The School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) has topped the controversial Social Enterprise poll to find out which organisation our readers think provides the best value for money to government.
We launched the poll last week after it was announced that the Office for Civil Society (OCS) was cutting the number of its strategic partners from 42 to 15.
The result was 174 votes and an unexpected wave of controversy. Some supported the way we asked for our readers’ opinions and others condemned us as ‘crass’ and insensitive. Read on for more about ‘pollgate’.
SSE, working with UnLtd, proved the most popular in the poll with 51 (29.3 per cent) votes, way ahead of the organisation in second place, CAN, which got 27 votes (15.5 per cent).
SSE has set up learning programmes for social entrepreneurs across the UK and Ireland. It has also opened a school in Australia and is in the process of setting up other schools around the world.
CAN (formerly known as Community Action Network) offers flexible office space to social enterprises, as well as business support and helping them access to social investment.
Joint third in the poll was the Development Trusts Association and Social Enterprise Coalition, with 19 votes (10.9 per cent) each, followed by Co-operatives UK with 16 votes (9.1 per cent) and the Plunkett Foundation with 14 votes (eight per cent).
From our list of strategic partners relevant to social enterprise, SSE received one of the lowest amounts of funding from OCS – just £74,000 in 2009/10. Plunkett received £65,000 and CAN received £123,711.
The most funding went to NCVO, which was given more than £1m by the department, followed by the Social Enterprise Coalition with £534,000.
SSE’s policy and communications manager, Nick Temple, was one who did not agree with the Social Enterprise poll, but welcomed the result.
He said: ‘Though SSE is not keen on setting strategic partners against each other as we believe the sector needs to work together in tough times, we are obviously delighted that the value of SSE's work with UnLtd in this area has been recognised by your readers.’
A Cabinet Office spokesman said that no further information about the cuts would be released, but that a consultation should start at the end of the year with the revised partners programme starting in spring 2011. He declined to comment on the poll.
The story of the cutting of the strategic partners generated some interesting comments, from a fear of 15 partners not representing the sector, some organisations needing a shake up or social enterprise support organisations being chopped out of the partnership scheme all together, to a need to revaluate the whole process to make it up to date and better value. One person also suggested that social enterprises may choose to join forces as an OCS alliance.
However, what was really interesting to us at Social Enterprise was the reaction to the poll itself. Some, such as ClearlySo CEO Rod Schwartz, who admitted voting for Social Firms UK, welcomed it. He said in his blog: ‘My only disappointment was that it was not the Office for Civil Society that initiated the survey. That, I would have found to be very positive and fresh thinking.’
Others called the poll ‘crass’ and ‘insensitive’, while berating Social Enterprise for not thinking of the inevitable job losses this announcement will result in. SEmagreporter on Twitter received a barrage of comments from some of our followers, who said we should be supporting the movement rather than creating ‘unhelpful debate’, while others used the social networking site to promote the poll. And an evening of networking saw Social Enterprise cornered by one strategic partner boss, who said he may never talk to us again…as a ‘joke, not a threat’!
While the poll never pretended to be scientific or in depth, it did generate discussion about what these cuts mean. Even if alliances are formed, the risk of job losses and cuts in programmes is still high.
That's why Social Enterprise asked the important question – if only one social enterprise support organisation were to keep a foot in the door of government while supporting the sector, which should it be? That, surely, is an essential debate the sector should already be having, with or without us.
...as Susan Boyle might have sung. On SocialEnterpriselive.com this week:
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