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First Social Enterprise Coalition’s Council told to ‘embrace competition’
Competition and fair staff treatment should be regarded as essential policies for social enterprises
di Staff
Social enterprises must compete with each other to stop them forming ‘value-destroying monopolies’, according to a member of the Social Enterprise Coalition’s new council, which is made up of 46 members and is a mix of social enterprise leaders, representatives from social enterprise networks, umbrella organisations and partners, and whose main role is to act as an advisory body to the board on issues of policy.
At the first meeting of the Coalition’s inaugural Council, that was held Thursday July 2nd in London, Social Enterprise Ambassador and CEO of transport provider HCT Group Dai Powell told that competition between social enterprises was just as important as competition with the private sector.
The statement was part of a debate on six policy papers on the future of social enterprise, which will help form the coalition’s manifesto, due later this year.
Debating Social enterprise at the crossroads, Powell said: ‘As social enterprises master the needs of their markets, they will start to compete with each other as keenly as they compete with the private sector. We should not shy away from this, but rather embrace it with conviction. The alternative is to seek moribund, value-destroying monopolies that serve no one but ourselves,’ Powell said.
‘Competition between social enterprises will drive us to innovate, to create the services that customers will want and to create genuine economic returns for the communities that we serve. We believe that competition is well worth the business risk that comes with it.’
He added that social enterprises must support their staff and not exploit ‘the commitment and idealism of their people’, which Powell said the third sector has done ‘too often in the past’.
‘We are sometimes guilty of asking staff to trade fair pay and conditions for a workplace that shares their personal values, to trade personal and professional development for their values, to trade the expectation of a developed career ladder across the sector for their values,’ he said.
‘This is not an even trade. How we treat our staff should be central to our values. Over the next decade we must address these issues or we are merely asking one more group of people for a subsidy – our own staff.’
Development Trusts Association CEO Steve Wyler and School for Social Entrepreneurs CEO Alistair Wilson also made presentations to the council, along with other social entrepreneurs from across England.
To read the papers please follow the links below.
‘Social enterprise at the crossroads’ – Dai Powell, HCT Group
‘The future of social enterprise’ – Simon Harris, Wales Cooperative Centre
‘The future of social enterprise in the next ten years’ – Clive Hirst, Blackpool Enterprise CIC
‘Social Enterprise Coalition paper’ – Alastair Wilson, School for Social Entrepreneurs
‘Discussion paper for Social Enterprise Coalition Council meeting’ – Steve Wyler, DTA
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