting colour, light and shade. It never feels the same for long. The event was at the home of Declan Ryan, one of the founders of Ryanair, who is Chair of Social Enterprise Ireland and the One Foundation, Ireland's biggest social investor.
Declan is an aviation nut who now sets up airlines in emerging countries. Unlike a lot of big business guys, he is very unassuming and is the opposite of the 'Big I Am'. In fact, me being slow, it took me quite a while to work out who he actually was - halfway through a conversation in fact.
The event itself is about selecting from a field of about eight, the three strongest candidates for a significant social investment from the One Foundation, an investment that will enable significant scaling up. I didn't get to talk to everyone but at dinner I had a chance to talk to two candidates at length.
One was Sean Love. A former Director of Amnesty Ireland, Sean has paired up by novelist Roddy Doyle to set up Fighting Words. Staffed mainly by volunteers, it runs free creative writing and storytelling workshops for students of all ages to enhance creative writing skills and build their confidence in writing ability and self-expression.
In just over two years the centre has hosted 13,000 primary school children, 6,000 secondary students and 5,000 adults. Ireland is full of 'name' writers and artists, many of whom, with no accolade, show up and deliver sessions. Sean is heavily oversubsribed and wants to scale the programme.
Another was Krystian Fikert, a young Polish man set up MyMind in 2006, while employed with Google, in response to what he saw as the complicated nature of the Irish mental health system. MyMind provides affordable and accessible mental health services within the community, which aims to bypass the need for clinical referral, long waiting lists and high- cost services through ePsychologist, an innovative online support model.
What struck me about the group, overall, was their quality and energy. It reminded me a bit of that first day of the Ambassador programme when 20 of the UK's best all came together for the first time.
They have their work cut out. Ireland's economy is weak. Problems are growing almost as quickly as the pot is shrinking. These guys will depend on the country's new Government being willing to press the reset button in many areas of public policy - such as mental health, suicide prevention, education and the environment.
Which means taking on vested interests such as unions and the media. Easier in a small country where Ministers and MPs are often a phone call away. But harder, given the scale of mountains to climb.
I decided, after a bit of faffing around to waive my fee for this one. Not because I am a great guy but because I got as much out of this trip as anyone got out of me. Most of what I see I have seen before, in earlier version.
This was a bit different. I felt I was with the best of a generation, the people who are going, one way or another, to be the shapers of this country's future. To spend time among them was my privilege.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Sunday Reflections
Enjoying a calm Sunday after a breathless week. Business has quickened in the last couple of months. Suddenly I am not finding the time to blog, Tweet or follow the daily trail. Big proposal went in Friday. Should it come in I will feel the business really has legs.
One of the things I do to wind down is sort out the garden. Not planting or digging, just mowing and tidying. Then a trip to the tip. I love going there. Am I the only bloke who feels a strange purposefulness in filling my boot and heading down the dump? The one I use is a great place, one of the best in the country - managing to recycle 86% of what is left there. Which, when you look into the vast skips, is an achievement. All those settees, lawnmower, computers, fence-panels and rusty bikes.
Like a lot of us, I think a lot about the long-term future. All the stuff we produce and throw. One of my tasks today was to get rid of a knackered trampoline. All that metal and fabric - in the skip after two years. OK it'll get used again but this shaded my enjoyment of the trip. I look at my boy, three and half, in the front seat. Fresh, clean, beautiful. Then into the skip, Old, dirty ugly. I wonder, as I often do now, whether this is the best of it. What he'll be living in as a 41 year old? Will he be richer, poorer, healthier? Or will the world have changed beyond all recognition, as I fear it will? That's when I stop thinking.
I think what got me going this week was watching 'Megacities' by Andrew Marr. He goes to Dhaka, Shanghai, Mexico City, London. Half a million people enter Dhaka each year. Mexico City is several times the size of London. Nine billion people will be 15 billion within a generation. How's it all going to work with both oil and water running out, not to mention a warmer world? Will my boy be ok?
Yet our politics can't really cope with any of this. It's too big. And as individuals we seem only able to respond when the crisis is in the now, just like in WW2, where we faffed around as a nation until 1939 when it took the prospect of invasion to get ourselves organised. We could see tragedy in the middle distance but until it was right up to our eyes we did very little.
There's a point you get to in adult life, I think, where you've got to decide what you really believe and will build around. I know a lot people who are convinced greens. Their views are unconventional. Stop growth. Prevent population growth. Create a basic-income for all etc. All of my life, I have tended to rail against the utopians, whether green or red. Their lack of pragmatism has always seemed futile and to play into the hands of the enemy - witness Labour in the 80s. That was the crucible in which I grew up. Pure but Losing. Then seeing the place I grew up left to the dogs. For this reason, politically I always preferred people like Blair who accepted certain things - as not to would, as progressives have always done, hand power to the wrong people.
But I do have my moments of doubt. At heart I want a high trust society in which we are drawn closer together than we are in England in 2011. I am a big admirer of what Alex Salmond is achieving up in Scotland, an interesting combination of economic nationalism, green investment and a social ethic I find really appealing. It is positive, hopeful and interesting. It challenges the givens while working within the grain of Scottish identity and values.
Which brings me back to where I started - Sunday. Back from the tip, listening to Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music, kids out, looking out over the beloved greenery of Nowton Park feeling lucky to be alive.
One of the things I do to wind down is sort out the garden. Not planting or digging, just mowing and tidying. Then a trip to the tip. I love going there. Am I the only bloke who feels a strange purposefulness in filling my boot and heading down the dump? The one I use is a great place, one of the best in the country - managing to recycle 86% of what is left there. Which, when you look into the vast skips, is an achievement. All those settees, lawnmower, computers, fence-panels and rusty bikes.
Like a lot of us, I think a lot about the long-term future. All the stuff we produce and throw. One of my tasks today was to get rid of a knackered trampoline. All that metal and fabric - in the skip after two years. OK it'll get used again but this shaded my enjoyment of the trip. I look at my boy, three and half, in the front seat. Fresh, clean, beautiful. Then into the skip, Old, dirty ugly. I wonder, as I often do now, whether this is the best of it. What he'll be living in as a 41 year old? Will he be richer, poorer, healthier? Or will the world have changed beyond all recognition, as I fear it will? That's when I stop thinking.
I think what got me going this week was watching 'Megacities' by Andrew Marr. He goes to Dhaka, Shanghai, Mexico City, London. Half a million people enter Dhaka each year. Mexico City is several times the size of London. Nine billion people will be 15 billion within a generation. How's it all going to work with both oil and water running out, not to mention a warmer world? Will my boy be ok?
Yet our politics can't really cope with any of this. It's too big. And as individuals we seem only able to respond when the crisis is in the now, just like in WW2, where we faffed around as a nation until 1939 when it took the prospect of invasion to get ourselves organised. We could see tragedy in the middle distance but until it was right up to our eyes we did very little.
There's a point you get to in adult life, I think, where you've got to decide what you really believe and will build around. I know a lot people who are convinced greens. Their views are unconventional. Stop growth. Prevent population growth. Create a basic-income for all etc. All of my life, I have tended to rail against the utopians, whether green or red. Their lack of pragmatism has always seemed futile and to play into the hands of the enemy - witness Labour in the 80s. That was the crucible in which I grew up. Pure but Losing. Then seeing the place I grew up left to the dogs. For this reason, politically I always preferred people like Blair who accepted certain things - as not to would, as progressives have always done, hand power to the wrong people.
But I do have my moments of doubt. At heart I want a high trust society in which we are drawn closer together than we are in England in 2011. I am a big admirer of what Alex Salmond is achieving up in Scotland, an interesting combination of economic nationalism, green investment and a social ethic I find really appealing. It is positive, hopeful and interesting. It challenges the givens while working within the grain of Scottish identity and values.
Which brings me back to where I started - Sunday. Back from the tip, listening to Jarvis Cocker on 6 Music, kids out, looking out over the beloved greenery of Nowton Park feeling lucky to be alive.
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Is Cinderalla back at the Ball? My latest piece for Third Sector magazine
Times have changed for the leaders of the voluntary sector. Cast your mind back 10 years, to 2001. It felt then that, like Cinderella, the sector under New Labour was being spirited from a life cleaning ovens and sweeping floors and invited to the ball. The government wanted to engage with the sector, and to spend money on it. Its prince saw how well those in the sector understood the problems of the time - and how we could help him to build the new kingdom.
The 2000s were our ballroom years. A group of talented leaders emerged who inspired confidence and admiration. They enjoyed the privileges of the court and an increasing familiarity with those holding power. As the prince swung our sector around the dancefloor, we were eyed with jealous suspicion by some outside the gilded circle. What price, they asked, were we paying for this proximity? But the riposte was that while we sometimes got too close to government, we had credibility - and a massive bounty to show for our trouble.
Then midnight struck. A new, more sceptical prince came to power. Our gown immediately turned to sackcloth, our chariot back to a pumpkin, our horses back to mice. We were unceremoniously cast out of the kingdom. Even our name, the 'third sector', was denied and replaced with a new one of the prince's choosing: the 'big society'.
The reason, of course, was that the new prince had different, more ascetic tastes. The ball was over and he had inherited an impoverished kingdom. He decided the third sector had become part of the furniture, no longer reflecting its roots. So he took away most of our money and told us to get by without state handouts.
And his loving gaze passed over us and moved to the fields beyond the palace walls where 'real people' tended the fields and helped the needy without regard for goings-on in the court. They didn't ask and they didn't get. These were the real heroes, he declared as he slammed the door, giving us just enough corn to get by until we could support ourselves.
Of course, we were cross. Before the new prince's ascent to power, we had done our bit to win his heart. We had responded with enthusiasm to his new ideas, even the ones we had doubts about. Some of us even came up with plans to make them happen. Alas, to no avail. Cinderella was politely, but firmly, sent packing.
That was last year. So what is happening now? Having banished us, the new prince, I sense, realises that, without the third sector's goodwill and know-how, his own 'big society' - led, in theory, by the yeomen in the fields - will struggle to get traction.
The penny is dropping that, while Cinderella may have gorged herself on the palace's fine food and wine, she has left a hole that needs to be filled. Indeed, she now finds herself invited back on the quiet. Not held as close, nor treated as lavishly and indulgently.
But definitely back
The 2000s were our ballroom years. A group of talented leaders emerged who inspired confidence and admiration. They enjoyed the privileges of the court and an increasing familiarity with those holding power. As the prince swung our sector around the dancefloor, we were eyed with jealous suspicion by some outside the gilded circle. What price, they asked, were we paying for this proximity? But the riposte was that while we sometimes got too close to government, we had credibility - and a massive bounty to show for our trouble.
Then midnight struck. A new, more sceptical prince came to power. Our gown immediately turned to sackcloth, our chariot back to a pumpkin, our horses back to mice. We were unceremoniously cast out of the kingdom. Even our name, the 'third sector', was denied and replaced with a new one of the prince's choosing: the 'big society'.
The reason, of course, was that the new prince had different, more ascetic tastes. The ball was over and he had inherited an impoverished kingdom. He decided the third sector had become part of the furniture, no longer reflecting its roots. So he took away most of our money and told us to get by without state handouts.
And his loving gaze passed over us and moved to the fields beyond the palace walls where 'real people' tended the fields and helped the needy without regard for goings-on in the court. They didn't ask and they didn't get. These were the real heroes, he declared as he slammed the door, giving us just enough corn to get by until we could support ourselves.
Of course, we were cross. Before the new prince's ascent to power, we had done our bit to win his heart. We had responded with enthusiasm to his new ideas, even the ones we had doubts about. Some of us even came up with plans to make them happen. Alas, to no avail. Cinderella was politely, but firmly, sent packing.
That was last year. So what is happening now? Having banished us, the new prince, I sense, realises that, without the third sector's goodwill and know-how, his own 'big society' - led, in theory, by the yeomen in the fields - will struggle to get traction.
The penny is dropping that, while Cinderella may have gorged herself on the palace's fine food and wine, she has left a hole that needs to be filled. Indeed, she now finds herself invited back on the quiet. Not held as close, nor treated as lavishly and indulgently.
But definitely back
Wednesday, June 1, 2011
How do we stop abuse in care?
If you didn't watch last night's Panorama, then watch it on Iplayer. It concerns the treatment of people with learning disabilities by one of the UK's biggest private social care providers. Panorama shows people being physically and verbally abused by staff who are clearly out of all control.
I would like to say that this is shocking by its novelty. But the truth is that I have seen similar things with my own eyes, albeit less often. And I have, throughout my time in advocacy, frequently come across stories of such goings on. The truth of the matter is that mostly goes on without senior managers knowing about it.
I don't have to think hard to recall one home I worked in. Presided over by a powerful personality, M, who clearly had 'issues', staff and residents alike were afraid of her. M was a bully and, on her bad days, a bit of a sadist. People would sit in their own shit if she felt they had done it to 'piss her off'. People's genitals would be laughed about as though they weren't there. On one occasion, she struck someone, not hard, but enough to know where they stood. Families even were intimidated by her. She had everyone in her thrall.
I was just a relief worker - this was one of many places I worked as a 23 year old. Having nothing to lose, I complained about M to senior managers verbally. Nothing happened. I put it in writing and threatened to go public. M was suspended. Then others came forward to substantiate and add their stories. People who themselves had joined in with M in her constant goading. By the end of it, M was lucky not to go to jail. Thankfully none of the other staff lost their jobs. They were all, in essence, decent people led by a monster.
This episode taught me something very important about people and leadership. Without great leaders in those places I worked, they quickly become hellish as staff take their cues from whoever is in charge. Which brings me back to the role of private companies in public services. I am categorically not one of those people who thinks that profit cannot be honestly made out of providing good care and support. That is nonsense as experience every day tells us. Nor is the answer for care to be socialised. The NHS, let's remember was only last week lambasted, again, for letting elderly patients effectively starve to death on its wards. And one of the last big learning-disability scandals was at Orchard Hill, an NHS facility.
No, it isn't just about public-private. It is about mission and leadership. It is about focus on what matters. If these places are run according to imperatives beyond providing best-service, things slide. The best places I worked were, bizarrely, run by the same group that employed M. Two miles down the road, their other place was and still is exemplary. I would place my own child there. What made it work was strong, empowered, proud local leadership backed, yes, by management with good values.
This is one reason I prefer spin-outs to either retained public sector or outright privatisation. Ownership and control we know have a positive effect on behavour. So too does focus and specialism and a strong sense of social purpose. We will, of course, one day see a scandal in a spin out. But I think in organisations which lose their sense of purpose through an excessive focus either on profit or too much public-sector politicking, when eyes leave the ball, the chances of scandal are all the more extreme.
My thoughts today are with the people on the wrong end of the kicks, shoves and hair-pulling in that programme. Several people today are in custody and hopefully those people are now safe. But, rather than just put this down to 'evil people', I hope this whole affair helps us think more carefully about the kinds of services - and the requirements of leadership - needed to keep people safe. Most people in social care are good, decent people. So too are most managers, right up to the top. I have no doubt that the company involved will respond in a concerned and reasonable way. I just hope that this also addresses some of the deeper reasons why these things happen.
I would like to say that this is shocking by its novelty. But the truth is that I have seen similar things with my own eyes, albeit less often. And I have, throughout my time in advocacy, frequently come across stories of such goings on. The truth of the matter is that mostly goes on without senior managers knowing about it.
I don't have to think hard to recall one home I worked in. Presided over by a powerful personality, M, who clearly had 'issues', staff and residents alike were afraid of her. M was a bully and, on her bad days, a bit of a sadist. People would sit in their own shit if she felt they had done it to 'piss her off'. People's genitals would be laughed about as though they weren't there. On one occasion, she struck someone, not hard, but enough to know where they stood. Families even were intimidated by her. She had everyone in her thrall.
I was just a relief worker - this was one of many places I worked as a 23 year old. Having nothing to lose, I complained about M to senior managers verbally. Nothing happened. I put it in writing and threatened to go public. M was suspended. Then others came forward to substantiate and add their stories. People who themselves had joined in with M in her constant goading. By the end of it, M was lucky not to go to jail. Thankfully none of the other staff lost their jobs. They were all, in essence, decent people led by a monster.
This episode taught me something very important about people and leadership. Without great leaders in those places I worked, they quickly become hellish as staff take their cues from whoever is in charge. Which brings me back to the role of private companies in public services. I am categorically not one of those people who thinks that profit cannot be honestly made out of providing good care and support. That is nonsense as experience every day tells us. Nor is the answer for care to be socialised. The NHS, let's remember was only last week lambasted, again, for letting elderly patients effectively starve to death on its wards. And one of the last big learning-disability scandals was at Orchard Hill, an NHS facility.
No, it isn't just about public-private. It is about mission and leadership. It is about focus on what matters. If these places are run according to imperatives beyond providing best-service, things slide. The best places I worked were, bizarrely, run by the same group that employed M. Two miles down the road, their other place was and still is exemplary. I would place my own child there. What made it work was strong, empowered, proud local leadership backed, yes, by management with good values.
This is one reason I prefer spin-outs to either retained public sector or outright privatisation. Ownership and control we know have a positive effect on behavour. So too does focus and specialism and a strong sense of social purpose. We will, of course, one day see a scandal in a spin out. But I think in organisations which lose their sense of purpose through an excessive focus either on profit or too much public-sector politicking, when eyes leave the ball, the chances of scandal are all the more extreme.
My thoughts today are with the people on the wrong end of the kicks, shoves and hair-pulling in that programme. Several people today are in custody and hopefully those people are now safe. But, rather than just put this down to 'evil people', I hope this whole affair helps us think more carefully about the kinds of services - and the requirements of leadership - needed to keep people safe. Most people in social care are good, decent people. So too are most managers, right up to the top. I have no doubt that the company involved will respond in a concerned and reasonable way. I just hope that this also addresses some of the deeper reasons why these things happen.
Monday, May 23, 2011
What kind of leadership do we need in Suffolk now?
I listened to Andrew Marr's interview with Barack Obama yesterday. For me he embodies what leadership is all about. Clear, strong values. Calmness in adversity. Sensitivity to human feeling. An ability to raise others and paint a big picture - but also a clear eye for detail. Toughness when required but also persuasion as the main weapon.
When I was a CEO, I didn't always rate myself as a leader that much. I could, I think, inspire people, I could build a picture - but I never felt sure enough of myself as a manager of people. I need to be liked that little bit too much. People, I think, found me just the wrong side of flexible - a bit of a pushover. I also flapped quite a lot, sometimes not very privately either. Painfully aware of my weaknesses, I always felt like an actor who had only learned half his lines.
I know this isn't unique. I know all CEOs feel, to some extent, frauds waiting to be unmasked. I know few that ride that delicate balance between having good relatonships with colleagues and having the wrong sort of dynamic - either not being sufficiently 'above the fray' or so far above it that people can't relate to you.
The best advice I ever had was to be myself. This meant, of course, accepting that I was never going to be a Barack Obama, but it also meant that I was going to be authentic. People tend, I found, to respond well to that. By following the contours of your personality, rather than a template for leadership, colleagues found, eventually, a way to work around certain predictable patterns. Interestingly, by being more frank about my weaknesses, support mechanisms developed where they didn't before. By being more human, I didn't I find become less 'CEO-like'
Which bring me on today's matters in hand. In Suffolk, we are currently without a CEO. She is on long-term leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the organisation's culture. Her style was a funny mix of visionary, inspirational and confrontational. I make no bones of the fact that I like Andrea Hill. She is smart, interesting and brave. But she's got a very different 'leadership face'. Which, in my experience, has been to show no weakness, to meet fire with fire and to be fairly brutally honest in her assessments of people and situations. She doesn't sweeten any pills.
The net effect of her style was mixed. On the one hand, she drew some great people into our Council who have been rainmakers. She also gave our Council clear direction, energy and agenda. On the other, she was a divisive figure who seemed, to staff, to be scary and remote, cold and unsympathatic. My guess is that she needed a 'front' just to get through some very difficult times - but that in creating this may have made matters more difficult for herself. That a little more of herself shown would, ironically, have taken some pressure off her.
Obviously, nobody knows what happens next. It's a matter for HR and the leaders of the Council to decide what happens. My fear is that if she doesn't come back, the Suffolk experience may become a cautionary fable for Councils who might seek to do things differently. But perchance she does return, I think she would do well to review a leadership style which, while inspiratonal to some was difficult for many to deal with. And that it was the many, in the end, that saw off some of the ideas with which she was most closely associated.
When I was a CEO, I didn't always rate myself as a leader that much. I could, I think, inspire people, I could build a picture - but I never felt sure enough of myself as a manager of people. I need to be liked that little bit too much. People, I think, found me just the wrong side of flexible - a bit of a pushover. I also flapped quite a lot, sometimes not very privately either. Painfully aware of my weaknesses, I always felt like an actor who had only learned half his lines.
I know this isn't unique. I know all CEOs feel, to some extent, frauds waiting to be unmasked. I know few that ride that delicate balance between having good relatonships with colleagues and having the wrong sort of dynamic - either not being sufficiently 'above the fray' or so far above it that people can't relate to you.
The best advice I ever had was to be myself. This meant, of course, accepting that I was never going to be a Barack Obama, but it also meant that I was going to be authentic. People tend, I found, to respond well to that. By following the contours of your personality, rather than a template for leadership, colleagues found, eventually, a way to work around certain predictable patterns. Interestingly, by being more frank about my weaknesses, support mechanisms developed where they didn't before. By being more human, I didn't I find become less 'CEO-like'
Which bring me on today's matters in hand. In Suffolk, we are currently without a CEO. She is on long-term leave pending the outcome of an investigation into the organisation's culture. Her style was a funny mix of visionary, inspirational and confrontational. I make no bones of the fact that I like Andrea Hill. She is smart, interesting and brave. But she's got a very different 'leadership face'. Which, in my experience, has been to show no weakness, to meet fire with fire and to be fairly brutally honest in her assessments of people and situations. She doesn't sweeten any pills.
The net effect of her style was mixed. On the one hand, she drew some great people into our Council who have been rainmakers. She also gave our Council clear direction, energy and agenda. On the other, she was a divisive figure who seemed, to staff, to be scary and remote, cold and unsympathatic. My guess is that she needed a 'front' just to get through some very difficult times - but that in creating this may have made matters more difficult for herself. That a little more of herself shown would, ironically, have taken some pressure off her.
Obviously, nobody knows what happens next. It's a matter for HR and the leaders of the Council to decide what happens. My fear is that if she doesn't come back, the Suffolk experience may become a cautionary fable for Councils who might seek to do things differently. But perchance she does return, I think she would do well to review a leadership style which, while inspiratonal to some was difficult for many to deal with. And that it was the many, in the end, that saw off some of the ideas with which she was most closely associated.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Why Social Enterprise needs to throw open its doors
Clients actually never ask me the social business question. They either assume that Stepping Out is - or don't really care about our structure.
The truth of the matter is that Stepping Out isn't, by UK legal definition a social business. There is no asset lock. The Directors own 80% of the company and can do as they please with 80% of the profits. The other 20% - of both the company and the net profit will go to invest in early stage social entrepreneurs working at community level. That is when there is a profit to distribute - a moot point for many in the social sector.
While I can't contest the social enterprise legal definition, I will say now why I think enterprises like mine should be allowed Guest Passes to the fold. Firstly, our commitment to redistribute profit goes well beyond minimalist CSR. Secondly, our time - the other key asset of any company - is given away generously to in-need clients. Thirdly, we are not profit-maximising and seek a variety of returns from this business.
I have said this before - there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of firms in the UK just like ours which are, in essence, privately held but which subscribe to a broader view of their existence and indeed have the track-record to demonstrate this. Capitalism as a whole is, with many risible exceptions, slowly walking in this direction. At the moment, these companies have nowhere to go. CSR is largely working at the margins. For companies making substantial social contributions - but without the means or capital structure to go the full hog to social enterprise - there is very little formally there.
I believe that, in time, the Social Enterprise movement will see this gap and ride into it. It is not only a great opportunity for them but a chance to create real and productive alliances between progressive firms currently separated by the somewhat arbitrary lines set out the legal definitions of social enterprise.
The truth of the matter is that Stepping Out isn't, by UK legal definition a social business. There is no asset lock. The Directors own 80% of the company and can do as they please with 80% of the profits. The other 20% - of both the company and the net profit will go to invest in early stage social entrepreneurs working at community level. That is when there is a profit to distribute - a moot point for many in the social sector.
While I can't contest the social enterprise legal definition, I will say now why I think enterprises like mine should be allowed Guest Passes to the fold. Firstly, our commitment to redistribute profit goes well beyond minimalist CSR. Secondly, our time - the other key asset of any company - is given away generously to in-need clients. Thirdly, we are not profit-maximising and seek a variety of returns from this business.
I have said this before - there are thousands, possibly tens of thousands of firms in the UK just like ours which are, in essence, privately held but which subscribe to a broader view of their existence and indeed have the track-record to demonstrate this. Capitalism as a whole is, with many risible exceptions, slowly walking in this direction. At the moment, these companies have nowhere to go. CSR is largely working at the margins. For companies making substantial social contributions - but without the means or capital structure to go the full hog to social enterprise - there is very little formally there.
I believe that, in time, the Social Enterprise movement will see this gap and ride into it. It is not only a great opportunity for them but a chance to create real and productive alliances between progressive firms currently separated by the somewhat arbitrary lines set out the legal definitions of social enterprise.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Why the NHS still needs reform
The debate about the NHS is frustratingly binary. Public vs Private. Managers versus Doctors. Front-line services versus bureaucracy. Planning versus chaos. Gosplan versus the Wild West Discussion on the Lansley Bill, even among the better Parliamentarians and commentators, seems to sink to this level.
Part of the problem is that the challenge of how we improve healthcare in the UK is fiendishly complex. Hardly anyone knows enough about all areas to really have a total grip on it. Furthermore, the issue of the NHS is related, as nowhere else, to larger ideas about national identity and the binding of our society.
Reforming it, therefore is a hellish task. Some basic truths about the health service cannot be escaped from. Firstly, it is, globally speaking, relatively cheap. Secondly, it is unusual in that it is provided through taxation and is free at point of use. Insurance or payment haven't, so far, entered the picture, unless you decide to opt-out altogether. Thirdly, as a system, the resources are allocated, for historic reasons largely, more to acute and hospital based services and less to community, primary and preventative services.
Despite big political disagreements about means, there is some consensus on ends. We need to make the health service better at helping people help themselves to stay healthy, less about treating them in hospital when they are sick. Resources need, over time, to shift from one to the other. We also need health and social care to be less rigidly separated as the two needs tend to come together, particularly with an ageing population.
There, however, it all breaks down and gets very binary. The way forward for the right is to create this change by splitting the purchase from provision of services and by opening up the market to any willing provide. Coupled with this, people should be allowed to both choose their provider and 'top-up' their service, like Fast Boarding, if they choose. This, goes the argument, drives efficiency, innovation and customer-focus. More bang for your buck.
The argument from the left is that all of this disrupts an ecology of co-operation, integration and professional and public involvement which has developed since the formation of the NHS. Competition, they say, puts people who need to work together e.g. GPs and community services or community services and Foundation Trusts, into competition with each other. The patient - who is guided down 'Pathways' between primary, community and hospital care, will suffer as agencies fight over the funding and, inevitably, act in organisational self-interest, rather than that of the patient. Furthermore, there is huge fear over the consequences of co-payment and the idea of a 'two-tier NHS'.
As a self-confessed wooly liberal, I see both sides of the debate. I also work closely with health and use health services quite a bit. I can see both cases. What I do not doubt, however, is that no-change, is as unacceptable as some of the more far-reaching aspects of the Lansley Bill.
I illustrate this with a personal story. One of my children is three and a half and has 20 words, about as many as a typical 18 month old baby. A year ago, he had none. We referred him to Speech Therapy. Apparently there is a waiting list. Then we got him seen. There was another delay. Then a couple of cancelled appointments. We get 1970s style letters telling us when we will be seen, inked in biro. No choice or quality of communication. The therapist herself is excellent but in the year since referring our child, he has been seen twice.
Had I not the commitment I have to the NHS, I would have taken my child private six months ago. A queue for speech therapy at this age is just going to compound the problem - creating more work down the road - and possible education/ SEN needs.
There is clearly a resource issue. But on top I sense a complacence too. This service is the only one funded by the NHS. Nobody else can do this and get NHS money. If I wanted my son's notional share of the budget of this service to take to the market to buy a service from a speech therapist or practice I couldn't have it. And there is no way I could augment this money with some of my own if I needed to, god forbid, because that would give my son some kind of bizarre advantage over some other child who may well also reach his fourth birthday unable to say more than a few words.
Clearly, there is a need for some system-change here. I would be deeply surprised if the budget for speech therapy was such that if was not possible to work harder. While we need more planning to ensure under-funded areas do get funded, we also need more freedom to ensure that the money works harder so that people who need services benefit from some of the things we take for granted in other areas of life e.g. choice and the freedom to use our own share of public sector resources in the way we choose, even if this means adding some of our own.
It is this kind of change that I am trying to encourage in my own work. I don't think the NHS should be a free market. There are real dangers in losing control of the system to a profit motive, as in the US where spending is out of control and outcomes extremely poor. We need system-planning. But this doesn't mean we can't have a lot of providers and it doesn't mean that users of the health service having to put up with a 1940s, nationalised industry approach to provision in which the forces which do drive forward innovation, quality and customer-services are systematically nullified.
Part of the problem is that the challenge of how we improve healthcare in the UK is fiendishly complex. Hardly anyone knows enough about all areas to really have a total grip on it. Furthermore, the issue of the NHS is related, as nowhere else, to larger ideas about national identity and the binding of our society.
Reforming it, therefore is a hellish task. Some basic truths about the health service cannot be escaped from. Firstly, it is, globally speaking, relatively cheap. Secondly, it is unusual in that it is provided through taxation and is free at point of use. Insurance or payment haven't, so far, entered the picture, unless you decide to opt-out altogether. Thirdly, as a system, the resources are allocated, for historic reasons largely, more to acute and hospital based services and less to community, primary and preventative services.
Despite big political disagreements about means, there is some consensus on ends. We need to make the health service better at helping people help themselves to stay healthy, less about treating them in hospital when they are sick. Resources need, over time, to shift from one to the other. We also need health and social care to be less rigidly separated as the two needs tend to come together, particularly with an ageing population.
There, however, it all breaks down and gets very binary. The way forward for the right is to create this change by splitting the purchase from provision of services and by opening up the market to any willing provide. Coupled with this, people should be allowed to both choose their provider and 'top-up' their service, like Fast Boarding, if they choose. This, goes the argument, drives efficiency, innovation and customer-focus. More bang for your buck.
The argument from the left is that all of this disrupts an ecology of co-operation, integration and professional and public involvement which has developed since the formation of the NHS. Competition, they say, puts people who need to work together e.g. GPs and community services or community services and Foundation Trusts, into competition with each other. The patient - who is guided down 'Pathways' between primary, community and hospital care, will suffer as agencies fight over the funding and, inevitably, act in organisational self-interest, rather than that of the patient. Furthermore, there is huge fear over the consequences of co-payment and the idea of a 'two-tier NHS'.
As a self-confessed wooly liberal, I see both sides of the debate. I also work closely with health and use health services quite a bit. I can see both cases. What I do not doubt, however, is that no-change, is as unacceptable as some of the more far-reaching aspects of the Lansley Bill.
I illustrate this with a personal story. One of my children is three and a half and has 20 words, about as many as a typical 18 month old baby. A year ago, he had none. We referred him to Speech Therapy. Apparently there is a waiting list. Then we got him seen. There was another delay. Then a couple of cancelled appointments. We get 1970s style letters telling us when we will be seen, inked in biro. No choice or quality of communication. The therapist herself is excellent but in the year since referring our child, he has been seen twice.
Had I not the commitment I have to the NHS, I would have taken my child private six months ago. A queue for speech therapy at this age is just going to compound the problem - creating more work down the road - and possible education/ SEN needs.
There is clearly a resource issue. But on top I sense a complacence too. This service is the only one funded by the NHS. Nobody else can do this and get NHS money. If I wanted my son's notional share of the budget of this service to take to the market to buy a service from a speech therapist or practice I couldn't have it. And there is no way I could augment this money with some of my own if I needed to, god forbid, because that would give my son some kind of bizarre advantage over some other child who may well also reach his fourth birthday unable to say more than a few words.
Clearly, there is a need for some system-change here. I would be deeply surprised if the budget for speech therapy was such that if was not possible to work harder. While we need more planning to ensure under-funded areas do get funded, we also need more freedom to ensure that the money works harder so that people who need services benefit from some of the things we take for granted in other areas of life e.g. choice and the freedom to use our own share of public sector resources in the way we choose, even if this means adding some of our own.
It is this kind of change that I am trying to encourage in my own work. I don't think the NHS should be a free market. There are real dangers in losing control of the system to a profit motive, as in the US where spending is out of control and outcomes extremely poor. We need system-planning. But this doesn't mean we can't have a lot of providers and it doesn't mean that users of the health service having to put up with a 1940s, nationalised industry approach to provision in which the forces which do drive forward innovation, quality and customer-services are systematically nullified.
Friday, May 6, 2011
My piece in this week's Third Sector on the need for soc ent to take over state services
I go to a lot of sector events these days where nearly everyone, even quite sensible people, are banging away about how the coalition is taking us to hell in a handcart. Amid redundancies, closures, vital projects lost and more redundancies, I can understand this. To a point. But some perspective is needed here. Blaming the coalition is to seriously misread the issue.
Two things need pointing out. First, this was coming. As a sector, we had been pumped up by 15 years of uninterrupted economic growth, which left us deeply vulnerable to changes in the economic weather. And by 2010, any new government knew it would immediately face two flashing red signals as it pulled out of the station - the economy and the runaway costs of the public sector. It is fantasy, in my view, to believe that charities wouldn't be getting an equivalent hammering with a fourth Labour government driving the train.
Second, the world is changing faster than many in the sector understand. Many people - most often my generation and above - forget that we are facing overdue structural changes in the way the UK addresses social need. They still see the 'voluntary sector' as a useful crack-filler for an all-embracing public sector. We're an 'and' solution, not a serious alternative.
That model is broken. The brutal truth is that, unless you're incredibly fortunate, you can't get a service from the state unless your problem comes in a box they recognise. Try being mentally ill and alcoholic. Learning-disabled and deaf. Or a perpetrator and a victim of crime. You'll find very little out there for you - except a bit in our sector, if you happen upon it.
The logic of a complex society is that we need a greater diversity of solutions for a population that has become far more multi-faceted than that of our grandparents' time: all sorts of organisations doing all sorts of things with all sorts of people.
We also need to support stuff that helps the sector's activities match up to need rather than being only, in effect, a supportive gesture. This can't be done 'in addition'. It needs cash that used to fund the state.
That is what we are, somewhat chaotically, moving to now. It's messy, it's difficult and it isn't helped by the economic situation or the lack of a proper plan from government. But underneath all of this there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our sector to redefine itself as the first point of call for people in need.
And this should be the default position. Government grew as a provider when nobody was willing or able to take on that role. By the same logic, it needs now to revert to providing only where a civil society organisation cannot or will not do so. It can still plan, oversee and ensure a level field.
But one provider normally brings only one solution. The United Kingdom, in the 2010s, is not a one-solution society. A million flowers need to bloom. The price for this is a far smaller state than most readers of Third Sector are comfortable with.
Two things need pointing out. First, this was coming. As a sector, we had been pumped up by 15 years of uninterrupted economic growth, which left us deeply vulnerable to changes in the economic weather. And by 2010, any new government knew it would immediately face two flashing red signals as it pulled out of the station - the economy and the runaway costs of the public sector. It is fantasy, in my view, to believe that charities wouldn't be getting an equivalent hammering with a fourth Labour government driving the train.
Second, the world is changing faster than many in the sector understand. Many people - most often my generation and above - forget that we are facing overdue structural changes in the way the UK addresses social need. They still see the 'voluntary sector' as a useful crack-filler for an all-embracing public sector. We're an 'and' solution, not a serious alternative.
That model is broken. The brutal truth is that, unless you're incredibly fortunate, you can't get a service from the state unless your problem comes in a box they recognise. Try being mentally ill and alcoholic. Learning-disabled and deaf. Or a perpetrator and a victim of crime. You'll find very little out there for you - except a bit in our sector, if you happen upon it.
The logic of a complex society is that we need a greater diversity of solutions for a population that has become far more multi-faceted than that of our grandparents' time: all sorts of organisations doing all sorts of things with all sorts of people.
We also need to support stuff that helps the sector's activities match up to need rather than being only, in effect, a supportive gesture. This can't be done 'in addition'. It needs cash that used to fund the state.
That is what we are, somewhat chaotically, moving to now. It's messy, it's difficult and it isn't helped by the economic situation or the lack of a proper plan from government. But underneath all of this there is a once-in-a-generation opportunity for our sector to redefine itself as the first point of call for people in need.
And this should be the default position. Government grew as a provider when nobody was willing or able to take on that role. By the same logic, it needs now to revert to providing only where a civil society organisation cannot or will not do so. It can still plan, oversee and ensure a level field.
But one provider normally brings only one solution. The United Kingdom, in the 2010s, is not a one-solution society. A million flowers need to bloom. The price for this is a far smaller state than most readers of Third Sector are comfortable with.
What now for the Lib Dems?
I wasn't up for election yesterday. If I had been, I may well not be a Councillor today, despite having done OK in the role. Such is the nature of local elections - local issues are not what decides them.
This election has brought into sharp focus the challenge for the Lib Dems. The charge that the party is a 'human-shield' for the Tories has been borne out - they have come out without a scratch, while the Lib Dems face their worst results for 30 years.
When the party went into coalition last year, most party members endorsed it. The party was, in reality, trapped - but armed with a strong agreement, felt able to go into confidently into Government. However, the cuts - and their consequences such as the need to ask students to pay for their own education - have been the ubiquitious theme of the last year and we, not the Tories, have taken all of the political heat for them. The party's opportunism around fees - and its rash promise not to raise them - is now a burning large as a trust issue. Furthermore, Clegg's early view that all Lib Dems should 'own' the Coalition, now looks naive and we are seen to have 'played along' with the Tories rather than playing a strong hand as distinctive voice within the Coalition, as has been the case quite recently on health, which could provide a model for the future.
A second big problem is the North. In large areas of Northern England, the Lib Dems, not the Tories, became the natural opposition after the near-wipeout of the Tories in the 80s and 90s. Now that has been reversed, with the Leader of Hull Council, Carl Minns, actually losing his seat. The typical Northern Lib Dem voter is anti-Tory and has pulled away from the party in reaction to the Coalition. Interestingly, while Lib Dem members OK'd the Coalition, its voters probably would have vetoed it, given the chance, something which is only now being fully appreciated.
So what next? While there are odd calls for Clegg to go by angry councillors, this won't happen. It's too early and it would destabilize the Government and, ultimately spell doom for the party. There needs to be unity. And while there are whispers of an SDP-type split, I also see this as highly unlikely. Such things are years in the making and, for now, Labour provides a reasonable alternative home to disillusioned Lib Dems.
However, neither can things go on as they are. The Lib Dems in Government need to carve out a distinctive voice and be able to present themselves to the British public as a brake on the Thatcherite tendency in the Conservative Party. They need to be credited, politically, with stopping the Tories from privatising public services willy-nilly. They need to find some stronger themes than social mobility to campaign upon. And they need to look like a party that is listening again. This may mean admitting a mistake on fees early - in order to lance that boil. Clegg has the skills to do all of this and he is still the right person to lead the party - until the end of the Coalition.
After that point, or even going into the next election, the party needs a new leader, probably one who can pick up the lost voters and who can credibly join forces with Labour in the ev
ent of a hung parliament. Labour needs to win only 50 more seats to become a credible governing force again - but will still be short of a majority. I can't see them working with Clegg - ever - but it is possible to see them partnering with Tim Farron or someone from the mainstream centre-left. The Orange Book is now all but finished-off, outside Parliament at least.
And for me? I have never made any secret of my centrist views. If anything, I am still, at heart, a Blairite, as many, from all parties, still are. I want a Government which improves public services by diversifying supply, creates a dynamic but compassionate society and is modern and progressive in outlook, rather than backward-looking or statist. I had hopes for Cameron but he has reverted to type. David Miliband would have been supportable as Labour leader. Clegg, for me, has it about right.
But that will count for nothing if he remains politically toxic in the run up to the next General Election.
This election has brought into sharp focus the challenge for the Lib Dems. The charge that the party is a 'human-shield' for the Tories has been borne out - they have come out without a scratch, while the Lib Dems face their worst results for 30 years.
When the party went into coalition last year, most party members endorsed it. The party was, in reality, trapped - but armed with a strong agreement, felt able to go into confidently into Government. However, the cuts - and their consequences such as the need to ask students to pay for their own education - have been the ubiquitious theme of the last year and we, not the Tories, have taken all of the political heat for them. The party's opportunism around fees - and its rash promise not to raise them - is now a burning large as a trust issue. Furthermore, Clegg's early view that all Lib Dems should 'own' the Coalition, now looks naive and we are seen to have 'played along' with the Tories rather than playing a strong hand as distinctive voice within the Coalition, as has been the case quite recently on health, which could provide a model for the future.
A second big problem is the North. In large areas of Northern England, the Lib Dems, not the Tories, became the natural opposition after the near-wipeout of the Tories in the 80s and 90s. Now that has been reversed, with the Leader of Hull Council, Carl Minns, actually losing his seat. The typical Northern Lib Dem voter is anti-Tory and has pulled away from the party in reaction to the Coalition. Interestingly, while Lib Dem members OK'd the Coalition, its voters probably would have vetoed it, given the chance, something which is only now being fully appreciated.
So what next? While there are odd calls for Clegg to go by angry councillors, this won't happen. It's too early and it would destabilize the Government and, ultimately spell doom for the party. There needs to be unity. And while there are whispers of an SDP-type split, I also see this as highly unlikely. Such things are years in the making and, for now, Labour provides a reasonable alternative home to disillusioned Lib Dems.
However, neither can things go on as they are. The Lib Dems in Government need to carve out a distinctive voice and be able to present themselves to the British public as a brake on the Thatcherite tendency in the Conservative Party. They need to be credited, politically, with stopping the Tories from privatising public services willy-nilly. They need to find some stronger themes than social mobility to campaign upon. And they need to look like a party that is listening again. This may mean admitting a mistake on fees early - in order to lance that boil. Clegg has the skills to do all of this and he is still the right person to lead the party - until the end of the Coalition.
After that point, or even going into the next election, the party needs a new leader, probably one who can pick up the lost voters and who can credibly join forces with Labour in the ev
ent of a hung parliament. Labour needs to win only 50 more seats to become a credible governing force again - but will still be short of a majority. I can't see them working with Clegg - ever - but it is possible to see them partnering with Tim Farron or someone from the mainstream centre-left. The Orange Book is now all but finished-off, outside Parliament at least.
And for me? I have never made any secret of my centrist views. If anything, I am still, at heart, a Blairite, as many, from all parties, still are. I want a Government which improves public services by diversifying supply, creates a dynamic but compassionate society and is modern and progressive in outlook, rather than backward-looking or statist. I had hopes for Cameron but he has reverted to type. David Miliband would have been supportable as Labour leader. Clegg, for me, has it about right.
But that will count for nothing if he remains politically toxic in the run up to the next General Election.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
Can partnerships between mutuals and the private sector actually work?
What can be understood from yesterday's news that the Coalition Government will be scaling back plans to outsource large parts of the public sector to private firms? And what does this mean for other sectors?
The important message yesterday was, as usual, behind the headlines. The Government isn't necessarily looking simply for a phalanx of new non-profit providers. There just aren't the numbers, the expertise or the available public capital for the flea to take significant bites out of the elephant.
No, what the Coalition really wants are new ventures which are part-mutual, part-private. A bit like Circle Healthcare which is owned 49% by its staff and with significant minority shareholdings for venture capital backers and the senior management of the company itself.
There are three reasons why this makes sense, from the Government's point of view. Firstly, this brings private capital into play instead of public funding being required. Remember, each 'Right to Request' spin-out from the NHS has cost the Government tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds. A private partner with a long credit line can bring much-needed capital to a cash-strapped public sector.
Secondly, a private partner would bring expertise. Public sector spin-outs tend to be led by passionate teams of people who, certainly early on, lack the commercial nous to run a business at scale. Plus they have to set up all sorts of things from scratch - such as back-office, HR etc - which is simply very hard work. A good private partner could provide all sorts of help to the newly stepped-out organsiation. Thirdly - and this is the big one - partnerships of this type could be set up quickly and at scale. Average times for spin-outs, from conception through to execution run, from my experience, at 18 months to two years. Much of that is due to the internal approvals process, but much is due to the fact that the poor people leading it have to do this on top of their day jobs. It is a long firewalk, meaning few people have the energy and time to do it. A partner could make this easier.
So, there's the case-for. But will this work? There's a few big questions here. One concerns the nature of partnerships between mutually-owned and for-profit organisations, particularly those from the world of private equity. One, essentially, is driven by a range of goals, often including social ones, the other mainly by short-term bottom-line. Who wins out - or rather how a compromise is arrived at which satisfied both sets of owners is an interesting question. The truth of the matter is that commercial capital will not settle for sub-optimal returns given the risks involved here. So where the goals of mutualism - or social goals - will fit in remains a moot point.
Another big question concerns the meeting of cultures. Although this sounds less significant, I don't think it can be underestimated. Every single person who I have met who leads a stepped-out organisation is motivated by social purpose. They strongly identify with public sector values, albeit ones which see social enterprise as the appropriate vehicle for this. Culturally and politically, they are mostly people of the Left, who are sceptical about the values and motives in the UK private sector. Essentially, you're talking here about mixing oil and water.
A final question in my mind concerns the scale of ventures. Most mutuals or social enterprises tend to be defined by geography or function. A passion for people, place or profession is often a big element in these ventures. They aspire to be local, to be connected, to be human-scale. The dynamic of the private sector is around scale, either by organic growth or takeovers. The natural tendency among providers with private partners will be to seek to maximise value by taking over other organisations by merger or acquisition, strip out costs, find economies and so on. You see this right across the health and social care sector now, leaving us with very large providers, hugely efficient but also somewhat remote and soulless, with ownership often based overseas or in sovereign wealth funds.
While some degree of mutual ownership would mitigate all of these three problems, I wonder how far this would be the case - given who will hold the purse-strings and whether, in the end, even this approach, while well-intentioned, might lead to a fairly poor set of outcomes, when viewed from a social point of view.
The important message yesterday was, as usual, behind the headlines. The Government isn't necessarily looking simply for a phalanx of new non-profit providers. There just aren't the numbers, the expertise or the available public capital for the flea to take significant bites out of the elephant.
No, what the Coalition really wants are new ventures which are part-mutual, part-private. A bit like Circle Healthcare which is owned 49% by its staff and with significant minority shareholdings for venture capital backers and the senior management of the company itself.
There are three reasons why this makes sense, from the Government's point of view. Firstly, this brings private capital into play instead of public funding being required. Remember, each 'Right to Request' spin-out from the NHS has cost the Government tens, sometimes hundreds of thousands of pounds. A private partner with a long credit line can bring much-needed capital to a cash-strapped public sector.
Secondly, a private partner would bring expertise. Public sector spin-outs tend to be led by passionate teams of people who, certainly early on, lack the commercial nous to run a business at scale. Plus they have to set up all sorts of things from scratch - such as back-office, HR etc - which is simply very hard work. A good private partner could provide all sorts of help to the newly stepped-out organsiation. Thirdly - and this is the big one - partnerships of this type could be set up quickly and at scale. Average times for spin-outs, from conception through to execution run, from my experience, at 18 months to two years. Much of that is due to the internal approvals process, but much is due to the fact that the poor people leading it have to do this on top of their day jobs. It is a long firewalk, meaning few people have the energy and time to do it. A partner could make this easier.
So, there's the case-for. But will this work? There's a few big questions here. One concerns the nature of partnerships between mutually-owned and for-profit organisations, particularly those from the world of private equity. One, essentially, is driven by a range of goals, often including social ones, the other mainly by short-term bottom-line. Who wins out - or rather how a compromise is arrived at which satisfied both sets of owners is an interesting question. The truth of the matter is that commercial capital will not settle for sub-optimal returns given the risks involved here. So where the goals of mutualism - or social goals - will fit in remains a moot point.
Another big question concerns the meeting of cultures. Although this sounds less significant, I don't think it can be underestimated. Every single person who I have met who leads a stepped-out organisation is motivated by social purpose. They strongly identify with public sector values, albeit ones which see social enterprise as the appropriate vehicle for this. Culturally and politically, they are mostly people of the Left, who are sceptical about the values and motives in the UK private sector. Essentially, you're talking here about mixing oil and water.
A final question in my mind concerns the scale of ventures. Most mutuals or social enterprises tend to be defined by geography or function. A passion for people, place or profession is often a big element in these ventures. They aspire to be local, to be connected, to be human-scale. The dynamic of the private sector is around scale, either by organic growth or takeovers. The natural tendency among providers with private partners will be to seek to maximise value by taking over other organisations by merger or acquisition, strip out costs, find economies and so on. You see this right across the health and social care sector now, leaving us with very large providers, hugely efficient but also somewhat remote and soulless, with ownership often based overseas or in sovereign wealth funds.
While some degree of mutual ownership would mitigate all of these three problems, I wonder how far this would be the case - given who will hold the purse-strings and whether, in the end, even this approach, while well-intentioned, might lead to a fairly poor set of outcomes, when viewed from a social point of view.
Piece from today's Guardian on social enterprise spin-outs
What is it like to lead a service out of the public sector into a social enterprise or employee-owned mutual?
I recently spoke to four freshly-minted leaders of social businesses or mutuals. What they have to say is inspiring, but also reveals the major challenge ahead for the government, as it aims to create new employee-owned ventures.
Three big themes emerge. The first, emphasised by all, is the importance of leadership from the front.
One leader, a former director of local authority adult services who does not wish to be named and who now leads a new social business, warns that spin-outs will struggle unless senior players are prepared to put themselves on the line. Another, Andrew Burnell, chief executive of City Health Care Partnership, Hull, formerly part of Hull primary care trust (PCT), underlines the need for leaders to be resilient during a process of extrication which, for him, was "a drawn-out affair, difficult and at times challenging to one's sanity and patience".
Then there is the opposition, both overt and covert, from trade unions and, on occasion, from top management. This often takes a personal toll. Burnell felt that his passion for spinning-out led to him being labelled, as "blinkered". The former council director, meanwhile, found that his motivations came under attack. He also believes he was treated as a threat to a comfortable council monopoly: "I was disappointed but not too surprised at the deep municipalism that pervades a local public sector," he says.
Clearly, doing this isn't for the faint-hearted, even those who heed Burnell's counsel "not to take 'No' for an answer".
A third, more positive theme, common to all, is the increase in productivity, innovation and energy that being part of a social business engenders. Scott Darraugh, director of Social adVentures, which was part of Salford PCT, says things are now more productive. "There has been a cultural shift within the team. Staff are driven to take ownership, and that has to be better for the people we serve".
Kevin Bond, chief executive of Navigo community interest company, formerly North East Lincolnshire mental health services, says his new organisation has managed to make significant savings over the next three years without diminishing its service to the public – and has engaged staff and users in governance in a way "never possible before".
What can we learn from these leaders? The vital factor appears to be the benefits of freedom both strategically and operationally. Getting away from a much larger public body seems to have a powerful galvanising effect.
But warning signs abound. A trickle of spin-outs has not yet turned into a flood. Few councils, it appears, are looking seriously at this option, choosing instead to cut their inhouse services and tender them out.
What could speed things up?
First, public bodies need a "playbook". At the moment, according to the former director of adult services, councils don't know how to create and nurture spin-out businesses. Then, further assurance needs to be given around how pensions will work, how public bodies can avoid legal challenges if they create a spin-out and how the creation of spin-outs can be financed. And there is a real need for leaders – hundreds of them. There is no doubt that such people exist in the public sector. But the challenge is to convince them that spinning-out their service will do for them what it has for these four leaders.
It remains in the balance whether potential leaders of new mutuals are encouraged and nurtured – or made to walk through fire before stepping out.
• Craig Dearden-Phillips is founder and chief executive of Stepping Out, a business helping parts of the public sector become a social enterprise, and is a Liberal Democrat county councillor in Suffolk.
I recently spoke to four freshly-minted leaders of social businesses or mutuals. What they have to say is inspiring, but also reveals the major challenge ahead for the government, as it aims to create new employee-owned ventures.
Three big themes emerge. The first, emphasised by all, is the importance of leadership from the front.
One leader, a former director of local authority adult services who does not wish to be named and who now leads a new social business, warns that spin-outs will struggle unless senior players are prepared to put themselves on the line. Another, Andrew Burnell, chief executive of City Health Care Partnership, Hull, formerly part of Hull primary care trust (PCT), underlines the need for leaders to be resilient during a process of extrication which, for him, was "a drawn-out affair, difficult and at times challenging to one's sanity and patience".
Then there is the opposition, both overt and covert, from trade unions and, on occasion, from top management. This often takes a personal toll. Burnell felt that his passion for spinning-out led to him being labelled, as "blinkered". The former council director, meanwhile, found that his motivations came under attack. He also believes he was treated as a threat to a comfortable council monopoly: "I was disappointed but not too surprised at the deep municipalism that pervades a local public sector," he says.
Clearly, doing this isn't for the faint-hearted, even those who heed Burnell's counsel "not to take 'No' for an answer".
A third, more positive theme, common to all, is the increase in productivity, innovation and energy that being part of a social business engenders. Scott Darraugh, director of Social adVentures, which was part of Salford PCT, says things are now more productive. "There has been a cultural shift within the team. Staff are driven to take ownership, and that has to be better for the people we serve".
Kevin Bond, chief executive of Navigo community interest company, formerly North East Lincolnshire mental health services, says his new organisation has managed to make significant savings over the next three years without diminishing its service to the public – and has engaged staff and users in governance in a way "never possible before".
What can we learn from these leaders? The vital factor appears to be the benefits of freedom both strategically and operationally. Getting away from a much larger public body seems to have a powerful galvanising effect.
But warning signs abound. A trickle of spin-outs has not yet turned into a flood. Few councils, it appears, are looking seriously at this option, choosing instead to cut their inhouse services and tender them out.
What could speed things up?
First, public bodies need a "playbook". At the moment, according to the former director of adult services, councils don't know how to create and nurture spin-out businesses. Then, further assurance needs to be given around how pensions will work, how public bodies can avoid legal challenges if they create a spin-out and how the creation of spin-outs can be financed. And there is a real need for leaders – hundreds of them. There is no doubt that such people exist in the public sector. But the challenge is to convince them that spinning-out their service will do for them what it has for these four leaders.
It remains in the balance whether potential leaders of new mutuals are encouraged and nurtured – or made to walk through fire before stepping out.
• Craig Dearden-Phillips is founder and chief executive of Stepping Out, a business helping parts of the public sector become a social enterprise, and is a Liberal Democrat county councillor in Suffolk.
Friday, April 29, 2011
On Suffolk's Situation
To readers outside Suffolk, this is about the CEO of Suffolk County Council. I am writing about her because she has been at the centre of Suffolk County Council's direction in recent years and has, almost from day one, been a controversial figure.
It is fashionable, especially if you're not a Conservative - and possibly now if you are - to publicly denigrate Andrea Hill. Everything she says, does, believes and wears tend to be conflated into a big soup of hostility, to such an extent that some Councillors (who should have known better) have described her as a 'hate figure' on the streets of Suffolk.
The truth, of course, when you separate things out is more more complex. So let's look at that soup - and its ingredients. First let's deal with the simple stuff. There is, without a shred of doubt large slices of misogyny and snobbishness in all of this. I can' honestly imagine a man in her position, earning what she does, getting as much stick. There are council CEOs all over the UK who get more who none of us have ever heard. Then there's the poorly concealed irritation that a youngish woman from an ordinary Essex background can get a job normally reserved for the grey-headed, Children - normally sons - of the Revolution.
Other ingredients are more subtle and complex, concerning her personality. Again we can break this down into character and style. Lined up on one side I can mentally list countless people I know who have worked with her and found her to be an inspirational manager. She is viewed by many as brave, thoughtful, principled and smart. My own experience of her is really positive. She strikes me, as an experienced CEO, as someone who clearly 'gets it' in her analysis of public services. Furthermore, I actually like her. In person, she isn't the hard-nose people make her out to be. While resilient and strong, I know that, like any decent human being, she really struggles with the negative attention that she receives. Who wouldn't?
Part of Andrea Hill's problems have been the fault of politicians. She, not the Leader, was the public face of the Council following her selection as CEO in 2007/8. Some put this down to her desire for attention. While I am sure there is some small truth in this, certainly early on, I think overall she has been put in an unfair position - the public face of the Council but unable, like a politician, to respond and engage as only the Leader can. The last leader, Cllr Jeremy Pembroke, was a good man, but treated the role as a chairman-of-the-board role. Which, in good times, worked OK - just. However, the Council has, since 2009, needed much more visible and clear political leadership. The absence of this has put Andrea Hill who, while a talented manager is no politician - into the frame more than is normal or right for a CEO.
But my purpose here isn't to lionise Andrea Hill. It is to say that the truth is more complicated than it seems. I do have my criticisms of her, made in other blogs. I feel her public style has been too confrontational, too dismissive at times. I don't think she has managed to get enough support for her more radical policies beyond the very top group in the Council. She has possibly underestimated the potential for rapid improvement in public sector organisations run by politicians. And while her 'political management' skills in terms of dealing with the Leadership are supreme, her ability to respond to the public mood isn't strong. But, after all, she is not a politician, so this isn't actually a proper criticism.
What next for Andrea Hill? Although, like us all, she has her faults, I have felt that she had the right idea and was courageous enough to speak frankly about the need for change. Compared to many of the non-entitities you see as CEOs of councils, she is intellectually and in vision-terms, plainly superior. Until recently, it seemed that she would lead a programme of change which would be historic in UK local government terms. As such , she had my quiet support. Since coming into local government in 2009, I couldn't believe how poor most services were and how a deep municipalism seemed to conspire against a public desperate for better services. Andrea Hill understands that and came up with a plan to make that better.
What recent events have shown is, at best, that she lacked the political skill to get the big changes through and at worst, depressingly, that there is in fact no appetite for radical change in local government and that she made a big misjudgment in trying to be so radical. Neither , in my view, were they true, are not something to incite the kind of oppobrium she has received. What we probably have here is an ambitious CEO who may have over-reached herself. Not a firing offence in my book.
What will happen now remains to be seen. A regime which has washed its hands publicly of her strategy has, in effect, disowned her, and if I were her I would be considering where else my talents might be used. I would be surprised if she wasn't, given that the little political cover she did have has just been removed. Without explicit support from the leadership, I think her position is tenuous. As a Lib Dem politician, I shouldn't really say this, but I did actually think she was, while she, had top level backing, a good thing, overall, despite the negatives.
I hope in writing this I have separated the soup of criticism into its separate elements and shed a little light on what I believe is a complicated situation.
It is fashionable, especially if you're not a Conservative - and possibly now if you are - to publicly denigrate Andrea Hill. Everything she says, does, believes and wears tend to be conflated into a big soup of hostility, to such an extent that some Councillors (who should have known better) have described her as a 'hate figure' on the streets of Suffolk.
The truth, of course, when you separate things out is more more complex. So let's look at that soup - and its ingredients. First let's deal with the simple stuff. There is, without a shred of doubt large slices of misogyny and snobbishness in all of this. I can' honestly imagine a man in her position, earning what she does, getting as much stick. There are council CEOs all over the UK who get more who none of us have ever heard. Then there's the poorly concealed irritation that a youngish woman from an ordinary Essex background can get a job normally reserved for the grey-headed, Children - normally sons - of the Revolution.
Other ingredients are more subtle and complex, concerning her personality. Again we can break this down into character and style. Lined up on one side I can mentally list countless people I know who have worked with her and found her to be an inspirational manager. She is viewed by many as brave, thoughtful, principled and smart. My own experience of her is really positive. She strikes me, as an experienced CEO, as someone who clearly 'gets it' in her analysis of public services. Furthermore, I actually like her. In person, she isn't the hard-nose people make her out to be. While resilient and strong, I know that, like any decent human being, she really struggles with the negative attention that she receives. Who wouldn't?
Part of Andrea Hill's problems have been the fault of politicians. She, not the Leader, was the public face of the Council following her selection as CEO in 2007/8. Some put this down to her desire for attention. While I am sure there is some small truth in this, certainly early on, I think overall she has been put in an unfair position - the public face of the Council but unable, like a politician, to respond and engage as only the Leader can. The last leader, Cllr Jeremy Pembroke, was a good man, but treated the role as a chairman-of-the-board role. Which, in good times, worked OK - just. However, the Council has, since 2009, needed much more visible and clear political leadership. The absence of this has put Andrea Hill who, while a talented manager is no politician - into the frame more than is normal or right for a CEO.
But my purpose here isn't to lionise Andrea Hill. It is to say that the truth is more complicated than it seems. I do have my criticisms of her, made in other blogs. I feel her public style has been too confrontational, too dismissive at times. I don't think she has managed to get enough support for her more radical policies beyond the very top group in the Council. She has possibly underestimated the potential for rapid improvement in public sector organisations run by politicians. And while her 'political management' skills in terms of dealing with the Leadership are supreme, her ability to respond to the public mood isn't strong. But, after all, she is not a politician, so this isn't actually a proper criticism.
What next for Andrea Hill? Although, like us all, she has her faults, I have felt that she had the right idea and was courageous enough to speak frankly about the need for change. Compared to many of the non-entitities you see as CEOs of councils, she is intellectually and in vision-terms, plainly superior. Until recently, it seemed that she would lead a programme of change which would be historic in UK local government terms. As such , she had my quiet support. Since coming into local government in 2009, I couldn't believe how poor most services were and how a deep municipalism seemed to conspire against a public desperate for better services. Andrea Hill understands that and came up with a plan to make that better.
What recent events have shown is, at best, that she lacked the political skill to get the big changes through and at worst, depressingly, that there is in fact no appetite for radical change in local government and that she made a big misjudgment in trying to be so radical. Neither , in my view, were they true, are not something to incite the kind of oppobrium she has received. What we probably have here is an ambitious CEO who may have over-reached herself. Not a firing offence in my book.
What will happen now remains to be seen. A regime which has washed its hands publicly of her strategy has, in effect, disowned her, and if I were her I would be considering where else my talents might be used. I would be surprised if she wasn't, given that the little political cover she did have has just been removed. Without explicit support from the leadership, I think her position is tenuous. As a Lib Dem politician, I shouldn't really say this, but I did actually think she was, while she, had top level backing, a good thing, overall, despite the negatives.
I hope in writing this I have separated the soup of criticism into its separate elements and shed a little light on what I believe is a complicated situation.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Dick Turpin's Gibbet - and the nature of contentment
Just had a great day in York.
We got the train from Knaresborough where we have a really brilliant swop - just by the viaduct and gorge. Took Wilf on my own to the National Railway Museum - he's a bit of a train and bus geek - and then, as we were coming out, I saw an open top bus and just jumped on.
While my intention was simply to engage Wilf, I spent my next hour transfixed by this enthusiastic member of the Historical Society taking us back through time and York's history. Vikings, Romans, Dick Turpin's favourite boozer followed by his gibbet.
The hour flew by. I didn't take my phone or watch and, for once, felt quite timeless.
They say the key to happiness - or contentment - is gratitude. I find it quite easy to feel grateful - blue sky, healthy kid holding my hand, most of my hair, wife still interested, Bolton in the Premiership, good business with promise and a column in the Guardian next week.
Enjoy it while you can, whistled the wind in my ears as York passed my heightened eyes.
We got the train from Knaresborough where we have a really brilliant swop - just by the viaduct and gorge. Took Wilf on my own to the National Railway Museum - he's a bit of a train and bus geek - and then, as we were coming out, I saw an open top bus and just jumped on.
While my intention was simply to engage Wilf, I spent my next hour transfixed by this enthusiastic member of the Historical Society taking us back through time and York's history. Vikings, Romans, Dick Turpin's favourite boozer followed by his gibbet.
The hour flew by. I didn't take my phone or watch and, for once, felt quite timeless.
They say the key to happiness - or contentment - is gratitude. I find it quite easy to feel grateful - blue sky, healthy kid holding my hand, most of my hair, wife still interested, Bolton in the Premiership, good business with promise and a column in the Guardian next week.
Enjoy it while you can, whistled the wind in my ears as York passed my heightened eyes.
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
New Broom, New Strategic Direction - What next for Suffolk County Council
Bit of a local politics blog this. But don't switch off, it's interesting! Suffolk County Council has been in the news all year for its big plan to divest all local services to social enterprise, private businesses and voluntary organisations. Under its radical CEO, Andrea Hill, Suffolk was going to be the first English Council to respond to financial constraints not with simple cutbacks, but with Organisational Transformation.
I use capitals here deliberately because this was as much part of the plan as outsourcing services. Under this analysis, the Council's whole modus operandi was outdated and needed to be changed quickly - and by force if necessary.
This was all going fine until a series of events this year which, cumulatively, led to the New Strategic Direction being, for all intents and purposes, junked. Firstly, the CEO herself was caught in some unfortunate and largely unfair media spotlight. Secondly, the Council decided, in its wisdom, to intro the policy by cutting road crossing patrols for kids. And thirdly there was a series of resigniations: the Leader of the Council, the Director of Resources, the Monitoring Officer. Following this, there was the tragic, potentially related, suicide of a senior manager in the Council.
Then an election. Odds-on favourite, and close ally of the Leader, was, to everyone's surprise easily defeated by the backbench Chairman of Scrutiny on a promise to review the new direction and to tend to organisational morale said to have hit rock bottom. His first act on getting elected was to restore crossing patrols and to order an external inquiry into the management culture of the organisation. The new leader, possibly wisely, sees stability and a pause for reflection, as the most urgent current need.
As a Lib Dem Member of the Council, I am supposed to welcome all of this. And I certainly do welcome the pause for reflection and the assertion of political control after a difficult period in which leadership seemed to disappear from view. But I wonder whether, despite the confrontational communication of the New Strategic Direction, it was actually, the right overall policy for the Council long-term. By placing services outside the Council it gave space for new providers and a diversity of supply which is still sorely lacking. If the outcome of all this is to stop this movement to new providers, I think we will have lost an opportunity.
What can be learned from all this? On reflection, this is a big lesson to anyone seeking to bring in fundamental change. While alignment between the top team is essential, this isn't enough. The middle of the organisation has to be brought on board. While the New Strategic Direction enjoyed some support, both from Councillors and Officers, this was always a minority. Culturally, it always felt like a very tough line - get on board or miss the boat. It felt very confrontational and unyielding.
This is where leadership gets tricky. Part of being a strong leader is being that figure of granite and conviction. People tend to like this. But another element of leadership is getting alongside people, including opponents, acknowledging feelings and fears, and seeking to bring them with you. My hunch is that not enough of this went on, leaving a large constituency of the alienated.
There will always be detractors, but if this becomes the majority, you can find yourself in quicksand should circumstances change, as they just have in Suffolk. There is almost no residual support for a strategy a lot of people felt didn't hadn't embraced them. Leadership, if it is about getting people to follow you, is a test that some leaders, particularly those with a tough message, struggle to pass.
I really do feel for anyone trying to lead change in a crisis. It ain't easy and the medicine is always pretty awful. There is also a reality that institutional self-interest has to be tackled - and that this hasn't been tackled in the past. You see Lansley struggling now, as the leaders of Suffolk did, with ideas which, essentially, took change too far too fast for many of the key stakeholders - including the public - to deal with.
Interestingly, my hunch is that, once the dust settles the new leadership will embark on a path that isn't much different from the New Strategic Direction set out by Andrea Hill. It will have a different name. It will be slower, more consultative and done with less pzazz. But the essentials of it - divestment of council services, the build-up of community capability and a new role for the council as commissioner rather than provider will, over time, prevail.
I use capitals here deliberately because this was as much part of the plan as outsourcing services. Under this analysis, the Council's whole modus operandi was outdated and needed to be changed quickly - and by force if necessary.
This was all going fine until a series of events this year which, cumulatively, led to the New Strategic Direction being, for all intents and purposes, junked. Firstly, the CEO herself was caught in some unfortunate and largely unfair media spotlight. Secondly, the Council decided, in its wisdom, to intro the policy by cutting road crossing patrols for kids. And thirdly there was a series of resigniations: the Leader of the Council, the Director of Resources, the Monitoring Officer. Following this, there was the tragic, potentially related, suicide of a senior manager in the Council.
Then an election. Odds-on favourite, and close ally of the Leader, was, to everyone's surprise easily defeated by the backbench Chairman of Scrutiny on a promise to review the new direction and to tend to organisational morale said to have hit rock bottom. His first act on getting elected was to restore crossing patrols and to order an external inquiry into the management culture of the organisation. The new leader, possibly wisely, sees stability and a pause for reflection, as the most urgent current need.
As a Lib Dem Member of the Council, I am supposed to welcome all of this. And I certainly do welcome the pause for reflection and the assertion of political control after a difficult period in which leadership seemed to disappear from view. But I wonder whether, despite the confrontational communication of the New Strategic Direction, it was actually, the right overall policy for the Council long-term. By placing services outside the Council it gave space for new providers and a diversity of supply which is still sorely lacking. If the outcome of all this is to stop this movement to new providers, I think we will have lost an opportunity.
What can be learned from all this? On reflection, this is a big lesson to anyone seeking to bring in fundamental change. While alignment between the top team is essential, this isn't enough. The middle of the organisation has to be brought on board. While the New Strategic Direction enjoyed some support, both from Councillors and Officers, this was always a minority. Culturally, it always felt like a very tough line - get on board or miss the boat. It felt very confrontational and unyielding.
This is where leadership gets tricky. Part of being a strong leader is being that figure of granite and conviction. People tend to like this. But another element of leadership is getting alongside people, including opponents, acknowledging feelings and fears, and seeking to bring them with you. My hunch is that not enough of this went on, leaving a large constituency of the alienated.
There will always be detractors, but if this becomes the majority, you can find yourself in quicksand should circumstances change, as they just have in Suffolk. There is almost no residual support for a strategy a lot of people felt didn't hadn't embraced them. Leadership, if it is about getting people to follow you, is a test that some leaders, particularly those with a tough message, struggle to pass.
I really do feel for anyone trying to lead change in a crisis. It ain't easy and the medicine is always pretty awful. There is also a reality that institutional self-interest has to be tackled - and that this hasn't been tackled in the past. You see Lansley struggling now, as the leaders of Suffolk did, with ideas which, essentially, took change too far too fast for many of the key stakeholders - including the public - to deal with.
Interestingly, my hunch is that, once the dust settles the new leadership will embark on a path that isn't much different from the New Strategic Direction set out by Andrea Hill. It will have a different name. It will be slower, more consultative and done with less pzazz. But the essentials of it - divestment of council services, the build-up of community capability and a new role for the council as commissioner rather than provider will, over time, prevail.
Tuesday, April 19, 2011
Fighting Deep Municipalism: Guest Blog from a Leader of a new social business that has stepped-out from a Council in England
At an early stage in my thinking I resolved that leadership from the front was important.
It would have been easy as a director to allocate the task to a more junior member of the team and indeed my observation is that spin outs trying to do social care at some scale will struggle without senior players being prepared to put themselves on the line.
Having taken this step it was remarkable to see how many staff were reassured by the fact I was not asking them to do something I was not prepared to do myself. This is powerful stuff and I'll have a lasting memory of the buzz created by the possibility of making something new and providing a safe route out of the organisation for staff who had been subject to death by a thousand cuts over the years.
The buzz was also about the creativity that was unleasehed. People were coming up with ideas about how services could improve in ways they had not done before because they could see they would have a stake in the new company with representation on the board and a share in the benefits going forward. The idea of a bonus scheme was popular and there was a good sense of realism about the need to change, develop or close buildings and services that were well passed the sell by date.
People were up for a change in their roles and recognised the need for terms and conditions around sickness in particular to change. I was struck by how many people were fed up with the few who took advantage of the current system.
The process brought home to me how distant from the front line my role had taken me. I worked with people two or three layers below the senior team and it was a revelation, which rekindled some of that old fire that had over the years been refined into a politically acceptable glow.
The process also brought out some visceral opposition from those ideologically opposed to enterprise that could be viewed as private sector doing the public sector's work regardless of it being not for profit. I was disappointed but not too surprised at the deep deep municipalism that pervades a local public sector. The grip too of unoins that were in our case not representative of 2/3ds of the workforce. Unless its ours and we are in control its not going to happen.
From day one the conversations about control in the governance of the spin out were challenging. These were more hints than demands but eventually we resolved as a company and with some senior colleagues in the council that being completely separate was really the best way in our situation.
I was publically accused of trying to feather my own nest on more than one occasion and it did cut to the bone. Here was me, a dutiful public servant of 25 years standing trying to come up with yet another innovation to get us out of a mess and offering to take a career change risk to find that I was personally villified - more than ever before. It made me think I must be on the right track!
I've been humbled by the support of my family, the hands of friendship from colleagues in the social enteprise and private sector, the risks taken by people coming with me, the values and support of some noble politicians, the support of financial backers and the willingness of other authorities to take on the enteprise's ideas, without which we would not have survived the first few months.
It's as if you cannot be a prophet in your own land. Stepping out is divisive. Those that get it and want it can be seen as a risk or a threat to the remaining system rather than the pathfinders seeking solutions that will also reduce the burden on what remains.
It would have been easy as a director to allocate the task to a more junior member of the team and indeed my observation is that spin outs trying to do social care at some scale will struggle without senior players being prepared to put themselves on the line.
Having taken this step it was remarkable to see how many staff were reassured by the fact I was not asking them to do something I was not prepared to do myself. This is powerful stuff and I'll have a lasting memory of the buzz created by the possibility of making something new and providing a safe route out of the organisation for staff who had been subject to death by a thousand cuts over the years.
The buzz was also about the creativity that was unleasehed. People were coming up with ideas about how services could improve in ways they had not done before because they could see they would have a stake in the new company with representation on the board and a share in the benefits going forward. The idea of a bonus scheme was popular and there was a good sense of realism about the need to change, develop or close buildings and services that were well passed the sell by date.
People were up for a change in their roles and recognised the need for terms and conditions around sickness in particular to change. I was struck by how many people were fed up with the few who took advantage of the current system.
The process brought home to me how distant from the front line my role had taken me. I worked with people two or three layers below the senior team and it was a revelation, which rekindled some of that old fire that had over the years been refined into a politically acceptable glow.
The process also brought out some visceral opposition from those ideologically opposed to enterprise that could be viewed as private sector doing the public sector's work regardless of it being not for profit. I was disappointed but not too surprised at the deep deep municipalism that pervades a local public sector. The grip too of unoins that were in our case not representative of 2/3ds of the workforce. Unless its ours and we are in control its not going to happen.
From day one the conversations about control in the governance of the spin out were challenging. These were more hints than demands but eventually we resolved as a company and with some senior colleagues in the council that being completely separate was really the best way in our situation.
I was publically accused of trying to feather my own nest on more than one occasion and it did cut to the bone. Here was me, a dutiful public servant of 25 years standing trying to come up with yet another innovation to get us out of a mess and offering to take a career change risk to find that I was personally villified - more than ever before. It made me think I must be on the right track!
I've been humbled by the support of my family, the hands of friendship from colleagues in the social enteprise and private sector, the risks taken by people coming with me, the values and support of some noble politicians, the support of financial backers and the willingness of other authorities to take on the enteprise's ideas, without which we would not have survived the first few months.
It's as if you cannot be a prophet in your own land. Stepping out is divisive. Those that get it and want it can be seen as a risk or a threat to the remaining system rather than the pathfinders seeking solutions that will also reduce the burden on what remains.
The Backwoodsmen have spoken
Yesterday, in Suffolk, something small but important happened. The ruling Conservatives on Suffolk County Council elected a new leader. Not the person we all expected, but a backbencher, and Chair of Scrutiny, Cllr. Mark Bee, who has expressed reservations about the Council's much publicised New Strategic Direction or 'Virtual Council' strategy.
His first act as Leader has been to reprieve all of Suffolk's crossing patrols and to pledge that no public service will be divested until all options had been fully explored. You could smell the rubber on this particular U-turn. If this is a flavour of what is to come, it is quite possible that the New Strategic Direction could very quickly become the Old one.
So how has this come about? What has turned Suffolk from daring outsourcer to protector of crossing-patrols in 24 hours? Very simply, the power of the Backwoodsmen - shire-Tory Councillors who, for the last six months, have been getting in the neck at Parish Council meetings. This breed are often not deeply political. Many are One Nation types who don't like anything fancy, and prefer to see the Council out of the news. Others are big community players who like to be seen on the side of the people. For the Backwoodsmen, the New Strategic Direction has always been a challenge.
But what tipped the balance? What caused them to elected a new Leader totally unassociated with the current direction of travel You could say that the media campaign against the CEO of Suffolk, Andrea Hill, has not helped. However, what really did it was very simple - crossing patrols. Last month, in order to save £180,000, Suffolk County Council decided to pass responsibility for its crossing patrols to unspecified others - Town Councils, Boroughs, communities, schools even.
This wasn't, of course, about saving money. It was a Big Statement, to say, this is what we are doing - and it's up to communities now to pick up where the state is leaving the stage. Many of us sensed that, regardless of the merits, this was Bad Politics - and a really daft way to get people signed up to major change. But the Administration pressed on, despite an outcry. Rather than pull back and say 'We're listening', they said ploughed on, leaving many on their own side, privately, very upset.
Which brings us back to politics. Good politics is, often, about the successful management of change. Getting people on board early. Giving people a chance to feel heard. Offering them influence over what is in their domain. Responding to emotion and being prepared to give a little in exchange for full backing. The reason why Suffolk's New Strategic Direction is now vulnerable isn't so much its content - much of which is laudable - but its political management. It has been presented in a confrontational fashion and politicians haven't done the necessary work both inside the Council and beyond to see the policy through to implementation.
What will happen next? Like many Councillors, I am pleased to see a clear commitment to listening. However, I also worry that moves to shift services into social enterprises and charities will stall. I worry that the cuts we need to make will come from procurement from large global corporates, and by closing services, rather than intelligent divestment. And I fear the effects of any profound change in direction in between elections. For those organisations seeking to partner with the Council, these cannot be easy times.
So, the Backwoodsmen have spoken. Who says backbench Councillors have no power?
His first act as Leader has been to reprieve all of Suffolk's crossing patrols and to pledge that no public service will be divested until all options had been fully explored. You could smell the rubber on this particular U-turn. If this is a flavour of what is to come, it is quite possible that the New Strategic Direction could very quickly become the Old one.
So how has this come about? What has turned Suffolk from daring outsourcer to protector of crossing-patrols in 24 hours? Very simply, the power of the Backwoodsmen - shire-Tory Councillors who, for the last six months, have been getting in the neck at Parish Council meetings. This breed are often not deeply political. Many are One Nation types who don't like anything fancy, and prefer to see the Council out of the news. Others are big community players who like to be seen on the side of the people. For the Backwoodsmen, the New Strategic Direction has always been a challenge.
But what tipped the balance? What caused them to elected a new Leader totally unassociated with the current direction of travel You could say that the media campaign against the CEO of Suffolk, Andrea Hill, has not helped. However, what really did it was very simple - crossing patrols. Last month, in order to save £180,000, Suffolk County Council decided to pass responsibility for its crossing patrols to unspecified others - Town Councils, Boroughs, communities, schools even.
This wasn't, of course, about saving money. It was a Big Statement, to say, this is what we are doing - and it's up to communities now to pick up where the state is leaving the stage. Many of us sensed that, regardless of the merits, this was Bad Politics - and a really daft way to get people signed up to major change. But the Administration pressed on, despite an outcry. Rather than pull back and say 'We're listening', they said ploughed on, leaving many on their own side, privately, very upset.
Which brings us back to politics. Good politics is, often, about the successful management of change. Getting people on board early. Giving people a chance to feel heard. Offering them influence over what is in their domain. Responding to emotion and being prepared to give a little in exchange for full backing. The reason why Suffolk's New Strategic Direction is now vulnerable isn't so much its content - much of which is laudable - but its political management. It has been presented in a confrontational fashion and politicians haven't done the necessary work both inside the Council and beyond to see the policy through to implementation.
What will happen next? Like many Councillors, I am pleased to see a clear commitment to listening. However, I also worry that moves to shift services into social enterprises and charities will stall. I worry that the cuts we need to make will come from procurement from large global corporates, and by closing services, rather than intelligent divestment. And I fear the effects of any profound change in direction in between elections. For those organisations seeking to partner with the Council, these cannot be easy times.
So, the Backwoodsmen have spoken. Who says backbench Councillors have no power?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)