June 2008 Archives
For once, a proper weekend. You know, the ones that seem to last that
bit longer. Where you lose yourself, just for a while, in something
other than the mental Inbox.
Family has been the focus. Plus other people's families. Went to the wedding party of our friends, Keith and Judith. Keith is a former Trustee of mine. He was 65 on Saturday too, so it was a double celebration. Retirement and remarriage. Two fresh starts.
Seeing a guy so clearly happy in his later years, when so many blokes seem to struggle, was uplifting in its way. Clearly, sometimes, it is the best thing to just leave your life (and your wife) and start again, as he has done. We often forget that marriage was invented when we all died at 40 and that by our fifties and sixties we either need to reinvent our marriages (as my parents have done) or our lives by moving on. Keith was delightful with my daughter Ruby. `Mr Bubbles' (as he became) provided endless fun for her, enabling her Sad-Dad to talk shop with somebody from the sector.
I've been feeling my own age a little recently. A nerve was touched on Saturday morning when I heard a group of sixth formers in Cafe Nero, assuming I was out of earshot, saying I looked like Alan Bennett. It doesn't seem five minutes since I had people comparing me to Hugh Bloody Grant. Being 39 next month doesn't help. It feels like such a crap age. What's even more chilling is that a decade hence I will be 49. I just can't imagine liking it one bit. The fattened body, the lost hair, the sense of being yesterday's man. Women and even older gay men looking straight through you. The promise of life no longer sharp and fresh.
Mind you look at David Davis. There's man who's not going old without a fight. Andrew Rawnsley today was saying the guy is looking for his Enoch Powell moment, a place in the history books. I'm not so sure he'll get it. Most people, me included, are with Gordon on this one. We need to have more confidence in ourselves as a society. All the bleeding-hearts, led by the irritating and over-rated Shami Chakaravorty, present 42 days as the death of liberal Britain.
Come off it! Gordon is not Vladimir Putin. This is not Burma. If the police can get a judge to approve an extra couple of weeks to nail the next Tube-bombers (and they are coming, that is guaranteed) then a society confident in its liberal foundations needs to say `Given the special circumstances here, yes".
As for the radicalisation of the Muslim community, well, again, sorry, I don't buy that either. Every Muslim I know is praying, more than anything else, that there's never a repeat of what happened on 7/7. They know that would be far more harmful to community relations than 42 days.
Spent a surprisingly pleasant Saturday night leafing through the papers for my first Futurebuilders Investment Committee meeting. I have to say how impressed I was by how well everything was written and presented. It made for a really good couple of hours. A couple of themes emerging for me, just on the basis of this set of papers (so major health warning here!!).
One is that some of the investments in smaller organisations (and a couple of larger ones) appear to be going a bit pair-shaped. Low organisational capacity seems to crop up quite a bit, ranging from financial illiteracy to, now and again, a dodgy CEO nicking the dough. The assessment process looks pretty vigorous to me and exceeded my expectations, I had to say. The ones that, on the face of it, don't look so strong now are where several things all needed to come good all at once (CEO, new appointments, the market, a separate bit of the project) for the FBE investment to be effective. In my experience, you need to be a position where most areas are strong and you only need a couple of unknowns to go your way, not eight! Of the ones coming up as recommends to invest, I agreed with all except one that seemed to need too much to go right for it to be a success. And with a recession on the way, I can't see that happening for this particular concern.
The other frequent problem that I see is expectations of income from public sector contracts not being fulfilled. This isn't actually normally the organisation's fault. They've often just bought in, quite understandably, to Government promotions of increased contestability when in fact the public sector remains largely unreformed and highly skilled in serving its own interests. Labour's close ties to the public sector (shown by `Prezza''s achievement-claim in his book to have created a million public sector jobs) could be seen as preventing it from doing the necessary with public services.
Sunday has ended rather blissfully with a run through the fading light around the lanes of Bury St Edmunds. I saw a duck followed by a troop of about twelve tiny black ducklings, running across a road, cars stopping to let her pass. I was seized, momentarily by emotion before I pulled myself together and reminded myself of Rod Liddle's excellent article in the Spectator last week in which he highlighted the absurdity of our attitude to most animals.
Listen to the new Coldplay album on the way round. I am still undecided about it. However, what I do know is that Brian Eno has given it a feel and texture that I really love. Coldplay are a funny band. I always buy their albums, listen to them for about four months then never play them again. My wife, like a lot of women, tends to buy music she likes first time and doesn't get all geeky about the mix etc. She loved the others but thinks this one won't do very well `because the tunes aren't very good'.
However, I am finding myself liking it, partly because I am loving Eno's touches and ideas. That man could turn me singing the Smiths in the bath into art and so he has, clearly had good subjects in Coldplay. The band, themselves, however, have a strange kind of identity. They often morph the popular acts of the day (Arcade Fire for example) into their sound. I wonder, at times, whether they are in fact just really talented pop-marketeers who can also write and play.
Like all bands, and people, they are at their best when they are being themselves. On a couple of tracks - not the ones that sound like out-takes from the Joshua Tree - they achieve this. And it is nice. Listen to `Exile on Main Street' for the last two miles. This is not Coldplay's `Exile' or `Joshua Tree'. That much I do know.
Family has been the focus. Plus other people's families. Went to the wedding party of our friends, Keith and Judith. Keith is a former Trustee of mine. He was 65 on Saturday too, so it was a double celebration. Retirement and remarriage. Two fresh starts.
Seeing a guy so clearly happy in his later years, when so many blokes seem to struggle, was uplifting in its way. Clearly, sometimes, it is the best thing to just leave your life (and your wife) and start again, as he has done. We often forget that marriage was invented when we all died at 40 and that by our fifties and sixties we either need to reinvent our marriages (as my parents have done) or our lives by moving on. Keith was delightful with my daughter Ruby. `Mr Bubbles' (as he became) provided endless fun for her, enabling her Sad-Dad to talk shop with somebody from the sector.
I've been feeling my own age a little recently. A nerve was touched on Saturday morning when I heard a group of sixth formers in Cafe Nero, assuming I was out of earshot, saying I looked like Alan Bennett. It doesn't seem five minutes since I had people comparing me to Hugh Bloody Grant. Being 39 next month doesn't help. It feels like such a crap age. What's even more chilling is that a decade hence I will be 49. I just can't imagine liking it one bit. The fattened body, the lost hair, the sense of being yesterday's man. Women and even older gay men looking straight through you. The promise of life no longer sharp and fresh.
Mind you look at David Davis. There's man who's not going old without a fight. Andrew Rawnsley today was saying the guy is looking for his Enoch Powell moment, a place in the history books. I'm not so sure he'll get it. Most people, me included, are with Gordon on this one. We need to have more confidence in ourselves as a society. All the bleeding-hearts, led by the irritating and over-rated Shami Chakaravorty, present 42 days as the death of liberal Britain.
Come off it! Gordon is not Vladimir Putin. This is not Burma. If the police can get a judge to approve an extra couple of weeks to nail the next Tube-bombers (and they are coming, that is guaranteed) then a society confident in its liberal foundations needs to say `Given the special circumstances here, yes".
As for the radicalisation of the Muslim community, well, again, sorry, I don't buy that either. Every Muslim I know is praying, more than anything else, that there's never a repeat of what happened on 7/7. They know that would be far more harmful to community relations than 42 days.
Spent a surprisingly pleasant Saturday night leafing through the papers for my first Futurebuilders Investment Committee meeting. I have to say how impressed I was by how well everything was written and presented. It made for a really good couple of hours. A couple of themes emerging for me, just on the basis of this set of papers (so major health warning here!!).
One is that some of the investments in smaller organisations (and a couple of larger ones) appear to be going a bit pair-shaped. Low organisational capacity seems to crop up quite a bit, ranging from financial illiteracy to, now and again, a dodgy CEO nicking the dough. The assessment process looks pretty vigorous to me and exceeded my expectations, I had to say. The ones that, on the face of it, don't look so strong now are where several things all needed to come good all at once (CEO, new appointments, the market, a separate bit of the project) for the FBE investment to be effective. In my experience, you need to be a position where most areas are strong and you only need a couple of unknowns to go your way, not eight! Of the ones coming up as recommends to invest, I agreed with all except one that seemed to need too much to go right for it to be a success. And with a recession on the way, I can't see that happening for this particular concern.
The other frequent problem that I see is expectations of income from public sector contracts not being fulfilled. This isn't actually normally the organisation's fault. They've often just bought in, quite understandably, to Government promotions of increased contestability when in fact the public sector remains largely unreformed and highly skilled in serving its own interests. Labour's close ties to the public sector (shown by `Prezza''s achievement-claim in his book to have created a million public sector jobs) could be seen as preventing it from doing the necessary with public services.
Sunday has ended rather blissfully with a run through the fading light around the lanes of Bury St Edmunds. I saw a duck followed by a troop of about twelve tiny black ducklings, running across a road, cars stopping to let her pass. I was seized, momentarily by emotion before I pulled myself together and reminded myself of Rod Liddle's excellent article in the Spectator last week in which he highlighted the absurdity of our attitude to most animals.
Listen to the new Coldplay album on the way round. I am still undecided about it. However, what I do know is that Brian Eno has given it a feel and texture that I really love. Coldplay are a funny band. I always buy their albums, listen to them for about four months then never play them again. My wife, like a lot of women, tends to buy music she likes first time and doesn't get all geeky about the mix etc. She loved the others but thinks this one won't do very well `because the tunes aren't very good'.
However, I am finding myself liking it, partly because I am loving Eno's touches and ideas. That man could turn me singing the Smiths in the bath into art and so he has, clearly had good subjects in Coldplay. The band, themselves, however, have a strange kind of identity. They often morph the popular acts of the day (Arcade Fire for example) into their sound. I wonder, at times, whether they are in fact just really talented pop-marketeers who can also write and play.
Like all bands, and people, they are at their best when they are being themselves. On a couple of tracks - not the ones that sound like out-takes from the Joshua Tree - they achieve this. And it is nice. Listen to `Exile on Main Street' for the last two miles. This is not Coldplay's `Exile' or `Joshua Tree'. That much I do know.
Whatever you think of Tesco, they run their business around the things
that matter to their customers: Full shelves, clear aisles, good value,
helpful staff.
The whole thing, from top to bottom, is built around these four basic customer-pleasing ideas. But how many charities and social enterprises can claim to be run around customers or users? Can yours?
Mine can’t. Well not 100% anyway. The truth is that we, like most charities put a massive proportion of our efforts into pleasing not our end-customer but the Gods of Commissioning. Because that who provide the financial life-blood of our organisations' work.
The Gods of Commissioning are, of course, not real Gods. Typically they are very committed blokes and women in local government whose job is to `shop’ for services on behalf of thousands of disabled people.
Needless to say (and there are always exceptions) they aren’t that good at it. The state is a notoriously poor shopper. Things always go wrong, a bit like when you used to send your Dad out to Top Shop for a pair of skintight jeans - the chances were he’d return with a XL fleece from Matalan and a Carpenters CD.
For disabled people, however, the Gods of Commissioning are no joke. Their bad decision is your care home-from-hell.
But a quiet revolution is underway. `Personal Budgets’ are the brainchild of Simon Duffy, a social entrepreneur. His idea was to take the money from the Gods of Commissioning and put it straight into the pockets of disabled people. Because they know best what is right for them.
Simon’s ideas have swept across Government like a brushfire in recent years. I predict we’ll see personal budgets in education, healthcare and welfare services too.
What is wonderful about personal budgets is that the market is doing what years of exhortation about `listening to users’ never achieved. Going forward, providers will increasingly have to listen – or go bust.
And instead of looking upwards to the Gods of Commissioning provider will have to turn their loving gaze to the disabled customer and come up with our own versions of `clear aisles, full shelves, good value and helpful staff’.
All this will take years. There is a certain view that this will accelerate rapidly and all be over by the Olympics. I predict a slower path following the Early Adapter through to Mass Market cycle with a tipping point coming in about five to seven years time.
For while, certain Councils will blag that they have `personalised' services by pretending people have choice and control when none have been actually offered except the social care equivalent of a view through a shop window as you pass on the bus.
These councils will play a numbers game in the first few year to hit ambitious central targets while the real work will go on with smaller numbers that slowly build.
It is my belief that it will be people-power not council-power that will prove the most effective delivery method for personal budgets. The really smart councils know this and instead of just doing the numbers game are already building partnerships with community-connected organisations like ours. I sense these are a minority. But they won't be for long.
The whole thing, from top to bottom, is built around these four basic customer-pleasing ideas. But how many charities and social enterprises can claim to be run around customers or users? Can yours?
Mine can’t. Well not 100% anyway. The truth is that we, like most charities put a massive proportion of our efforts into pleasing not our end-customer but the Gods of Commissioning. Because that who provide the financial life-blood of our organisations' work.
The Gods of Commissioning are, of course, not real Gods. Typically they are very committed blokes and women in local government whose job is to `shop’ for services on behalf of thousands of disabled people.
Needless to say (and there are always exceptions) they aren’t that good at it. The state is a notoriously poor shopper. Things always go wrong, a bit like when you used to send your Dad out to Top Shop for a pair of skintight jeans - the chances were he’d return with a XL fleece from Matalan and a Carpenters CD.
For disabled people, however, the Gods of Commissioning are no joke. Their bad decision is your care home-from-hell.
But a quiet revolution is underway. `Personal Budgets’ are the brainchild of Simon Duffy, a social entrepreneur. His idea was to take the money from the Gods of Commissioning and put it straight into the pockets of disabled people. Because they know best what is right for them.
Simon’s ideas have swept across Government like a brushfire in recent years. I predict we’ll see personal budgets in education, healthcare and welfare services too.
What is wonderful about personal budgets is that the market is doing what years of exhortation about `listening to users’ never achieved. Going forward, providers will increasingly have to listen – or go bust.
And instead of looking upwards to the Gods of Commissioning provider will have to turn their loving gaze to the disabled customer and come up with our own versions of `clear aisles, full shelves, good value and helpful staff’.
All this will take years. There is a certain view that this will accelerate rapidly and all be over by the Olympics. I predict a slower path following the Early Adapter through to Mass Market cycle with a tipping point coming in about five to seven years time.
For while, certain Councils will blag that they have `personalised' services by pretending people have choice and control when none have been actually offered except the social care equivalent of a view through a shop window as you pass on the bus.
These councils will play a numbers game in the first few year to hit ambitious central targets while the real work will go on with smaller numbers that slowly build.
It is my belief that it will be people-power not council-power that will prove the most effective delivery method for personal budgets. The really smart councils know this and instead of just doing the numbers game are already building partnerships with community-connected organisations like ours. I sense these are a minority. But they won't be for long.
It is that sort of week in some respects. Two major `pitches' to
potential social investors will determine how much of a success 2008
will be for me as CEO. Sometimes things really are that simple. Get the
money and and we can develop Speaking Up to double what it is now in
the next four years. Fail and I could be losing certain posts by the
end of the financial year.
One of the tricksy things about having a bit of `success' and the accompanying PR is that the world assumes you're in clover when you're actually just as near the stinging nettles as everyone else. Nearer in fact because when you're growing you are exposed to a lot more risk and `unknowns'.
Also, funders and investors can occasionally pass over you, assuming you don't really need them any more. This happened sort-of recently, from the most unlikely source. Truth was never has our need been greater. But unfortunately I couldn't get physically in front of people to tell them this.
The Tories have launched an excellent policy paper on the `Civil Society' sector as they are calling it. It is crisp, well-argued and perhaps most surprisingly quite centrist in tone with references to strange fruit such as `Conservative Co-operatives'. Can't quite imagine what Sir Keith Joseph would have made of it. But I think that's the idea. Its about them convincing the sector that it is viewed as a serious player, that the Conservatives have a social vision and heart.
Overall I think the public sector may have more to fear than our sector were there to be a change of government. The Tories see us as part of the `society-led' solution to social problems, as opposed to what they see as Labour's more centralist approach. I can identify a bit with this as our own big tranche of Government funding comes with a wodge of paperwork and agreements that match any used in a public agency.
So, yes I am impressed that the party of the Right has bothered to do this. It shows we probably have little to fear from them and that they are serious about tackling social problems. But the cynic in me remembers similar promises from opposition parties in the past.
Events. Its been a busy week outside pitch-preparation. Highlights have been a Masterclass delivered for 12 eager people at DSCs Charity Fair. Did a mock up of Dragons Den which people absolutely loved. Especially the judges. Its quite a trip having someone pitch to you, even in make-believe.
Also met my mentee Matt Stevenson-Dodd who is now CEO of Young Enterprise North West having just moved on from Unique social enterprise which he founded. Myself and Matt hold a lot in common and we connected very quickly when we met on the first day of the Ambassador programme last year. He's inherited an organisation in mid-life (it was founded in the 1960s) with all the inherent strengths and weaknesses.
He's got a big change agenda and he's making all the right moves. Half-believe he doesn't really need me that much but he's really satisfying to work with on issues. His style is to be open and very matter of fact with people - but he has an integrity which is what enables him to still take people with him. I have no doubt that Matt will be one of the leading lights in the sector in less than 10-15 years time.
Yesterday saw me leave the house at 7am not to return till 10pm after a work dinner at which one of my senior team gently reminded me that I need to remember to take care what I say about individuals and orgs on my blog (having trashed the business model of one of our large customers last week). Missed the kids both ends of the day. Often this does my head in but, for once, I felt OK about it. Relieved to not be leaving today till 9am. The ritual of getting them up, making their breakfasts and dressing them is part of a Good Day for me and I am looking forward to the cries from next door that will come in exactly 41 minutes time.
We are tossing around whether or not to move to a quieter area while the market is still low and spent part of the weekend looking at houses. Suffolk, unlike most of Essex, Herts and Cambs, still has large areas of rural tranquility only three or four miles from its main towns.
While this is all under threat from the crazy idea that we should cover S England in concrete and `Eco-Towns, it is something I'd like to enjoy while it lasts. Although I am as far from a hippy as it is possible to be, I find trees and greenery incredibly soothing and spirit-enhancing. I want to live in the seasons and walk out of my house onto muddy paths, not an A road.
One of the tricksy things about having a bit of `success' and the accompanying PR is that the world assumes you're in clover when you're actually just as near the stinging nettles as everyone else. Nearer in fact because when you're growing you are exposed to a lot more risk and `unknowns'.
Also, funders and investors can occasionally pass over you, assuming you don't really need them any more. This happened sort-of recently, from the most unlikely source. Truth was never has our need been greater. But unfortunately I couldn't get physically in front of people to tell them this.
The Tories have launched an excellent policy paper on the `Civil Society' sector as they are calling it. It is crisp, well-argued and perhaps most surprisingly quite centrist in tone with references to strange fruit such as `Conservative Co-operatives'. Can't quite imagine what Sir Keith Joseph would have made of it. But I think that's the idea. Its about them convincing the sector that it is viewed as a serious player, that the Conservatives have a social vision and heart.
Overall I think the public sector may have more to fear than our sector were there to be a change of government. The Tories see us as part of the `society-led' solution to social problems, as opposed to what they see as Labour's more centralist approach. I can identify a bit with this as our own big tranche of Government funding comes with a wodge of paperwork and agreements that match any used in a public agency.
So, yes I am impressed that the party of the Right has bothered to do this. It shows we probably have little to fear from them and that they are serious about tackling social problems. But the cynic in me remembers similar promises from opposition parties in the past.
Events. Its been a busy week outside pitch-preparation. Highlights have been a Masterclass delivered for 12 eager people at DSCs Charity Fair. Did a mock up of Dragons Den which people absolutely loved. Especially the judges. Its quite a trip having someone pitch to you, even in make-believe.
Also met my mentee Matt Stevenson-Dodd who is now CEO of Young Enterprise North West having just moved on from Unique social enterprise which he founded. Myself and Matt hold a lot in common and we connected very quickly when we met on the first day of the Ambassador programme last year. He's inherited an organisation in mid-life (it was founded in the 1960s) with all the inherent strengths and weaknesses.
He's got a big change agenda and he's making all the right moves. Half-believe he doesn't really need me that much but he's really satisfying to work with on issues. His style is to be open and very matter of fact with people - but he has an integrity which is what enables him to still take people with him. I have no doubt that Matt will be one of the leading lights in the sector in less than 10-15 years time.
Yesterday saw me leave the house at 7am not to return till 10pm after a work dinner at which one of my senior team gently reminded me that I need to remember to take care what I say about individuals and orgs on my blog (having trashed the business model of one of our large customers last week). Missed the kids both ends of the day. Often this does my head in but, for once, I felt OK about it. Relieved to not be leaving today till 9am. The ritual of getting them up, making their breakfasts and dressing them is part of a Good Day for me and I am looking forward to the cries from next door that will come in exactly 41 minutes time.
We are tossing around whether or not to move to a quieter area while the market is still low and spent part of the weekend looking at houses. Suffolk, unlike most of Essex, Herts and Cambs, still has large areas of rural tranquility only three or four miles from its main towns.
While this is all under threat from the crazy idea that we should cover S England in concrete and `Eco-Towns, it is something I'd like to enjoy while it lasts. Although I am as far from a hippy as it is possible to be, I find trees and greenery incredibly soothing and spirit-enhancing. I want to live in the seasons and walk out of my house onto muddy paths, not an A road.
Cambridge. Nottingham. Bury St Eds. Barnsley. York. Bury St Eds.
Nottingham. This has been my week. Blatted from one point on the map to
another. And back again. Needless to say the effect on my head has not
been great. While I owe a lot to the inventors of mobile wireless
technology, there are limits to this, as I sit here at nearly one am
trying to catch up with what happened at work while I was pinging
around the country. What I want to know is `Who is the Wizard?'
However, it has been an interesting enough week. Visit to our operation in South Yorkshire on Wed was a success. We have a very turned-on, ambitious leader there who was refreshing to hear from. So often when I visit places I get bombarded with woe and leave feeling like I need a couple of fast pints. Not that day though. Took all the team to lunch and before the grub arrived did a Q & A in which people were forthcoming - but in the right way. Wetherspoons in Barnsley also delivered surprisingly good food. I may even go there again.
My Barnsley afternoon continued with a trip to see the CEO of Barnsley and two of his senior team, the lead on adult social care and their partnerships lead. I could register their disinterest on the Richter scale at the beginning but this soon seemed to evaporate.
We met in this amazing glass goldfish bowl of a room which looked out over the town. The council here is very keen to put itself in the limelight which they have done with their stunning performance getting people onto personal budgets. Being next door to Leeds and Sheffield seems to be a big motivation for these guys.
Learned that Barnsley is fairly `tight' in terms of existing voluntary sector partnerships but that there is probably room for Speaking Up if we show ourselves to be useful in pulling in new resources.
The strategic agenda here, like all councils, is on personalisation. This means, in effect, an end to public sector Stalinism. I wonder how councils will really do this as it means, in time, them kissing goodbye to their own provider role - if this is done properly. But I don't sense that is quite on the cards yet. Not in Barnsley anyway.
The afternoon ended with a quick meeting with super-blogger Rob Greenland, a social entrepreneur from Leeds. I enjoyed meeting Rob as much as I have relished his blogs. He brings a lightness of touch to the serious business of social enterprise - and a much needed realism to the discussion.
He deliberately works at the pointier end of the sector and provides frequent reality-checks to a movement which, frankly, can see a bit up itself at times. We discussed doing a Barnsley event in September which I found myself feeling quite bright about.
Stayed overnight in Hull with my friend Rob from University days. Like many people I know with extremely high intelligence, Rob has struggled to find his way in life and at 38 is still `at sea' - working for some dreadful Government quango but hating it, living alone, not particularly fulfilled.
He's wonderful company however and as the years slip by I feel increasingly the comfort of old friends. I like new ones but they are harder to find and it is somehow harder to get to the points of intimacy one managed quickly and easily as a 21 year old.
Today I visited one of our services in a secure unit near Hull. These places are pretty awful, you wouldn't want to be banged up there I can tell you. While newly built, like some new estate, they are understaffed and sort-of built on the idea that if you did something wrong in 1998, you need two seven foot skinheads following you around all day and jumping on you if you get a bit arsey. Of course, I am being frivolous but `overkill' does, now and again in these places, actually kill people. If the food doesn't first.
Our staff are in a funny position here. Inside but not part of the Machine. Its a strange role being an advocate here. I don't envy them. And I'm not sure how good it is to do the job for too long as there's a basic unhealthiness to the place that you need a skin of iron not to be touched by somehow. I am always glad to be in my car and away.
The final slam of the ball today and I am back in Bury St Edmunds. Ruby is glad to see me despite a 48 hour absence and gives me a fantastic hug and makes me carry her for the next half an hour till my arm drops off. Wilf smiles too and I give him his tea. These moments are all the sweeter when I've been away.
Once they are in bed and I've cooked the tea I settle down to work. There's all sorts of semi-stressful stuff to think about and I do OK until I realise its half past bloody twelve and I need to be fresh for a talk to a group of CAB managers tomorrow morning in Nottingham.
PING!
However, it has been an interesting enough week. Visit to our operation in South Yorkshire on Wed was a success. We have a very turned-on, ambitious leader there who was refreshing to hear from. So often when I visit places I get bombarded with woe and leave feeling like I need a couple of fast pints. Not that day though. Took all the team to lunch and before the grub arrived did a Q & A in which people were forthcoming - but in the right way. Wetherspoons in Barnsley also delivered surprisingly good food. I may even go there again.
My Barnsley afternoon continued with a trip to see the CEO of Barnsley and two of his senior team, the lead on adult social care and their partnerships lead. I could register their disinterest on the Richter scale at the beginning but this soon seemed to evaporate.
We met in this amazing glass goldfish bowl of a room which looked out over the town. The council here is very keen to put itself in the limelight which they have done with their stunning performance getting people onto personal budgets. Being next door to Leeds and Sheffield seems to be a big motivation for these guys.
Learned that Barnsley is fairly `tight' in terms of existing voluntary sector partnerships but that there is probably room for Speaking Up if we show ourselves to be useful in pulling in new resources.
The strategic agenda here, like all councils, is on personalisation. This means, in effect, an end to public sector Stalinism. I wonder how councils will really do this as it means, in time, them kissing goodbye to their own provider role - if this is done properly. But I don't sense that is quite on the cards yet. Not in Barnsley anyway.
The afternoon ended with a quick meeting with super-blogger Rob Greenland, a social entrepreneur from Leeds. I enjoyed meeting Rob as much as I have relished his blogs. He brings a lightness of touch to the serious business of social enterprise - and a much needed realism to the discussion.
He deliberately works at the pointier end of the sector and provides frequent reality-checks to a movement which, frankly, can see a bit up itself at times. We discussed doing a Barnsley event in September which I found myself feeling quite bright about.
Stayed overnight in Hull with my friend Rob from University days. Like many people I know with extremely high intelligence, Rob has struggled to find his way in life and at 38 is still `at sea' - working for some dreadful Government quango but hating it, living alone, not particularly fulfilled.
He's wonderful company however and as the years slip by I feel increasingly the comfort of old friends. I like new ones but they are harder to find and it is somehow harder to get to the points of intimacy one managed quickly and easily as a 21 year old.
Today I visited one of our services in a secure unit near Hull. These places are pretty awful, you wouldn't want to be banged up there I can tell you. While newly built, like some new estate, they are understaffed and sort-of built on the idea that if you did something wrong in 1998, you need two seven foot skinheads following you around all day and jumping on you if you get a bit arsey. Of course, I am being frivolous but `overkill' does, now and again in these places, actually kill people. If the food doesn't first.
Our staff are in a funny position here. Inside but not part of the Machine. Its a strange role being an advocate here. I don't envy them. And I'm not sure how good it is to do the job for too long as there's a basic unhealthiness to the place that you need a skin of iron not to be touched by somehow. I am always glad to be in my car and away.
The final slam of the ball today and I am back in Bury St Edmunds. Ruby is glad to see me despite a 48 hour absence and gives me a fantastic hug and makes me carry her for the next half an hour till my arm drops off. Wilf smiles too and I give him his tea. These moments are all the sweeter when I've been away.
Once they are in bed and I've cooked the tea I settle down to work. There's all sorts of semi-stressful stuff to think about and I do OK until I realise its half past bloody twelve and I need to be fresh for a talk to a group of CAB managers tomorrow morning in Nottingham.
PING!
