Catch up with the latest news on spin-outs, social value, and new models of public service delivery.

 

Wednesday 8th May 2013

The Guardian: How social landlords can attract the right institutional investor

Close alignment between the lender and the landlord’s principles is crucial, with potential funders being thoroughly vetted.

It’s been a turbulent time for funding partnerships in the housing sector. Revenue risks brought on by welfare reform and some high-profile mismatches between social landlords and funders have left many providers wondering how they can secure long-term, sustainable investment from the right institution.

It’s perhaps counter-intuitive that one key way housing organisations can make themselves more attractive to financial institutions is through focusing back on to their core purpose: generating social returns. Prioritising social value, even during a process that might seem purely financially motivated, will lead associations to a funder with similar aims and values, and making for a happier marriage down the line.

Read the full article.

 

Monday 13th May 2013

 

The Guardian: Mythbusting: it’s too difficult to demonstrate social impact

It’s not as expensive and time-consuming as some people may think to demonstrate social impact.

More or less everyone involved in social enterprise agrees that demonstrating your impact is really important but not very many are actually doing it.

This is particularly true in the case of the UK government’s impact measurement framework of choice, Social Return On Investment (SROI). According to nef: “Social Return on Investment is an analytic tool for measuring and accounting for a much broader concept of value, taking into account social, economic and environmental factors.”

Read more.

Monday 29th April 2013

Information Daily: Housing Associations should use Social Enterprises to ‘add value’

Last Tuesday, Social Enterprise UK and the National Housing Federation hosted their first national joint conference to bring together social enterprises and housing associations.

The conference built on the mood created by the Social Value Act; this new law requires public bodies to consider the social value created in an area when choosing who delivers services. 

Read more.

 

Tuesday 30th April 2013

Third Sector: Open data has ‘enormous potential’ for the third sector, Nick Hurd says

The Minister for Civil Society tells a Nesta event that the government wants to help charities and social enterprises to share useful data

Open data has enormous potential for the third sector, according to Nick Hurd, the Minister for Civil Society.  

Speaking at an event in London yesterday, Hurd said he was determined that charities and social enterprises did not get left behind in making use of the opportunities afforded by open data – data published by organisations that can then be accessed and used by others others as they wish.

He said the government’s transparency and open data agenda was “genuinely transformational” and had the potential to change the relationship between citizen and state.

Read more.

 

Wednesday 1st May 2013

Public Service: Spend wisely and society benefits, says Holbrook

It will take time and effort to embed social value in commissioning, but throughout the journey we must not lose sight of what is at the core of the Social Value Act – spending money from the public purse more wisely so that society profits while business is being done, says Peter Holbrook, chief executive of Social Enterprise UK

The Public Services (Social Value) Act which came into force at the end of January requires all public bodies in England and Wales to consider how the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of an area is going to be improved with the commissioning of a service.

Commissioners now have the freedom to seek out contractor providers, whether they’re charities, social enterprises or private businesses, that deliver services while also adding value to a community – this could be by creating local jobs for disadvantaged groups or by helping protect the local environment in some way.

Read more.