On your return from the USA you will find that not much has changed. The unloved and scary NHS Bill mysteriously continues to win votes whilst alienating people. Social Enterprise continues to peck for crumbs around the capitalist feeding table that is public expenditure and the vast majority of people continue to look at all your 'reform' and 'change' and wonder why. Not why as in 'why are you doing it?', they're all reasonably convinced that you're doing it for your capitalist mates, but why as in 'where is the plan?'. They're wanting to know if it all fits together and if so, in what. Is it really an attempt at improving lives or is it fiddling while their Rome burns but someone else's Mammon is further gilded?
This is a valid question as it is becoming increasingly accepted that the current incarnation of capitalism has failed and yet you continue to prop it up. In a situation where your actions appear illogical people will naturally suspect impure motives. We have a short window of opportunity to produce a new world-class economic system from the rubble of 20th century capitalism. As Adam Smith might have said, the next system is unlikely to perfect, but with hindsight we should at least be able to make it better than the last one.
The Unofficial Big Society Green Paper (www.bigsocietygreenpaper.org) argued that social enterprise should be at the forefront of any new system. It contends that we should not try to change capitalism but force it to change itself, or die. We can very easily do this by the creation of a new social enterprise trading structure which measures social value and social return as part of the criteria for the award of any state contract. Christopher White's recent 'social value' bill goes half way to addressing this, but there remains a big gap and we allow too much capital to flow out of our system before it has reached all parts.
In addition, social enterprise is often a poor cousin to business, relying on handouts, grants and specialist funding to gain a foothold next to 'real' business. This is wrong and whilst there are many worthy attempts at improving access to funding and real contracts, these are always coming from the view that social enterprise needs a leg up because it is worthy or trendy. It's a bit big society, but apparently not interesting enough to be part of any formal policy. That needs to stop. Capitalism has become anti-social. It is anti-social enterprise and social enterprise needs to be seen as the purest form of Adam Smith's capitalism that currently remains. It needs to have pride of place in the pecking order before it is too late.
The next thing we need therefore is a social return bill, to go alongside the social value bill. An act that enshrines in law the obligation for any public body to measure the return of profit to a community from a social enterprise. This needs a very careful piece of legislation which defines social enterprise, gives it a structure within which to operate and ensures that all of its returns are key parts in the award of any contract. This will make anti-social enterprises think much more closely about how they operate and how they bid for business. It is not red tape, or an attack on capitalism, it is levelling the playing field between social and anti-social enterprise.
We have come some way towards it but have much further to go. The Green Paper also discusses ways that these returns can be co-ordinated to a much greater good, but more of that another day. I have just spent 5 years of my life battling against small p politics in a local setting, so I know how Steve Hilton feels, but don't give up on the Big Society if you really want one, just support it with a big plan. Soon.
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