Selling Social Enterprise to the Public Sector

1
Selling Social Enterprise to the Public Sector

• Jenni Inglis, SEEM, May 2006

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Why, how and what next?

• Why- whats at stake/ whats the problem?
• How- what BEST Procurement is doing and our
  experience so far
• What next- what we think will create mainstream
  change

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Why?- Whats at stake?

• The public sector in the East Midlands
• 46 Local Authorities, changing Health Trust
  picture, National Offender Management, etc.
• gt5Bn external expenditure
• Social enterprise in the East Midlands
• 1000 social enterprises out of around 20,000
  third sector organisations
• Social enterprises combined turnover 250M
• At least 60 offer services relevant to the
  public sector
• Is the public sector a good customer for social
  enterprises?

4
Why?- Whats the problem?

• In the public sector
• Disconnect between policy rhetoric and practice
• Confused and competing policy rhetoric
• (Lack of evidence)
• Historical under-investment in procurement
  expertise
• Rapid change in profile of procurement as a
  function

5
Why?- Whats the problem?

• In social enterprise movement
• Successful social enterprises sell on the basis
  of good business skills
• Many social enterprises (deliberately) operating
  in difficult parts of the market

6
How?- BEST Procurement

• To improve the correlation between
• public sector expenditure and public benefit
• positioning
• social enterprise as a key delivery vehicle
• in achieving this goal.

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How?- BEST Procurement

• Develop practice
• Within public sector bodies, engaging at the
  level of their interest
• Within social enterprise, offering relevant
  development opportunities
• Improving information flow between the two
• Extract learning to inform policy
• Maintain dialogue with key strategic agencies

8
How- our experience so far

• Barriers
• The public sector has poor understanding of its
  own supply chain and impact on the marketplace
• Different parts of the public sector have very
  different cultures
• Difficult for social enterprise movement to
  respond to opportunities- need appropriate
  entrepreneurs

9
How- our experience so far

• Opportunities
• Embed social enterprise messages in all relevant
  policy initiatives
• Better to work with the interested public sector
  than try to engage the disinterested
• Within the interested bodies, work on internal
  partnership and trying to foster spirit of
  innovation
• Exciting opportunities become apparent through
  dialogue

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What next?

• Creating opportunities for association of those
  committed to change
• Continuing to promote awareness of the issues but
  using much more evidence
• Message All procurement has a social impact not
  only those that include social issues
• This is a long game