Of bondage and birth!

No, silly, not that sort of bondage…the Peterborough Prison social impact bond (sib) first results were reported this week, showing that the efforts of the charities working with the first cohort of 1,000 prisoners before leaving gaol has resulted in an 8% reduction in re-offending.

This does not seem like much for 2 years work, and whilst the ever growing social finance market is claiming this as a success, the fact is that the investors won’t be repaid yet as re-offending rates were supposed to drop by 10% to trigger payments to investors by the Ministry of Justice. All depends on achieving a higher rate of reductions by 2016  to hit the 10% average target.

Meanwhile Worcestershire CC  have embarked on a bond to enable working with older people. See:  https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-major-boost-to-social-investment-sector

It has been a great week with interesting meetings seeing the “re-birth” and birth of new ideas.

The “re-birth” was with Surrey CC Property re-opening discussions about the possibility of us taking over the running of the Woking Youth Arts Centre and was a very positive discussion..what a pity we hadn’t had this type of “what are we trying to achieve here?” discussion at the start. Live and learn.

The second was again with Surrey CC colleagues and hugely promising about whether we could collaborate together to link our exciting CommUniLAB project with SCC’s intentions to commission a time bank and youth social action projects. We have already been working on a Youth Social Action conference on Sat. 15 November with a main speaker from the Demos think tank. We have agreed to meet again, or rather for my successor to do so. A great opportunity to make a difference.

We held our first Healthwatch focus group with young people this week about their experience of the NHS and preferred priorities. The experiences of GP and A&E services were generally positive, but with criticism of orthodontic services, delays in A&E and some GO receptionist - much better in dentist services which were praised. Bullying, in its many forms came up yet again. There is something about resilience that is important here.

  

And finally, in the week when Alistair Darling and Alex Salmond have been debating Scotland’s independence, another Anglo – Scottish event was taking place in London that has resulted in the birth yesterday of our fourth grandchild..a boy. He doesn’t yet have a name as there are delicate discussions going on between very English son and very Scottish daughter-in–law, and both are lawyers….so it may take some time yet. But you can guess where my wife and I will be this week-end !

Mike (PS Loving the cricket by the way)

On Philanthropy

I am constantly delighted by how many ordinary people commit themselves to good works, so this week in a private capacity I had an evening meeting with two people wanting to set up a social enterprise to nurture and develop the ability of young people to determine career pathways and to present themselves effectively at interview. Then I had a brilliant meeting yesterday afternoon (on leave) with a Christian Aid organiser who was inspirational in his life story and his vision…building links to business through linked projects in the UK and overseas. Today I read the superb Surrey Interfaith News produced by Guildford Diocese that describes so many positive activities. The word “Philanthropy” comes from the Greek – Philos Anthropos..lover of humanity, and at a time of so much troubling news internationally it is good to see and hear such positive stories.

We had good news this week that our Pqasso Desktop submission has passed its review stage and so the external assessor is indeed coming along on 26 August to make her site visit, which is encouraging.

Much of the week has been take up with preparing comments on Surrey CC’s RE-commissioning paper “Creating opportunities for young people”. There has been a highly commendable, open and inclusive process of developing this paper and the associated commissions.

However, we have reservations about the focus on Employability as the strategic aim of the commissions – do parents say their hope for their children is that they should be “employable”? Do young people say that? Or do they say they want to be happy and healthy ..have positive relationships with a partner, with friends and in community? There is no denying the importance of employability but there are surely a host of personal attitudes, behaviours and skills that take precedence? The potential to be employable follows on from the acquisition of various personal characteristics.

So the young teenagers I met years ago in Stanwell who said they had nothing to do, but would not go to Staines (too far) and had never been to Central London had a self-limiting horizon that had to be addressed before thinking about skills and training.   I know that other organisations have made similar points. Our comments will be up on the website next week for all to see.

August is my “get fit/lose weight month”; I need only lose another 2lbs (1 kilo  for modernists) before hitting my target weight, so that should be OK. Little 4 hour speed walk on the South Downs tomorrow ..in the rain I think and with the weight of full “Spanish rucksack”. I’m now applying  surgical spirit on my feet everyday now to dry them out and harden them..hmm..maybe too much information! Enjoy! 

          Mike

Endgame

I was on holiday last week in Wales – Solva on the Pembrokeshire coast. A pretty fishing village where  Welsh TV were filming Dylan Thomas’ “Under Milk Wood”. I went for a superb 14 mile walk along the coast on a beautiful day when the Atlantic sea looked like the Med. (but not the same temperature!) Visited St David’s Cathedral and Bishop’s Palace..the whole area is rich in references to Celtic Christianity. Very fine.

And straight back in on Monday morning at 9.15 am  to a meeting of our sub group of Trustees and then a full Trustee meeting on Tuesday evening with a long  agenda. The Board appointed and welcomed two brilliant new Trustees and we are fortunate in having a very strong, experienced and capable Board. The Board approved last year’s Report and Accounts, and also  a new methodology for assessing the Outcomes of what we do…a notoriously difficult but necessary task. Intended outcomes  have to be accompanied by performance measures or else the term “outcome” (ie. what difference is made) is just being used for motherhood and apple pie effect. The Board agreed to my proposals though urged caution in not spending too much time on measuring performance rather than delivering…remembering we are a small team of 3.7 FTE

We had a presentation from Surrey CC about their commissioning of services for young people - £32 mill. worth, and the Board also approved  the first increase in membership fees for 4 years, and other changes so that we can take on businesses as Associate (non-voting)  members so that they can access our CommUniLAB project.

Since it was my last Trustees meeting I was surprised by the appearance of chocolate cake (favourite) and fizz. And kind words.

The rest of the week saw the finalising and updating of the submission papers for Pqasso (qa system), and work by colleagues in arranging our Youth Social Action conference on Saturday 15 November. I was at a Surrey Connects Enterprise Working Group this morning when amongst other points we were updated on the exciting plans for  a University Technical College in Guildford near Kings Manor School. Back to the Future -  I could not help feel that if we as a country stopped messing around with education we’d serve our young people better…did you say what’s wrong with technical colleges and polytechnics?  

  

Friends for dinner this evening; sermon to write on Saturday (about Wisdom and discernment). My parting shot is about holiday reading : I highly recommend Charles Leadbetter’s new book “The Frugal Innovator” which is about why we need to reduce and re-balance global consumption, and use good enough technology and encourage low key (frugal) innovation not just high tec. Also read “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell; in support of the small guy/organisation- similar theme to Leadbetter.   I’m currently reading Business Start Up Handbook on recommendation from my eldest (MBA) son, and my “Third career” plans are well on the way. Now at the stage of putting surgical spirit on my feet every day (to dry them out and toughen up against  blisters) and doing “serious” walks every week-end now. Feels like the endgame is upon me. Enjoy your holidays!

Mike 

Social Finance - Jury Out?

I go on holiday shortly so, as ever, one has to work twice as hard to get away, particularly when there is a forthcoming Trustees meting with a long agenda to get out. 

However, I was asked to brief some colleagues from a charity in Surrey that is considering expansion of its work by means of social finance, which made me revisit my various papers on this.

I wrote the first paper on Social Impact Bonds in Nov 2010, and with a member organisation pitched a really brilliant SIB proposition to Surrey CC, which was declined.

There are now some 22 SIBs underway in local authorities, and the momentum seems to be gathering….slowly. There is a Cabinet Office team working on social finance generally, and SIBs in particular. There are number of funding sources.  There are a stack of organisations working in this field : Big Society Capital, Social Finance, CAF Venturesome, Triados bank  and so on. Moreover the development of social finance fits exactly with my contention that the three sectors (public/private/charity ) are blending together.

Yet progress is still quite slow and the Peterborough Prison SIB has not been extended, which is telling. The advantage of SIBs is that the risk is off-loaded by the commissioner to the 3^rd party funder – could be bond market or just a market loan, and innovation is supported, so there are real advantages, but on balance the jury is out as they seem to be overly complex.  

My holiday reading includes “David and Goliath” by Malcolm Gladwell of “Outliers” and nudging fame; “The Frugal Innovator” by Charles Leadbetter; a book on business start ups and Karl Barth’s “Dogmatics in Outline” – no, not the 14 volumes that costs £600 but the simple version! One of these is an outlier…..for otherwise there is a theme about start – ups…I wonder why ? Career no.3. calls! I will report on the reading soon…there are some novels too….compulsory! 

Mike

Time present & Time Past

If you can’t beat them join them, so having run another business planning session at 40Degreez in Farnham I have come home rather than battling the Guildford traffic on a hot day…much nicer! Here we go:-

"Time present and time past are both perhaps present in time future, and time future contained in time past."

The T.S. Eliot quote (from Burnt Norton) reflects the fact that I have been with one of our Member organisations this morning – 40 Degreez in Farnham, assisting them in long term thinking about their next five year strategy. I remember that before I started work with Surrey Council for Voluntary Services as we were then called, and during my handover period from my predecessor, David Cox, I went to our AGM at 40 Degreez. This would have been in about Sept. 2007. I didn’t have a clue about what was happening during the AGM but I guess I have learnt since! Anyway, it was good to be helping a charity working directly with young people and facing familiar issues relating to volunteers, and funding, but also being brave enough to address the “what business are we in?”  question.  It was also good to be congratulated on my work (when Head of Community Development for Surrey CC in the late 1990s) in starting the original work on the Sandy Hill estate in Farnham and hearing that very positive changes have happened there over the years, with the work still continuing in that high need estate. So in my beginning was my end. 

Otherwise, this has been a week for producing reports for my last Trustees meeting, and in particular proposing how we demonstrate our impact as a support services (membership) organisation. This is a notoriously difficult area, for outcomes are of little value unless accompanied by performance  measures. The experts on this are New Philanthropy Capital, The Young Foundation, and the Charities Evaluation Service, the promoters of Pqasso. NPC’s work in particular is very impressive. To be practical we have just agreed the terms of the funding Agreement with SCC for a grant to us …and the outcomes we will achieve. No escape..so go with the flow….  

Two other important matters to report this week; first that Surrey CC Services for Young People has published its draft commissioning document for services for young people…some £32million services. I think this is a really impressive piece of work by the Council and represents opportunities for the sector.  

Secondly, a big "thank you" to Allianz’s Routes to Success team for their pro bono work with us in uprating our marketing database and advising on outcomes/impact. The team reported back to their bosses on the finished work which has been a great help to us, and their “going the extra mile” help to me in wrestling through the Impact work is much appreciated. What was particularly heartening was to hear how the team had enjoyed working with us (mostly Kate Peters and Su Freeman) and learnt about the voluntary youth sector. This is exactly what must happen in future – business citizens developing  through a collaboration between the sectors, the boundaries of which are becoming  more blurred in a positive way.  

Preparing a Powerpoint this weekend to give to our Deanery Synod on Wednesday (ie some 22 churches) about the disconnect between the values of the church hierarchy, people in the pews, and the wider, secular world (eg on women bishops, homosexuality, end of life issues). That apart I have to buy my holiday reading, via Amazon of course, so I’ll tell you what it I’ve bought next week before we go off for R&R in Pembrokeshire. Enjoy the sun!

          Mike

Mobilising communities to find solutions for themselves (aka CommUniLAB)

On Wednesday Surrey Connects held an annual conference with three outstanding speakers, and it was inspirational  to hear them.  

Mathew Taylor is CEO of the Royal Society of Arts and he gave a discourse in political philosophy the like of which I have not heard since my days at the LSE. His theme was about how we can all be empowered to be creative because the technology of the internet and digital/information economy enables this. He cited the way in which young people are embracing becoming entrepreneurs/sole traders; how folk could reach out to global markets and so on. The barriers to this world are own culture (what Erich Fromm called “The Fear of Freedom”), traditional institutions holding on to power, and related to this a lack of fairness and creativity especially in relation to having capital which he saw as an important enabling resource. He commended the work of Charles Leadbetter and his phrase about the (political ) future resting with “Creative communities with a cause”, and of roles in “mobilising communities to find solutions for themselves”.

As someone who wrote an MPhil research degree (1996-2000) about organisations as networks, not hierarchies, this was music to my ears.

Neil McInroy is CEO of the Centre for Local Economic Strategies. He spoke of the inter-dependence between the social (charity)economy – public economy  - private economy, and the need for people in business to see themselves in a wider(community ) context – what he called “business citizens”.

In short these two speakers put forward  a superb rationale for our CommUniLAB project, which enables these linkages and networks to be made in relation to community causes.

The third speaker was Sue Riddlestone, CEO of Bioregional talking in practical terms about “One planet earth” – we consume three times what planet earth can sustain.

On Tuesday, I gave a talk at a breakfast meeting at Foxhills about “Managing across the digital generations”, making the point that I have also stated in “Young Surrey : Strategic Review” that as people work longer, so larger organisations will have employees from across 4 generations - Baby boomers like me, then Generations X, Y and Z- the latter being today’s teenagers of current university students. They all have different values, life experiences,  skills and expectations, so how do you manage across the generations? Secondly how can Generation Z also called the citizen Generation be enabled to enter the world of working?

One of my concerns is that if today’s young people don’t vote at the forthcoming elections they will continue to be disempowered; this speaks to Mathew Taylor’s point. Consider for example the Arab Spring – enabled by Twitter, Blackberry etc as a community movement, but now traditional forces/institutions have re- asserted power.

We are making progress on organising a conference in November, probably at Royal Holloway College on what the Government calls Youth Social Action, and this will include inputs on what citizenship means.

On Wednesday, I had lunch with my fellow directors of Surrey Youth Enterprise, and with one of our Trustees about the future of the enterprise  which was very encouraging.

For the rest I have been working on preparing our papers for Pqasso external assessment, and am grateful to colleagues from Allianz (walking the walk as business citizens already) for their help in this.

Under attack from my wife again for lacking emotional intelligence (humph!!) brought about by too much theology (impossible) and World Cup football(possible) , and so have been blitzing novels by Anita Shreeve, and watching Wallender – brilliant study of the impact of Alzheimers. I’ll be playing squash and going to the gym this week-end, and don’t forget folks Nanny (state) says “drink water!” – a revelation!”

          Mike 

CommUniLAB Launched!

We are delighted to have launched our CommUniLAB website which can be found at: www.communilab.org  CommuniLAB is a virtual network that enables people in communities, universities and colleges, the public sector and business to voice problems that they would like to see addressed. For once we take off our “work “ hat we discover that as parents or as partners we face similar concerns and issues.  This  might be about the prevalence of bullying - a matter that came up at the Child and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMHS) Strategy Board I was at yesterday - or the provision of childcare,  or how to secure volunteering or work experience opportunities for one’s teenagers, or as a business how to offer such opportunities, or how to contribute to the lessening of disadvantage in a particular.

All Surrey Youth Focus are automatically members of CommUniLAB; if you are interested and want to join this exciting new network contact Linda Cairns, project manager linda.cairns@surreyyouthfocus.org.uk.   Our thanks to Barclays Bank as our principal sponsors and project champions.

One of the points I make in “Young Surrey : Strategic Review” is that the ever –reducing Government funding makes it imperative that the resources across the charity - local government  – business sectors are pooled, or “mined”,  to address shared issues. I am off this afternoon to witness a perfect example of this – Elmbridge BC/ Surrey CC/Walton Charities combining over their “Streets Apart” project.

The Management and Finance sub-committee of Trustees signed off on the Annual Report and Accounts for last year which now goes on to the main Board. Also reviewed the Risk Register and approved the processes for project planning and evaluation. This includes addressing the Inputs - Outputs – Outcomes trilogy, and is necessary as part of the preparation for our Pqasso (qa) review – very grateful to Allianz (insurance ) for all their help to us. The same methodology is being applied to our Agreement with Surrey CC for our core grant.

Even busier next week with two early morning talks – one of which is me talking to Surrey Chamber of Commerce about “Managing across generations” – Foxhills 7.30 am – nearly 40 people have booked in apparently!

World Cup expectations met! I have booked my flight to Biarritz on 13 Sept and hence on to St Jean des Pied to start my walk on the following Monday early – as dawn rises.

          Mike