Survival of the fittest???

Apologies for the lack of blog for two weeks. The first was for a holiday – very important time devoted to my own kids (and husband!), rather than the young people of Surrey in general. I then came back to a very busy but interesting week and had little time to catch up on email or write the blog… I’m sure you know the problem!

Last week was a good example of the range of things I get involved within in this job….the most exciting was our beta test of Communilab carried out by our very supportive partner Barclays. We had nine very engaged Barclays employees aiming both to break the system and make suggestions for improvements. We have come away with lots of ideas and will be asking our developer to make some changes. We will be sharing Communilab with more and more of our partners…charities, Surrey County Council, Penningtons Manches solicitors, Exxon Mobil, Pfizer, Surrey Deputy Police and Crime Commissioner, etc… over the coming weeks and months.

A flavour of my other activities…

·        The launch of the Surrey Nature PartnershipBoard’s business plan (I see protecting the natural environment as important for our young people)

·        A presentation on European funding from the Enterprise M3LEP and Surrey Community Action

·        The Youth Commission (investigating the role of Surrey CC in youth work in the future)

·        The Surrey Charity Chief Execs forum

·        Internal monthly Management and Finance meeting with my trustees.

With respect to funding, a theme which keeps reoccurring is the old localism versus efficiency debate. Understandably funders often balk at the idea of breaking their funding pots down into small amounts because it is expensive to administer.  They therefore give out larger pots. However, they are often keen to get smaller organisations, particularly charities, involved in delivery. They therefore want charities to form partnerships to bid for these funds. This does not, in my opinion, reduce the costs, it merely shifts them away from the commissioner into the delivery organisations. It costs to build and maintain high quality partnerships. And sometimes they go wrong, leaving one or more partners who have delivered admirably out of pocket or with a contractual or reputational problem on their hands. This emphasises the second issue with this model – the transfer of risk away from the funder to the delivery organisations. This is why the cost efficient approach of the large business suppliers (e.g. Serco) is often attractive to funders.

I realise that this might be unpopular in some quarters (after all most of us charity CEOs and trustees enjoy our roles, don’t we?), but I believe that in the tough funding regimes going forward, larger charities would flourish better and that some mergers are needed. My belief is not just based on theory, I have seen the huge difference that scaling up can make as a trustee of Groundwork in London over the last ten years.  I first went onto the board of Groundwork Merton, which had a turnover of approximately £1m, but whose future was very uncertain. Over the period of five years, 7 Groundwork trusts merged to become Groundwork London with a turnover  of over £10M. This required 7 boards to fall on their swords and a variety of suitable arrangements found for Executive Directors to manage the transition appropriately.  Groundwork Merton might not have survived, Groundwork London is now flourishing and accessing a range of funding that would not have been open to it before. The great work is going on. There was a big debate (about three years long!) about how to maintain the local connections beyond merger. The proof has been in the pudding.

I think we need to wake up and smell the coffee in Surrey…. mergers may be the best route to get our great work to flourish….