Liam's got issues: April

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I spoke at the launch of Her Majesty’s Government’s very first social enterprise strategy. At the old DTI’s gleaming citadel to caveman capitalism, I sparkled alongside the fragrant Patricia Hewitt and some smug, clearly bullshitting permanent secretary. At No 10, Tony told us we were the future. We basked. We sipped. We joked. Happy days.

Eight years later, how things have changed. There are many people who lead social enterprises I really still admire. Some have been mates for many years and I honour what they have done and continue to do. But the truth is I am a long way from the social enterprise sector.

I spend a lot of time – through Wavelength and as a trustee of Nesta – looking at the business and social innovation space. I get to meet a hugely diverse range of socially enterprising types from grassroots innovators struggling to make payroll each month to salarymen in huge multinationals which can afford to put millions into social innovation experiments.

Here’s what I’m noticing. What these innovators do exists and thrives no matter what politicians do or don’t do, say or don’t say. A whole industry has grown up around social enterprise in the past eight years largely focused on Whitehall and our town halls. Is it making the world a more socially innovative place? No.

Somehow, social enterprise has become about the public sector. It’s a dangerous game for cash-strapped third sector organisations to get involved in the ‘more for less’ public services fight to the bottom. They will get mullered and risk the very thing they say is their USP – the support of the community. Wouldn’t it be ironic if, after clamouring for so long to be taken seriously as deliverers of public services, social enterprises become seen simply as crap providers, providing monkey quality because they are being paid peanuts?

There is zero correlation between inventiveness/innovation and ownership models. One of the central delusions of the social enterprise sector is that it is uniquely creative and has ‘the answer’. Some not-for-profit social enterprises may have part of it but the most genuinely innovative stuff I see – really novel, scalable, financially viable remedies to old problems – are coming from the private sector. The smart social entrepreneurs are finding ways to collaborate and hybrid – and if that is not a real verb it should be!

Liam Black is co-founder of Wavelength. Contact him via thesamewavelength.com or via Twitter @LiamABlack