Just wanted to point out this post on the Guardian blog today by Patrick Butler, which is spot on in terms of the gap between rhetoric and reality; he draws this point out by contrasting what was said on the main stage at Voice 08, and what was emerging in the breakout sessions / informal conversations. This national:local relationship seems central. Indeed, I just came out of a meeting about the Compact, much of which revolved around the need for genuine understanding and buy-in at a local commissioning level….which is, at best, patchy. I loved the story in Patrick’s post about social enterprises doing better than charities because they were "sometimes mistaken for private enterprise". Says it all, really.
The blog also kindly points to my previous blog post on Voice 08 here and also to Rob Greenland’s blog: Rob’s given some really interesting thoughts on the event here and here. Well worth reading; partticularly liked his stuff on corporatisation….
Other reflections on Entreprenurses, the Telegraph, and coverage everywhere about the government committing to £37million more (I thought my maths had deserted me, but then I realised the £27m more for health had been added to the £10m for risk investment) and the new social enterprise unit in the DCLG.
In more conversations at the launch of UnLtdWorld (of which more shortly) the night before last, there was general agreement that
a) the venue had a lot to answer for….(massive sympathy to the evidently frustrated SEC team on this)
b) some of the innovations worked and gave it more dynamism and energy (NB – not the fold out cardboard loudhailer!)
c) it remains a very useful event for what might be called "social enterprise professionals"
d) it remains a sporadically/intermittently useful event for social entrepreneurs
With reference to c and d, I had an interesting chat with Liz Liston-Jones from OTS (who stood in for Phil Hope at the aforementioned launch) about the event. We both agreed it had been hugely useful for us in terms of our work and wondered if you could also make it useful for practitioners at the same event? I do think it was probably the best and boldest Voice so far, from my point of view; and I’m increasingly aware what a demanding bunch we all are….
