Watch out for Village SOS! Last summer the Big Lottery Fund invited villages across the UK to submit ideas for enterprises that would revive their communities, create new jobs and improve the quality of life for local people.
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Six winning village business schemes were awarded Lottery funding and over the past year their work has been filmed for a six-part BBC TV series being broadcast summer 2011 onwards. A Village SOS Learning Campaign accompanies the TV series to inspire enterprising villages across the UK to take what the Big Lottery describes as ‘the bold step towards starting their own community business’.
Building the local economy When Luton Borough Council set out to look for a partner for its Building School for the Future (BSF) programme two years ago, it wanted to maximise the benefit for the local economy. Although the BSF school building programme has been scaled back, the partnership Luton has formed with the Wates Group of construction companies — the Luton Learning and Community Partnership — has been extended to cover primary schools, housing, leisure and health projects and is worth around £586m over the next 10 years. The emphasis is on keeping it local. 80% of the materials have to be procured within 15 miles of Luton, 45% of the skilled employees must come from within an hour’s travel of Luton, and 80% of unskilled labour within a 15-mile radius of Luton.Overall, of every £1 that Luton spends on construction, 78p is spent in the locality. Another way that Wates is increasing the benefit to the local community is by trying to ensure that all its projects use at least one social enterprise in their supply chain. The company has an honourable record in working with social enterprises and recognising their potential for, in their words, ‘getting the economy back on track’. For more on Wates and social enterprise go to http://goo.gl/SVb7J
Trade unions and social enterprise Trade unions have long campaigned against the privatisation and fragmentation of public services. In many respects, they see the same threats and challenges in outsourcing of public services to civil society organisations and social enterprises. However, the Trades Union Council (TUC) believes there are additional issues that are specific to civil society organisations and social enterprise that require a specific policy response. A TUC report Civil Society and Public Services: Collaboration not Competition – presents some of these concerns.
Civil Socie Services: ty and Public not Comp Collaboration etition Commun ity and vo luntary org co-opera an tives, soc ial enterpri isations, charitie s, mutuals se and pu , blic servic e delivery
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