Open Public Services White Paper

Being in the Social Enterprise Development business, I’ve been reviewing the Open Public Services White Paper, since its launch on Monday. I’ve been very good and read through the 50 odd pages [well skim read]. I was hoping to gain some further detail of how it was all going to work and particularly how the social enterprise and voluntary and community sector could respond and seize the opportunities that it presents. So here is my take on the highlights and low lights I’ll let you decide on high and lowlights!

Much greater accountability and decision-making power down to an individual basis where possible (e.g. individual budgets), neighbourhood level where individual isn’t appropriate (e.g. local parks, leisure centre management), local authority level where neighbourhood isn’t possible (e.g. area regeneration], national where local authority level isn’t possible (e.g. policing). There is still a lot of consultation on how best to do this in certain sectors and areas of work, as you could imagine, so whilst we are seeing the tide turn it’ll be a while yet!

The paper talked at one point about ’tilting the playing field’ [which is a new one on me] this was after it had ‘levelled it’ [which is an old one]. No real indication of how but did talk about having at least 3 providers in particular services to enable competition and drive up quality, and targeting funding on people or areas that needed it most, quoting an interesting amount for example in Welfare to Work where as there is a maximum of £13,700 for the hardest to reach against a maximum of £3,800 for the easier to reach.

£10m being invested for public sector who want to follow the Right to Provide programme [Autumn 2011] and deliver public services better as mutuals, to put a robust business plan together, similar to the previous NHS Right to Request.

The commissioning section which is possibly the section that I thought would explain the most unfortunately fell short, but did flag up the welfare to work programme as being the way of the future i.e. payment by results. I’m in favour of quality services and payments for delivery, but there are some serious issues the current ‘prime contractor’ and payment by results model create for VCO’s and Social Enterprises [termed in the white paper by the way as VCSE sector]

The issue here of course for the sector as Ceri from SEC points out here is, there aren’t very many social enterprises or charities that can generate the capital [indeed the mean turnover according to the Right to Provide guidance published in March 11 is around £170k].

Social impact bonds are a possible answer, but are in their infancy. Take the [just launched] innovations expression of Interest for working with NEETs [young people not in employment training or education] the average cash you’ll need to risk on this per year is about £1m.

There was a mention of smaller contracts and the removal of the Pre qualification questionnaire for contracts under £100k so there is still opportunity here, but as I said earlier there’s not a lot of clarity or detail on how.

So I’m now going to be talking to people about how we [the SE sector] can raise sufficient investment / capital to take on some of these opportunities… What are you going to do? Comment and thoughts are welcome!

An ‘update’ to my last post

Having just got in from a meeting I was greeted with Birmingham Voluntary Service Council’s [BVSC] Update on my desk. Having briefly skimmed it I notice that Sally Edwards [from Spot on Marketing'] has an article titled ‘Marketing On A Shoestring’ [Great minds think alike Sally!]. Anyway Sally’s article which can be seen here echoes many of the points I made in my post, which is humbling as Sally is a marketing expert, whilst I’m not. Sally has a few other bits and pieces in the article which you may like read.

Start Up Diary Part 3

Well, firstly I must apologise, as I have neglected my blog posts somewhat over the last 6 weeks, as getting my business Development in Social Enterprise has been consuming my time and this is a clear lesson, don’t underestimate just how much there is to do to get your business going!

Today though I’m focussing on marketing on a shoestring budget.

Most Start Up Enterprises are limited in finance and let’s face it getting people to know what your organisation does and how it is better than everyone elses [your Unique Selling Point] out there is key to your success, it’s no point having a wonderful product or service if no one else knows! But how can we do this on a budget when many of your competitors have big marketing budgets?

E-Marketing and Social Media  is one of the ways you can effectively market your organisation’s services and there are a lot of ways you can utilise free stuff, such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and trade directories! Take this blog for instance, whilst I try to share stuff free on this site and help people who can’t afford to buy my services it is still a gateway to my organisation.

I’ve now registered on 3 free trade directories specifically designed for social enterprises, there seems to be a race on at the moment to find which one will be most successful. Of course there are also paid for directories too [I've registered on one of those too]. This brings me to an important point, when you spend money or indeed don’t spend physical cash on advertising, but invest time you need to asses how well your marketing is doing. It’s no point spending time putting profiles online if there is no return on that time investment.

Okay I know you want some pointers on the free directories, of course writing it all here is telling my competitors too, a question you’ll need to consider yourself, that is how much should you make easy for your competitors to know? Me I think my model and USP will cope with this and I’m happy to compete in the open market.

• ClearlySo is the first one I’ve registered on. In order to be accepted onto this you need to submit an application and prove you’re social, if you are you’ll be registered and get some interesting updates, ClearlySo, have other levels of service and I’ll be checking these out later.
• seb2b is the second, once again a free listing is available and you receive an update email every so often
• Shop4 ChangeUK is the third this is a free directory and mainly consists of Birmingham organisations, but is gaining wider reach.
• The paid one is BuySE which is a comprehensive directory and managed by Social Enterprise West Midlands [SEWM], I’ve also taken up membership with SEWM as they offer a wide range of additional services too.

Going back to my earlier point of monitoring how effective your marketing is I am monitoring carefully the referral sites that bring traffic to my website and I ask people when then contact me how they found me and will be publishing the results on this blog later in the year.

Of course there’s loads more to e-marketing which I can’t go into full detail here as the post will become far too long-winded, but also consider:

• Branding and identity – build your brand consistently
• Target you email marketing – many make the mistake of sending everything to everyone, this usually results in people on the receiving end ignoring your emails.
• Follow up with a phone call to check whether the person is interested, and check your getting to the right person.
• It’s useful to ensure people are aware that if they don’t want your mail all they have to do is reply to the email with the word ‘Stop’ as the subject matter.
• Remember the 80/20 rule, that is that 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers, build relationships, provide quality and great customer service and ask your customers for referrals too, word of mouth is powerful. So if you find this helpful, tell five friends too!

There’s loads more to consider but I hope this has given you some pointers!

 

A Day of Volunteering

The Procession Arrives at Balsall Heath Carnival 2011

Growing up in Balsall Heath Birmingham, a deprived inner city area which has high unemployment, poor educational attainment and health inequalities may make you think well why would you want to return as a volunteer?

The fact is although the area has its problems it has a fantastic community spirit and a team of people who are dedicated to improving lives which is probably why it is recognised as a Big Society Vanguard Area and has attracted visitors such as Prince Charles, David Blunket, David Cameron and  a host of other politicians and public figures over the years.

The area is famous for taking control back which began some 30 plus years ago when prostitution was rife. I remember, whilst running St. Paul’s Community Development Trust’s [the organisation behind the event] printing enterprise taking delivery of a new press from London, the delivery team all wanted to know where Court Road was, it was a famous red light district, but against many odds the residents groups, police and local organisations began to transform Balsall Heath. It’s even won Britain in Bloom in the past, mainly through the efforts of the Balsall Heath Forum, the community wardens and local residents.

So it’s not that hard for me and my wife to go back every year and put something back into the area I grew up in, after all many were doing just that when I was young. The local people, organisations and voluntary and community workers are always pleased to see you and there’s a great sense of community the like it is hard to find elsewhere. It’s also important to ensure our children value volunteering as they have volunteered for the last 6 or 7 years too.

Of course St. Paul’s and the other organisations could not have been blamed if they took the easy option and didn’t do Carnival this year, as they have all felt the effects of the austerity cuts, but then that wouldn’t be what made a big society would it.  So well done once again St. Paul’s Trust and the host of local third sector organisations, schools, community and all the volunteers who made the Carnival a success for yet another year.