What is the role of Social Enterprise in our society? The potential is immense as it offers a way out from false policy choices and allows empowered communities to address deeply entrenched social problems and economic regeneration.
Do you get social enterprise? It seems that too few of those involved in our political and public policy discourse do. Social enterprise seems to create a strange group of bedfellows who express either a lack of interest, cynicism or opposition to the model. They come from both right and left of the political spectrum. There is another group that pays lip service to supporting social enterprise without really engaging with the model and seeing the potential it contains. This is a great surprise, the social enterprise model offers us a solution to some of the most pressing public policy problems of our time.
Why? We face, whether you believe in the free market, in social justice or progressive politics, the conundrum of equipping our societies to compete in a globalised economy whilst maintaining or improving our quality of life. The fine balance on tax and spend, who is taxed, how they are taxed and how the money from taxation is invested rather than frittered away is off course crucial.
However shifting to a Nordic model through the elimination of our “underclass” espoused by many on the left clearly risks our economic well-being. It asks too much of our underpaid public services to deliver enough of economic value in to short a time to be effective.
Allowing the free market to dictate what is best for business and the economy and thus giving individuals the economic opportunity to compete in a globalised market doesn’t work either. We already have a large problematic socially excluded “underclass”. The costs of crime alone would make the cuts in public services rapidly disappear. As would the skills of workforce and our own market for goods and services and the business environment itself would suffer greatly.
A prudent balance between these two positions is espoused by the mainstream in our political life. That presents us with a muddle, giving us the worst of both worlds. We waste money when it is borrowed to spend on public services and that investment doesn’t have a sufficiently good impact on reducing the long-term need for public services through better health, education and the economic viability of our citizens. The public sector is simply not giving us enough return on our money. The current approach neither gives us social justice nor increased competitiveness. Prudence is the watchword of an ostrich procrastinating about a problem with no apparent solution. If we continue to be so prudent our cupboard will soon be bare and prudence will be an uncomfortable way of life.
Social enterprise has already offered us a solution to this problem. It gives us access to social justice, it allows us to tackle deprivation, and it is a boon to business not in competition with it. For those how who are not aware of this model, my favourite example is the Irvingstown Trust Company in Northern Ireland. It has succeeded in delivering a huge social and economic impact upon a community and continues to do so. It is economically successful enough, with enough community owned assets to receive a loan from a commercial bank to invest in its community. The services it delivers are based upon identifiable local needs. It allows us to tackle deep seated issues linked to deprivation, it provides a healthy living centre, cutting the bill for public health and nursery education, allowing parents to go out and seek employment. It also gives the additional value of delivering a platform for community cohesion and active citizenship.
The obvious stumbling block in the role out of this model is governance. Small community based organisations really need good governance and leadership to succeed. Perhaps the reasons that so many are prepared to attempt to shoot down the social enterprise model on these grounds is the lack of good governance shown by our existing structures, the degree of poor governance from unaccountable QUANGOs to IT fiascos and the scandals around party funding. We don’t currently seem too hot at protecting our public and community organisations from partisan self-interest. So this objection to social enterprise spending public money seems rather hypocritical. Social enterprises are enterprises, they require investment not continuous total funding of their running costs like public services. Some social enterprises will fail just as some public sector initiatives waste public money. However unlike the public sector, the security of the employment of those working in the social enterprises is like that of those involved in business. It is directly based upon results, not keeping in with a clique or keeping your hands clean through having Teflon shoulders.
The competition that social enterprises face is from the public sector, more specifically from entrenched interests within the public sector fearful of loosing control over “resources”. We need a political leadership nationally and locally that recognises that social enterprises within clear guidelines and parameters gives us the tools to deliver for our communities both socially and economically. This leadership should come as easily from those who want to see a socially just, more equitable Britain. As from those, whose primary concern is maintaining our society through allowing us to thrive with low taxation in the global free market.