Last week on the network, Unison's head of health Christina McAnea argued that social enterprises are "a leap in the dark" for the NHS, which could have damaging implications.
Social enterprise and trade unions is a debate I've been part of for many years now. It's a debate where you can spend too much time getting bogged down in defending possible scenarios that are impossible to defend and rebutting false claims, and far too little time exploring common ground. Because right now, in the face of immense challenges to our public services, social enterprises and the unions should not be fighting one another. And while there are groups on both sides that may question the motives of the current administration, we must not confuse this with the principle and opportunity that social enterprise presents.
The sad thing is that when you break this down, many of the fears expressed by trade unions are shared by the social enterprise community. We have repeatedly expressed our concerns at the levels and the forms that the cuts are taking. We are fearful that insufficient emphasis is placed on support for the development of a social enterprise supply base, and of the potential risk of a slide into the mass privatisation of services (damaging the brand we have spent so much time and effort building). But these fears are being misdirected at social enterprise – they are fears regarding the way in which public services are currently being managed.
What we are most concerned about is the opening up of markets leading to the domination of organisations operating in the interest of private shareholders rather than public benefit. Because from there, there is no going back. Social enterprise presents a unique opportunity for frontline workers to have a much greater say in the running of the services they know best. And while public services are being opened up to market forces (and let's be clear this is not a new thing), we both want as much of this market as possible to be held by organisations that are accountable to staff, service users and the communities they serve.
So isn't it time for trade unions and the social enterprise community to agree about what they agree on?
Attempts have not been conclusive. But there have been some promising moments. There is work to be done on both sides. The social enterprise community will need to get better at agreeing exactly what it is we stand for. If trade unions and others are to get behind us they will need a very clear understanding of what they're getting behind. I don't mean a definition, but clear sets of principles that will guide our movements in the future. A sector-wide statement on what we agree to be fair terms and conditions for public sector staff. An agreed sector-wide statement on what we believe is good practice when it comes to staff engagement when spinning out of the public sector. Without these you can understand why trade unions may struggle to come out in support of social enterprise collectively.
When we work together behind the scenes with trade unions we usually come away with a strong sense of common purpose – this needs to be made publicly possible by the social enterprise sector openly stating more clearly where it stands.
But trade unions also need to stop presenting inaccurate information and give the real facts to their members. They need to stop scaremongering with headlines like "social enterprise risks patients' lives" because there is nothing about this sort of risk that is unique to social enterprise. They need to stop making claims that the structural changes social enterprises present are a huge drain on NHS resources, because in the greater scheme of NHS structural changes we know this isn't true.
So what we suggest is that we in the social enterprise sector get better at articulating what we stand for, particularly when it comes to public sector spin-outs. Social Enterprise UK has put a draft paper on its website to begin discussions in this area. And we need further discussions between social enterprise leaders and leading trade unions because, given the challenges we face together in public services, right now we really should be working together.
Ceri Jones is the head of policy and research at Social Enterprise UK
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