Society daily 15.04.2010

Today's top SocietyGuardian news and comment State failing its jail-bound war vets, says peer Narey quits Barnardo's Deborah Orr: illegal drugs and the Big Society Letter: Lord Justice Wall and social workers All today's SocietyGuardian stories Other news * Big savings and better services can stem from projects - from childcare to GP surgeries where the users themselves are involved in the provision of services , according to a Nesta report that chimes with David Cameron's Big Society call, reports the Financial Times. * Grandchildren are "a mixed blessing" and it is friends not family that are the key to a happy retirement , according to a University of Greenwich study reported in the Times. Green party manifesto The Green party published its general election manifesto this morning. Read Andrew Sparrow's election 2010 blog for full coverage. Here are some of the main points as they affect public services: * Public services Pursue minimal cuts across public services - no more than 0.25%, equivalent to £2bn-3bn a year. Improve energy efficiency in schools and hospitals. End the private finance initiative. Preserve smaller local schools, hospitals and libraries. Revive local government and give community councils tax-raising powers. * Families and children Introduce a 35-hour working week to improve work/life balance. Spend £1bn a year enhancing and expanding Sure Start centres. Double investment in council youth services and create 2,000 young people's centres. * Social care Increase the carer's allowance by 50% to £80 per week. Reintegrate local authority children and adult social care services. Free social care for older people, on the Scotland model. * Health Give local government responsibility for the NHS. End "phony" patient choice and healthcare markets. Increase tax on alcohol and tobacco to fund increases in the NHS budget. * Housing End the right-to-buy social homes, and introduce a right-to-rent for homeowners who have problems keeping up with their mortgage payments. Fund a council house building programme and allow councils to keep the rent receipts to invest in housing repairs. Bring 500,000 empty homes back into public use. Protect greenfield sites from development. Politics and social enterprise The three main parties have set out their stall on social enterprise. The Social Enterprise Coalition (SEC) has provided an excellent precis of what Labour's manifesto says on the matter, what the Conservatives are promising, and what the Liberal Democrats would like to do (surprisingly, there appears - on a quick scan- to be no mention of it at all in the Green party manifesto ). So what does it all amount to? Plainly, social enterprise is now on the politicians' radar (it didn't warrant a single mention in the 2005 manifestos). Why? Well, there's possibly a sense, post-2008 crash, that business has to be done differently. But, more pressing, the political parties clearly see social enterprise as a way of doing public services differently (the Tories are marginally more explicit than Labour on this, the Lib Dems pretty vague). So the next government will take a strong interest in social enterprise. That creates exciting opportunities, says ClearlySo's Rod Schwartz , but also dangers. In an interesting blog post he poses this question: "The danger lies in how the next government uses the social enterprise movement. Could it become the 'Trojan horse' for a possible dismantling of the welfare state? Will social entrepreneurship and community ownership become avenues for genuine progressive reform or an irreversible undermining of public services?" The Trojan horse idea is one I've heard expressed elsewhere - the idea that if you open the welfare gates to let nice, cuddly social enterprise in, the nasty, brutish private sector will pile in behind and wreck everything. I'm not convinced. Here are a few observations: * The private sector is already through the gates in substantial numbers, in social care, health, welfare to work and in areas of local government such as waste disposal. It won contracts let by the state. We may think this is a terrible state of affairs, but it didn't need social enterprise to open the door for it. If the next government genuinely wants to give more of a role to social enterprise, it will have to do some work on its contract specifications (which currently favour the big corporates). * Underpinning the Trojan horse fear is an idea that only state-run services can have our best interests at heart. Sometimes they do, often not (I'm thinking of Mid Staffordshire hospitals NHS trust ). The best social enterprises bring innovative solutions to problems to which the state has been constitutionally unable to solve. They often exist in the first place because statutory services don't or can't care enough. I'm thinking of (to name to two) the Sunlight Development trust in Gillingham and the Open Door scheme in Grimsby . * The key to maintaining decent welfare provision is surely ensuring proper state funding for services that are needed, not blithely maintaining institutions that don't provide an effective or efficient service. Politicians may see social enterprise as a cheap date. But I don't see any social enterprises offering to do public services for free. If you cut public funding you squeeze services whoever is providing them (at which point you have to make a calculation who provides the best outcomes and most efficient service). Which may (or may not) be a social enterprise. * Will community ownership undermine public services? The Sunlight model, for example, which works with statutory organisations such as the NHS and the local council, shows how community ownership can enhance public services, make them more accessible and relevant to the people who use them, and improve outcomes (with all the economic benefits that accrue). It also strives to make service users co-producers of services, involved in providing their own care and personal skills' development. That concept may worry trade unions and professional lobbies, but it seems to suit many of those users rather well. Finally, Schwartz makes the point that he can see social enterprise thriving in some areas of public services (he thinks housing and transport, possibly education) but not others (such as core areas of the NHS). I think he's right. There's a danger politicians will see social enterprise as a "model" that can "rolled out" anywhere, on the back of some Whitehall-run "initiative". My guess is that social enterprise works best where it's wanted and needed, and where social businesses and community trusts have the energy, capacity and expertise to make a difference to (not necessarily replace) underperforming statutory services. There are some big, successful social enterprises (I'm thinking of Welsh Water , the Wise Group , and Turning Point ), but most are relatively small, and some are good precisely because they are small and community-focused, and good commissioning will recognise that. The danger, perhaps, is not so much that social enterprise will undermine the welfare system but that the state will undermine social enterprise. On the subject of social enterprise ... We are starting to plan this year's Society Guardian Social Enterprise Summit. Last year's summit was a great success - you can read about it here . Once again we are looking to showcase inspiration, innovation and practical ideas on how social enterprises can deliver public services. Whether you are from the public sector or from a social business, we want you to tell us who you'd like to see and what you would like to see discussed. Email [email protected] . You can Follow Guardian Social Enterprise on Twitter . Clarification The Care Quality Commission has asked me, by way of clarification of a blog post I made on Tuesday about the Baby Peter case , to point out that while it is true to say an internal report into Great Ormond Street children's hospital that was critical of aspects of its handling of the care of Baby Peter was not considered by inspectors compiling the November 2008 joint area review report used by children's secretary Ed Balls to justify the removal of Sharon Shoesmith, head of children's services at Haringey council, the internal report did inform a later CQC report on the NHS care of Baby Peter. This was published in May 2009. You can read that report here . SocietyGuardian events National Commissioning conference 10. Beyond efficiencies, doing things differently. 15-16 June, Lowry Hotel, Manchester. Speakers include: Solace chief executive David Clark , former Department of Health lead on social care personalisation John Bolton, new King's Fund chief executive Chris Ham , and Social Care Institute for Excellence chief executive Julie Jones . The Public Procurement show . The UK's leading event for public sector procurement. 15-16 June, ExceL, London. SocietyGuardian blogs Joe Public Sarah Boseley's global health blog SocietyGuardian links Sign up to Society daily email briefing Society on Twitter SocietyGuardian.co.uk Public - the Guardian's website for senior public sector executives The Guardian's public and voluntary sector careers page Hundreds of public and voluntary sector jobs Email the Society Daily editor: [email protected] Email the SocietyGuardian editor: [email protected]