Projects

RESEARCH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The purpose of the project is to action research social enterprises becoming sustainable; primarily through support to obtain sustainable service contracts. These service contracts are currently out of the reach of most social enterprises; either to earn financial support to their main business or to diversify existing ones into a mixture of both public and private sector contracts. The majority of those community organisations are dependent upon one enterprise or type of grant and cannot capture a mixed market enterprise of: public service contracts, grant aid project and private sector service contracts.

Lots of contracts for work are available in both the public and private sectors. In the public sector many new community based initiatives to deliver services (usually in the social and training fields) are available to social enterprises to contract for. But most of them are out of the reach of community based organisations whether public or private contracts. The government has launched major new initiatives in learning and skills and caring services that either can be the basis of sustainable enterprise using these contracts or enhance their main business through employee skilling that community organisations cannot normally access. This project can give the organisations a mixed economy portfolio of service contracts for their enterprise.

This project will enable the social enterprises to acquire the skills and knowledge necessary to compete effectively in obtaining the contracts and build a mix of enterprise income streams. The OCBC project staff can and will variously transfer the knowledge of how to win contracts to organisations including these: – contracts and management, – partnerships and systems, – the operational services and – evidence recording.

All of the community organisations within the OCBC (informal) network of existing community organisations have demonstrable latent demand for delivering the services. Each of the enterprises is different from each other in activity and mix of public and private focus. But all of the organisations that wish to access the project; have a demand for participating in enterprise. That is why the project has been created; to satisfy that demand. The barrier to their success is that they cannot access the contracts.

ACCESS TO CONTRACTS

There are many barriers to community organisations in bidding for contracts. These seem so insurmountable that the organisations do not even attempt to overcome them. To tackle the barriers successfully also takes a level of expertise and knowledge normally held elsewhere; typically LA’s and Colleges. The barriers include these issues:

Access to finance (working capital)
Existing in a grant environment
Recruitment of staff into the not-for-profit sector who attract much higher earners in the private sector
Managing contracts, in particular public service contracts with its evidential based regimes
Accreditation of the organisation; with the likes of QCA, awarding bodies etc.
Quality assurance systems
Writing contract proposals and bids
Capacity to deliver
Recruitment of people
Skill training shortages

The debate centred on the grants versus contracts is a key determinant for community based social enterprises. The grant supply is driven by the social agenda not an enterprise culture. This project seeks to address this issue head on by promoting enterprise throughout its project period. The last determinate for social enterprises is the question of governance. How the enterprise is governed is a crucial issue that needs to be clear and appropriate to enable the organisation to be effective and operating in the right framework.

POTENTIAL SOLUTIONS TO BE RESEARCHED

The project will explore the resolution to these problems by action researching organisations into enterprise contracts. It will do this by:

Profiling: Demand for services in the community, what the organisations demographic constituency is, what their enterprise is, their capacity to deliver new work, skills and expertise, latent demand etc.
Capacity Build: Which problems apply and how they can be overcome, test out what they have done already.
Business Planning: Financing, operational management, managing contracts etc
Action Planning: Negotiating end results for enterprises.
Review: Through a mechanism providing a support framework for the enterprises by providing real people assistance not sign posting services.

These project actions will be carried-out by the whole OCBC team and its external facilitators. The individual groups cannot be classified into one type. They are all different and will be assessed on each of their individual merits.

PARTICIPATION

If you wish to participate in our research project fill in the attached form. The main area for the research is clearly the Black Country. However, you can significantly enhance the research by giving OCBC a wider range of groups and social enterprise activities. If in doubt about your contribution to the project contact OCBC.

PROCURERS PAGE

A second strand of the research is to ask the holders of Public Service Contracts their reaction to using Social Enterprises to deliver more of their work. A separate process is taking place to interview Public Bodies in the West Midlands. If you or your Authority wants to take part send one of the Research Forms in the Participation section.

DISSEMINATION

A series of dissemination events will take place in 2004 to report on the research findings. Dissemination will be part of an integrated set of events organised by the West Midlands Social Economy Partnership to launch all the research projects that it has commissioned.

If you want details of the events or copies of the reports please send details to: phil@ocbc.org.uk

LSC CONTRACTS

The Black Country Learning & Skills Council contract with many training providers across the Black Country to deliver learning to over 16 year olds; providing the public resources to pay for the costs. OCBC is one of those who are a registered provider; with a main interest in community based adult learning. Many community groups, mostly of BME peoples, are the delivery points for OCBC.

Unlike other training providers in the Black Country OCBC shares the resources with the community and the intended beneficiaries of the public investment. Traditional providers are either full profit or FE Colleges who retain the majority of LSC investment for themselves. Be with OCBC and ensure the funds reach the community it is intended for.

The Learning & Skills Council contract with OCBC for this community based training; in the Basic Skills areas. If you would like to join the OCBC Consortium and be part of the delivery of LSC contracts; contact OCBC for the details.