Social enterprise in education more radical than in NHS or MoJ, says leader

Social enterprise in education is ‘even more challenging than in the NHS and MoJ, but potentially more radical,’ the head of Social Enterprise London (SEL) has said.

CEO Allison Ogden Newton made the comments yesterday, on the day of SEL’s first schools event entitled Social enterprise – A brighter future for schools.

The aim of the conference was to show that social enterprise offers a solution for education providers ‘at a time of tightening budgets and increasing pressure to deliver for children’.

Ogden Newton told Social Enterprise that it should be made easier for groups to take over schools. But she added that despite a lack of political leadership so far, recent party manifestos ‘have completely changed the landscape’ for the better.

Ogden-Newton said using social enterprise models in education was 'more radical in a way, because with schools we’re looking at the idea not just that employees could take over schools as co-operatives, but that community based organisations or parent groups could take over'. She said it was similar to social enterprises in the NHS and Ministry of Justice (MoJ), describing it as 'even more challenging but potentially more radical'.

The conference, hosted by RBS bank in central London, saw presentations from leading educationalists already running successful social enterprise schools. SEL also released a new report entitled Extended services: ensuring sustainability using the social enterprise model.

Ogden-Newton highlighted the successes of social enterprise is schools but also drew attention to the fact that several groups had tried to take over local failing schools and had faced strong political opposition.

She said: ‘People need a clear route. The department of education officially supports independent initiatives but when it comes to it, they don’t have the mechanism to process applications and the few that have got through to strategic level have been rejected... We need to get this out into the open and get politicians to sign up to this and say whether they would manage things any differently.’

More than 150 teachers, academics, social entrepreneurs and civil servants attended the conference. Speakers included Sir Michael Wilshaw, respected principal of Mossbourne academy in Hackney, Mervyn Wilson, principal of the Co-operative College, and Rachel Wolf, director of the New Schools Network.

Discussions focussed on the unexpected political opposition schools and organisations had faced trying to run schools as social enterprises, or with 'social enterprise elements'.

Other key issues included: the fact that schools are not allowed to keep financial reserves at the end of a year so can find it difficult to save money for enterprising activities; the problem that some school leaders don’t want to be enterprising; the need for more enterprising headteachers, and staff development in this area.

There was also some concern about unions’ opposition to social enterprise, and the worry, from Wilson, that more community schools could mean more faith schools and more segregation.

There was some dispute over election manifestos, with SEL’s policy manager Dominic Potter pointing out there was cross-party consensus on opening up the state system to different providers, albeit using different mechanisms. But Wolf – who was previously an education adviser to the Conservatives – added they were clearly different, with Labour’s probably the least supportive.

The appetite for new schools was demonstrated by Wolf, who said that within a few months of setting up the Network, she had been contacted by hundreds of groups.

The day highlighted a variety of enterprising schools, including those with public libraries and public sports facilities on-site, those hiring their playgrounds out as car parks at weekends, running organic gardening and box schemes, and those training pupils in painting and decorating, which saw students not only renovating the school but facilities in their community to bring in cash.

SEL’s 30-page report looks at the potential for social enterprises to be used to run extended services in schools, such as breakfast and after-school clubs. It focuses on eight schools and colleges already doing this and offers advice for others wanting to do the same.