Monthly Archives: June 2008

A sad way to start the week

Posted on by

I was full of optimism coming to the office this morning: a beautiful sunny day, after a great, relaxing weekend, and a relatively light schedule this week to plough through work. So I came in early and trawled through the blogs, and ran across this post from Rod Schwartz:

A Tribute to Sarah Dodds

[NB: UPDATE: there is now a site set up to post tributes here and a memorial fund to donate to online]

Apparently, Sarah, who was UnLtd Ventures Director until very recently (she was set to move on to pastures new), was involved in a cycle accident last week. Sadly she died this weekend. I didn’t know Sarah as well as Rod or some others, but she started work at UnLtd around the time I joined SSE, so our paths have crossed a lot over the past few years. As Rod details in his post, she was an exuberant, larger-than-life presence with a healthy irreverence; combined with a sharp brain, this led to plenty of interesting (and entertaining) conversations at events and conferences. It is always shocking to lose someone of a young age with so much ahead of them; so am a bit stunned by that this morning.

SSE‘s thoughts are with her family, friends and colleagues.

Share Button

Thursday round-up: Sunlight, shares, scale, SROI

Posted on by

Quick round-up, as there seems to be lots coming in and lots of interest:

– Peter Holbrook has written a blog post about David Cameron launching the Tory green paper at Sunlight Development Trust, and has some interesting initial thoughts from a practitioner’s point of view on its recommendations; more reaction on Bubb’s blog (who’s on rare form of late), here, and here.

– Paul Miller of School of Everything has written an interesting post about why their organisation is a company limited by shares and how they balance the need for start-up investment (in a silicon valley web2.0 type way) with a social mission at their heart….

– Fall-out from the ECT news continues; apparently the recycling arm is keeping its CIC structure, despite (or as well as?) being taken over by a private sector operator….will be interesting to see how that turns out. In the meantime, here’s a piece in New Start about it all; as I mentioned previously, this can be seen as a positive as much as a negative, but I do think that the issue of scale is at the heart of it all

– On which subject (scale), some food for thought: The Fetishization of Scaling Up (Small is beautiful versus Big is essential….and local+local+local = global…) and a magazine/event called De-Growth

– The SROI-UK conference has spawned a network: SROI-UK is chaired by the evaluation legend Jeremy Nicholls, who we’ll be doing some work with in mid-June

– DEFRA announced a big £4.6 million deal for the various third sector waste and recycling networks who have come together to form a new organisation, REconomy. Huge kudos to (former SSE Director of Learning) Matthew Thomson for masterminding the deal: word on the street is that the celebrations were substantial…..but well-deserved.

– Interesting article by Matthew Taylor of the RSA on the (independence of the) third sector and the need for accountability and transparency

– How to set up a refugee community organisation; consult this guide?

– And a brief final thought: Word of mouth is not created, it is co-created

Share Button

Two big stories: ECT takeover + Tory Green paper

Posted on by

BREAKING NEWS. Oh yes. Two big stories, both with a ‘green’ slant.

The first is that the Tories have just released their green paper on what they would do to/with/for the third sector if they were in government.Launched at Sunlight Development Trust, It’s the first salvo in what is intended to be a constructive and consultative dialogue between the party and the sector. I’ve only just downloaded it and am yet to digest (95 pages over lunch was beyond me), but our friends at Third Sector online have helpfully done so and come up with the 20 headline pledges.

Of particular relevance to this world:

"•    Creating a network of social enterprise zones to provide incentives for social investment in deprived communities

•    Setting up a Social Investment Bank as a wholesaler of ‘patient capital’ to a wide range of social investment institutions

•    Creating a powerful ‘Office for Civil Society’ at the heart of government to fight for the interests of charities, social enterprises, co-operatives and community groups"

Looks interesting, pretty well-thought through and pretty sector-friendly, even if a fair bit of it has been announced one way or another in the past. The OCS replacing the OTS would seem to indicate that NCVO’s advocacy of ‘civil society’ as a concept has fallen on receptive ears. More soon after several tube commute reads.

——————————————————————————————————————————————————

Second big story is that ECT Group, widely viewed and lauded as one of the leading social enterprises in the movement (and certainly one of the largest) has had the recycling part of its business taken over by May Gurney, a private firm. Their press release includes the following:

"ECT Recycling – part of the ECT Group with 1,100 employees – has been
acquired by May Gurney, one of the UK’s most successful maintenance and
support services companies and listed on the London stock market (AIM).


First and foremost, it’s ‘business as usual’ at ECT Recycling – the
current strong management team will remain in place, led by Stephen
Sears, and the focus will remain on delivering service quality for its
customers and its customers’ customers – members of the public.

For some time, ECT Recycling had been exploring ways to secure its
future and to build upon its successful business formula in delivering
municipal waste services to local authorities.

Stephen Sears, who has led the development of ECT since 1980 said: “ECT
has been looking for a partner for our recycling and waste management
business with a good reputation in the local authority market place and
with the commercial muscle to help us to secure bigger contracts. This
will allow us to deliver our social and environmental objectives as
well as the financial results that are essential to continued success." 

Which leaves the ECT Group back to its original core business: the CT of community transport, having sold its various other businesses (railways, health care etc.). A few questions fall out of this, of course. Not least that ECT Recycling was a CIC, so is this the first CIC to be taken over? (and how does that work re. asset lock etc.?) Is this a strategic move separating out the two businesses, or in response to more fundamental problems? And if ECT generally needed to find a bigger partner (with "more commercial muscle") to secure bigger contracts, what does that mean for procurement/commissioning for all the other third sector / social enterprises out there? (many of whom are significantly smaller).

New Start magazine rang me this morning to comment, and I kept it largely generic (because I don’t know enough about ECT’s business / governance etc; see q’s above) but did say that we shouldn’t overreact as a sector or movement. More of this will happen over the coming years, hopefully in both directions, as mainstream business is influenced as well as threatened by ethical and mission-led competitors.

Share Button