SCA Group

The last week was dominated by the alleged behaviour of the inhabitants of No.10 Downing Street. The newspapers had a field day as there is no better story than one which has no collaboration. It can be developed and embellished to the author's desire and political stance. I think most people now agree that whatever happened was not bullying but probably pretty unpleasant behaviour to the average person's taste. But I never cease to be astonished by how dreadfully politicians get on- and particularly with their own party colleagues.

This latter aspect of bad behaviour was highlighted towards the end of the week by Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, when describing the political reaction to his comment about the current recession being the worst for 60 years. Number 10 was not happy about this accurate prediction, the opposition sought to underline the differences between Gordon and Alistair. We students of history can affirm that the relationship between Number 10 and H.M. Treasury is usually one of tension and not always the creative type. Mrs Thatcher famously installed her own ‘shadow chancellor in Number 10 - the monetarist Sir Alan Walters- to keep Nigel Lawson under review!

Although it is harmless fun to observe the political classes as they approach a General Election, a serious point about leadership does emerge from this rather humorous spectacle. Those of us in leadership positions, whether political or Third Sector, have a solemn responsibility to the organisation which has put its trust in us.

Leaders should not get confused between their ego and their role; we all need people to affirm our actions and give us the confidence to continue. But we should never act in a way which brings our organisation into disrepute. This echoes with something I remember from the staff handbook! Leaders do still set examples which others follow. Next time we feel like a temper tantrum, let us remember it can send a chain reaction throughout our organisations.

Brian L. Strevens (01/03/10)

Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis and plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks where possible.

The decks are clearing for the general election.  As politicians seek to rush through new legislation or register new ideas in the minds of the electorate, the civil service seems determined to make pre-emptive strikes to prepare for the incoming administration.

Two weeks ago panic struck the world of Primary Care Trusts (PCTs) as they sought to give a favourable 'gloss' to the year end figures.  Their 'provider arms' which have been prepared for independence, and possible trust status were told by the Department of Health to merge with either an acute Hospital Trust or a Mental Health Trust.  What will happen to the Community Services Foundation Trust, heaven only knows!

What difference does this make to Third Sector organisations? Is it not a mere bureaucratic change that is to be expected at least every four years in the NHS? Well, yes and no! Yes, because PCTs need to sharpen their commissioning functions and this is merely an evolutionary process that was foreseen by NHS sages, but 'No' as well because Community Trusts offered the hope of joint working with the local government adult and childrens' services and Third Sector provider organisations.

The savings programme in the NHS will be in larger more impersonal provider units. Let us hope that these new organisations can combine economies of scale and a more 'local' approach to service provision.

The Third Sector stands ready to work with the incoming administration. It provides energetic, imaginative and cost effective services. But it cannot be taken for granted; there has to be a relationship of (almost) equals. Stupid local procurement practices have to be withdrawn. Providers have to be included in the commissioning process - particularly if it aspires to being 'world class'. And finally, there is plenty of talent outside London. It is hoped that national commissioners will come and see projects in action in the regions.

Every challenge provides opportunities. From Summer 2010, local government and the NHS will

Brian L. Strevens (10/02/10)

Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis and plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks where possible.

Which part of the newspaper do you read first? When I have a little time I make straight for the obituaries! Here you can read about men and women who have set the standards of their era. The brave, the clever and the wicked have their lives laid bare.

The outstanding life recorded in January for me was Sir Donald Acheson. Not a household name but those who lived through the 1980s and early 1990s may well remember his face. 

I served on the Southampton Health Authority of which Sir Donald was the Chair after being the founding Dean of Southampton Medical School. Donald came of a dynasty of public health doctors; his father and brother served in this capacity. So it was a natural move for Sir Donald to become the national Chief Medical Officer. 

He was a great communicator - and this was just as well. The AIDS/HIV epidemic took place under Sir Donald's watch at the Department of Health. This was coupled with the governing party being led by the most middle class fundamentalist ever to enter Number 10 Downing Street.  It is to Sir Donald's everlasting credit that he masterminded a public relations strategy that hit all the right notes to introduce a health promotion strategy. He was sexually explicit in his television appearances. The advertisements were direct and to the point. Needles exchange systems for drug addicts were introduced and every part of the country was put on alert. He ran this campaign when there was no ‘cure' available and there were many famous people dying with this reported very openly in the press and broadcast media.

Helping the nation face AIDS/HIV was Sir Donald's great achievement which was almost Churchillian as this was the greatest public health crisis in post war Britain.  Above all, this was facing the unknown.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man!

Brian L. Strevens

We will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis. Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks.

It was ‘Horseguards' and the Admiralty Board in Napoleonic times; the Generals in the Crimea aided by an incompetent Civil Service; the Generals and the supply of munitions in World War 1; and a conspiracy between top Civil Servants and politicians in the 1930s Front line troops have usually been let down by the ‘supply chain' starting here at home. But in 2009 there has been a combination of terrible procurement (which has origins in the last Tory Government) and complacency which has led to there being as many civil servants in the Ministry of Defence as there are fighting troops available for the field of conflict.

The public vents its anger at poor performance at home by civilians, directed by politicians, leading to a greater number of casualties than is necessary. An incoming government will have to radically reform the civil service because however much we might wish that social progress should be centrally driven to make it fair and effective, it is not always the case and the overwhelming power of the British state can be used to cover inefficiency and malice.

While central targets eventually brought progress in the performance of the NHS, centralised pay bargaining and negotiations with the medical ‘trades unions' have retarded progress towards a more cost effective service. The Home Office has failed massively in two areas. The first is prisons where the ‘crisis' number of 50,000 of the early 1970s inmates is on the way to doubling by 2020; the police forces of the nation are controlled by the last of the medieval barons, weakly supervised by local politicians and worthies. Budgets are as out of control as the allocation of ‘warnings' to hard criminals. This column is too long to discuss failures in the field of immigration.

The more ‘modern' ministries connected with business and welfare might appear more progressive. But remember how long it has taken to get credit to small business and the utter mess of the Training industry in the country.

The next Government will be branded as ‘confrontationalist' as it will be compelled to re-organize the Civil Service. At last it will be de-centralised and its pensions will be more realistic. The question of ‘agency status' will be re-examined. Functions will be re-allocated to other bodies, many more local. Indeed the theme of ‘localism', until recently a domain of the Liberal Party, will be applied by whoever makes up the new Government. Although the South East of Essex boldly led by Douglas Carswell MP, provides a model, it will be too strong for the new class of MPs of 2010.

We have the chance to rebuild much of the public service in the next decade but can the ‘donkeys' stomach the reform for the sake of the nation?

Brian L. Strevens
11 November 2009

We will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis. Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks.

On one level it is politics as usual. What is the PM's favourite biscuit?  What do the Europeans think of Tony Blair's superstar qualities?  George Osborne suggesting some adjustments to Bankers' bonuses for the period he comes to power! But underneath there is a tension which only manifests itself as part of the Royal Mail dispute.  What is going to happen to me, my family, my company and the country after the next General Election?

Although the usual game of politics goes on as usual, there is a period of quiet over the financial measures to be taken in 2010 and beyond.  The Chancellor's budget statement will probably light the ‘touch paper' of this particular firework.  The ‘economies' or ‘cuts' so far suggested by Labour and Conservative are insignificant compared with the level of debt to be dealt with at least ‘within the financial cycle'.

Third sector organizations are drafting their budgets for next year.  I have always wondered at the level of diligence expected of us whilst Councils can always sell land or the civic art collection to make up for their deficits. This blog does not extend far enough for me to reflect upon the fantasy world of NHS finance.  Let us just say its accuracy is in inverse proportion to the amount of money it spends on the services of the Audit Commission and ‘big five' internal auditors!

The Third Sector organisations that trade commercially have been affected by the general downturn and like every other business have had to make economies to cope with reduced demand.  But organizations providing public services have probably just endured a ‘pay freeze' to cope with little or no uplift on contracts or SLAs. The talk in the corridors of power in PCTs and Local Authorities is of 15% reductions on current levels of expenditure.  Even allowing for the usual exaggeration factor, there is real trouble ahead.

Governments seek others to do the ‘micro-cutting' for them.  Local Authorities and PCTs will be in the front line.  But they will cut first their suppliers, seeking to reduce their contracts, re-negotiate prices and squeeze as much as possible. Third Sector suppliers need to be pro-active.  We need to forget about past competitiveness and think of ways to minimize the pain that awaits us.  This Institute recommends Mutual Assistance Partnerships; all will be explained at a seminar in January 2010.

The Third Sector has time to plan a way forward through the next three years or so.  New, cost effective ways of providing services will be welcomed by purchasers in straightened circumstances but procurement has to be imaginative, flexible and co-operative.  If not community health and social services will be decimated.  I leave you with a scene from the last round of brutal cuts. 1978.  Salford Social Services cut its field work social workers so deeply that on some days there were only Senior Social Service officers on duty.  And they had forgotten how to get up from their desks!

Brian L. Strevens - 28/10/09

We will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis. Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks.

The European Union is one of those topics designed to make Liberal Democrats go dreamy, Labour activists lust for extended trade union powers, and Conservative MPs reach for blood pressure tablets. And yet, for good or bad, Europe's interface with our own policy making is far reaching. Indeed, it's a little known fact that the UK Permanent Represenative to the European Commission has a weekly meeting with officials at Number 10 so as to integrate their approaches.

Yet recently, on 14 October, new proposals from the European Commission's Directorate General on Freedom, Security and Justice quietly found their way into the public domain. Expected last March, the now released "Proposal For A Regulation On Succession And Wills" seems innocuous enough. However, on closer inspection
its proposals could have an impact on current social enterprise strategies and especially future Conservative social policy.

It goes like this: UK inheritance law is quite individualistic. It allows a parent to write a will which allocates inheritance funds unequally between children or - more importantly for this column- to invest in a social enterprise or charity by way of a late in life stake, or a legacy post-mortem. Mainland European law though, on the whole, hopes to resist assets only being passed down through male heirs, or ownership concentrating because of socially conservative outlooks on family life or attitudes to land ownership (no matter how socially and ecologically cohesive such traditions may sometimes be). Very often then the laws of mainland European countries require estates to be allocated equally among children, to sometimes by-pass a second or third wife in the family, and to limit allocations to charitable associations.

The new proposals follow this spirit seeking to begin to delineate a common European position on inheritance regarding wills involving assets now in more than one European country. There are 450,000 such cases each year and these would include the thousands in the UK diaspora, with properties abroad, but who have retained links to Britain. The proposal's working assumption is a European Court of Justice ruling that for the purposes of the single market an inheritance is a form of asset flow rather than a relational distribution involving human as well as rational factors.

For UK social enterprises and charities the potential threat is clear: EU nationals working in the City, for example , may make large grants to your organisation only for you to find that another jurisdiction might come looking for a refund in the years afterwards as a time constraint on spending kicks in and assets are recalled to be disbursed to children. Meanwhile, giving by a wealthy benefactor's new wife may be overturned by estranged children from a previous relationship. Most crucially, Britons who have bought houses abroad will have new legal tests placed on their disbursement making it harder to give to the charities they have always loved in the UK.

For political debates the proposals uncover a tension in UK Conservative social policy proposals: The underlying assumption of the mainland European law suggests that parents - no matter how divided - owe a first duty of care to their children in the ultimate disbursal of their assets. By contrast UK law lets those parents chose more easily, for example, between charitable giving and the children , between widows and friends. Now, while Nick Hurd MP who deals with the voluntary sector needs new funds in the third sector of he is to come good as Shadow Minister David Cameron will have to do some fresh thinking about the impact of this new EU proposals on his plans to strengthen families.

After all, the EC implicitly raises a most contentious question: Is a social investor who backs a charity or social enterprise ahead of those for whom s/he has "family duties" really adding any social value at all? Now that really will stop the Lib Dems dreaming, labour lusting - and drive Conservative blood pressure to boiling point once again!

Francis Davis

We will endeavour to update this blog on a weekly basis. Contributers Brian Strevens (Director of the Institute) and Francis Davis (Director of Policy) plan to submit their blogs on alternate weeks.