George Osborne was on the Today programme this morning talking about Tory plans to open up the delivery of public services to social enterprises - in particular, it seems, to co-operatives. I assume Steve Hilton has decided that we're not awake enough to understand what a social enterprise is at 7.10am (he's probably not wrong), so he instructed him to just keep saying the word co-operative as often as he could in three minutes. It is a lovely word after all.
I have written a lot about how public services need to improve. I am also an enthusiast for socially enterprising approaches to delivering services. But I'm suspicious of political enthusiasm for social enterprise. In this case I'm picking on the Tories, because I find them (and Osborne in particular) unconvincing, but I'm pretty sceptical about Labour's motives in this field too.
There's something of the four legs good, two legs bad dogma about politicians embracing social enterprise. They are so desperate (as they should be) to work out ways to make the UK a better place to live that they can end up believing that transferring services to social enterprises will magically make things better. They can definitely make a big difference if the social enterprise is good at what it does. But they are not inherently better at doing things than other organisations or businesses.
I also have a question about the likely capacity for social enterprises to deliver services. I know all the stats about how the sector is expanding, but I'm also aware that not everyone is cut out to be an active member of an employee-owned business, of the kind Osborne is proposing. I'd be a rich man if I had a pound for every public sector employee who's told me that they're hatching plans to set up in business, to break free from the dead hand of bureacracy. I'd have about £3 if I had a pound for every one that's done it. Osborne said this morning that services will only be transferred to co-operatives if that's what staff want. I think that, sadly perhaps, is a big if.
So, if I'm right, and the public sector won't be transformed by hordes of public sector workers all desperate to set up co-operatives, how will we find different ways to deliver services? Enter the private sector - particularly if the Tories get into power. I suggest that politicians will keep talking about the opportunities for social enterprises, pointing us to that lovely social enterprise which collects bulky waste in Liverpool, whilst plenty of the opportunities will actually be gobbled up by the private sector, who will soon speak the language of social responsibility with more fluency than your average social entrepreneur.
I do think that will happen more quickly if the Tories get in. Read for example this account of a recent Politics Show about Michael Gove's Free School plans. They interviewed Tory MP Tim Yeo, who made it clear that he thought that the Free School plans were flawed - not because schools should not be independent, but because the organisations that will run them won't be allowed to make a profit. One rogue Tory does not a party make, but I very much doubt that Yeo is alone.
Gove wouldn't dare allow idea of private-sector-run Free Schools to get in front of voters. But two years into a Tory government, with restless right-wing backbenchers giving Cameron grief, you can well imagine that things might change. Co-operatives' real value to Osborne and his colleagues may be to clear the way for further privatisation of public services.
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