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Providing employment and training opportunities for offenders:How can we grow sustainable social enterprises to support this work?

An Open Space event20th March 2013The Institute of Materials, Minerals and Mining (IOM3) London

An Open Space Event How can we grow sustainable social enterprises to support this work? 2

Delegate ListDavid Ahern CEO Shannon TrustAmeena Ahmed Business Development Officer POPSRoss Allan Development Manager HestiaAbdur Rahmaan Anderson Social Enterprise Manager NOMS CFOPhilip Angier Trustee Social Enterprise Research & Innovation FoundationMichelle Bailey Projects Manager Empowering Action & Social EsteemPaul Baker Service Improvement Manager Gwalia Care & SupportJames Blandford Business Development Manager Foundation Stone EnterprisesPhilip Breslin Drugs & Criminal Justice Commissioner London Borough of GreenwichDiana Brown Fundraiser No BoundsAoibheann Callely Food Production Manager Bad Boys BakeryJulie Carthy Awards Manager UnLtd - Foundation for Social EntrepreneursTony Cealy Arts Practitioner/Trainer Noh Budget FilmsJamie Christley Business Development Manager Langley House TrustEldridge Cooke Mr Sat NavClayton Coombs Commissioning Manager Hampshire Probation TrustMichael Corbishley Support Worker Single Homeless ProjectRachel Craggs Crime Reduction Manager West Berkshire CouncilDi Cunliffe Services Coordinator Social Firms UKKim Davis Client Services PLIASMark Ellery Senior Projects Manager Avon & Somerset Probation TrustSara Featherstone Senior Policy Officer Home OfficeSharron Frammingham Founder 70x7Lesley Frazer Policy Manager ClinksMaureen Ghirelli Steering Group Member New LeafVincent Gidman Detective Sergeant - IOM Turnaround Unit Devon & Cornwall PolicePaula Gill Community Development Manager Sunlight Development TrustIan Hanton Director EASI4communitiesRachel Harper Project Manager PenroseJocelyn Hillman CEO Working ChanceLisa Hocking Employment & Skills Manager GwaliaKelvin Hughes CEO The Newbury Community Resource Centre LtdAli Ikram Reformed for LifeMarek Kazmierski Managing Editor Not Shut Up creative arts magazineAnna Kiernan Volunteer Coordinator Empowering Action & Social EsteemChris Leeson ClinksDon MacDonald Advisor 330Philip McNerney IOM Team Manager South Yorkshire Probation TrustLiam Nagle Strategic Officer - Offender Management Coventry City CouncilDave Nicholson Director Ex-Cell Solutions LtdDeirdre O’Donoghue Acting Deputy Head of Probation Staffordshire & West Midlands Probation TrustShamina Patel Reformed for lifeJessica Plant Arts Alliance Manager ClinksDavid Preston Associate Researcher YSSMichele Rigby CEO Social Firms UKZarin Sharif Nick Smith Business Development Manager Queen Elizabeth Foundation for Disabled PeopleJackie Sopwith Head of Project Fundraising & Development WWVPhilip Southam Resource & Development Coordinator Changing PathsChris Stannett IOM Casework manager London Borough of HaveringDavid Toothill Director Southbank Mosaics CICMike Vigar Service Development Manager Cymorth CymruMark Wakeling Director Beyond the StreetsDavid Wrigley Head of Opportunities Chester & District Housing Trust


Employment and training is a key rehabilitation pathway for offenders and we know that some local areas are starting to develop social enterprises as one way to overcome barriers around the employability of ex-offenders. However there is currently very little learning or examples of effective practice to assist other areas in doing this.

The Open Space event described in this report formed part of a short term programme of work that the Home Office commissioned Clinks and Social Firms UK to undertake in February and March 2013, to address this gap by capturing and sharing current learning and effective practice. Other work undertaken alongside the event included the publication of 20 case studies written by social enterprises, and a final report summarising the learning from the programme.

The event itself brought together people already engaged in this work, to share their knowledge and experience and devise a set of key messages on the priorities to grow sustainable social enterprises. Participants included Voluntary, Community and Social Enterprise (VCSE) organisations, service users, and statutory and private sector partners (both national and local).

Introduction


Using the Open Space process, delegates created an agenda for the day in relation to the question:

How can we work together to build sustainable social enterprises that support offenders into training and employment?

The topics identified and the recommendations that emerged from discussion are listed on the following pages. The numbers in brackets reflect the votes assigned to different recommendations by delegates at the end of the meeting.

The ten recommendations that attracted the greatest support from delegates were:

• Scale – too many contracts are too big. Social enterprises can’t bid, won’t bid and the scale freezes out a lot of smaller providers. (15)

• Ensure there is a sustainable commercial income that can support your organisation and delivers what your community wants. (14)

• Help NOMS to manage risk and social enterprises to understand risk. Provide risk seminars. Provide greater networking opportunities. (8)

• Use the Social Value Act to create a level playing field for social enterprises (where appropriate). (7)

• Establish mentoring support from business professionals who understand social enterprise. (7)

• Take a strengths based approach to involving ex offenders – provide opportunity, build confidence, use payment by expertise, build a network. Be willing to pay those who understand prison from the inside. Don’t expect ex-offenders to mentor others on an unpaid voluntary basis. (6)

• Support offenders (while still in prison) to come to a realisation of their own strengths and capabilities – to build their sense of self worth and confidence and how they might use these to create a new life for themselves. (5)

• Social Value – develop a standardised way of monetising social value that allows social enterprises to demonstrate their ‘wider’ value. (5)

• Develop commissioning approaches / packages that nurture social enterprises and innovation. (5)

• Inform ‘Joe Public’ about social enterprises working with offenders by building a relationship with the media – local newspapers, national media campaign, adverts on TV. (5)

Open Space

Michele Rigby Chief Executive Officer Social Firms UK

Lesley Frazer Policy Manager Clinks

Taken together with the learning from the case studies, it is hoped these discussions and recommendations will help to spread existing knowledge and learning, e.g. to Integrated Offender Management (IOM) partnerships, as well as informing cross-government thinking about how to embed social enterprises in the employment and training pathway and encourage more productive relationships with the private sector and local businesses.


How can we design-in employment for everyone? Votes

• Run a pilot in the most deprived area possible.

• “Whole place” structures to consider social enterprise as a model. Pull together the resources of statutory, public and voluntary sectors. (2)

• Find ways to move money from “negative” expenditure to “positive” solutions with people who say “yes”! (2)

Challenges that social enterprises have in interfacing Votes with NOMS

• Stop being grant-dependent by developing the trading element of the social enterprise.

• Help NOMS to manage risk and social enterprises to understand risk. Provide risk seminars. Provide greater networking opportunities. (8)

• Use the Active Inclusion to Mainstreaming (AIM) partnership.

• Contact NOMS CFO social enterprise programme for support. (1)

• More NOMS networking events including offender-only and offender-led events. (3)

Recommendations The recommendations were hand written so

please accept apologies for any errors in

transcription.


Incentivise offenders from benefits to employment Votes

• Sell the idea of progression… they have to start somewhere and can build up to full employment. (3)

• Offenders should be allowed to work part time and still receive their benefits. (1)

• Incentives such as still receiving housing benefit, food vouchers, childcare vouchers, (incentives don’t have to be purely money), for those going into employment but for longer than 6 months. (2)

• Employers to offer more apprenticeships and more for the over-24s. (3)

• Generate full time work experience to help build up skills.

• Incentivise social enterprises to do more for their staff (who also happen to be some of our offenders). (2)

• Participants to get a say in how social enterprises spend their profits.

• Map routes into employment and strategies for incentivising. (1)

• Have a data system for people to be able to find work for offenders in their areas. (2)

Essential ingredients of social enterprise Votes

• You must have a good business concept with a unique selling point (price, service). Social enterprise does give added value. (4)

• You must produce a good business plan (tested out with banks etc.) and then good financial skills (managing cash flow). (2)

• You must have good managers/staff with right technical knowledge and drive to overcome problems.

• Products have a shelf life of 4/5 years so innovation is needed.

• Prison-based services require the Governor’s support. Funding is difficult.

• Payment by results is going to be on a scale of difficult to horrendous.

• We must look at what is going to happen with Probation / new police and crime commissioners, as we know that will change things.

Recommendations


Barriers to social enterprises bidding for work Votes

• Social Value – Develop a standardised way of monetising social value that allows social enterprises to demonstrate their ‘wider’ value. (5)

• Scale – too many contracts are too big. Social enterprises can’t bid, won’t bid and the scale freezes out a lot of smaller providers. (15)

• Bid Candy – some unhappy experiences with consortia. Some social enterprises will steer clear of consortia, prime provider, umbrella models. (1)

• Simple processes – preferred provider lists? Online registration? Clarity is needed around outcome measures and payments. Initially a couple of sides of A4! Otherwise too time consuming. (3)

How do we engage new non-traditional employers from Votes Media and Arts sectors?

• We must make sure when we talk about Arts, we talk about the serious business case as ‘investment’. (1)

• Lobbying is needed to join investors (Social Finance) with the Arts. (1)

• Enable new models of thinking and creating, sharing stories of different ways of doing things. Create new healthy stories in creative ways.

• Move towards a creative economy.

Recommendations


What are the strengths of offenders, even if they aren’t Votes socially acceptable?

• Be willing to support entrepreneurial ex-offenders to start their own businesses, e.g. start-up bursaries (equivalent to Princes Trust scheme). (2)

• Take a strengths based approach to involving ex offenders – provide opportunity, build confidence, use payment by expertise, build a network. Be willing to pay those who understand prison from the inside. Don’t expect ex-offenders to mentor others on an unpaid voluntary basis. (6)

• Build a connection between community groups / grass roots services and those who are able to access funds utilising the skills of service users. (1)

• Support offenders (while still in prison) to come to a realisation of their own strengths and capabilities – to build their sense of self worth and confidence and how they might use these to create a new life for themselves. (5)

Need for Knowledge Hub to provide technical support Votes

• Need for Knowledge Hub to be embedded in the commissioning and tendering process. (3)

• Need for balance between bigger and smaller providers in the supply chain and as part of referral route. (3)

• Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) providers to link in with the Hub. The Department for Business is also looking to work with development of social enterprises for offenders – and to make links with the Hub. (2)

Recommendations


Cost of prison Votes

• Spend to save. (4)

• Tailor-made provision.

Funding Votes

• Utilise existing procurement frameworks and the Social Value Act to maximise employment opportunities for ex-offenders. (2)

• Establish employer engagement through informal and formal protocols (e.g. Chambers of Commerce).

• Ensure there is a sustainable commercial income that can support your organisation and delivers what your community wants. (14)

Money myths Votes

• Address issues within the culture of prison management which is inhibiting entrepreneurship and social enterprise.

• Use the Social Value Act to create a level playing field for social enterprises (where appropriate). (7)

• Prison industries should require contractual social benefit / value in all its commercial contracts. (2)

• Sharing good practice – through different media including social enterprise media / newsletter / journal.

Recommendations


Cross sector partnerships Votes

• Regular meetings (communication) with partners.

• An information sharing agreement.

• Do research on partners and ‘marry well’.

• Bringing different strengths and unique selling point. (1)

• Ask tough questions first.

• Cultural fit to achieve a win-win-win.

• Clear strategy and structure.

• Clarity of objectives.

• Clarity of expectations and what can and can’t be delivered. (3)

• Don’t make / leave assumptions, get everything nailed down.

• Open and honest discussions from the beginning (set the scene).

• Value external recommendations regarding partnership.

How do we attract and keep talented and committed Votes individuals working on this?

• Give people a stake – e.g. shares, an opportunity to speak plainly to managers and have their ideas developed (3)

• Allow for the churn – prepare to have talented people come in for a short term and refresh; stops you becoming stagnant. Creative types / entrepreneurs are most likely to move on – let them!? (2)

• Give risk-takers autonomy / some degree of control.

• Stump up the cash and compete in the job market on salaries.

• Attract people who are prepared to take risks – even headhunt them.

• Sell / communicate the difference people can make – inspire candidates with your organisation’s values. (Don’t be afraid to sell the benefit to the community rather than offenders).

Recommendations


Partnerships with existing social enterprises Votes

• Opportunities for ex-offenders need to be provided locally. (4)

• Small local social enterprises are well placed to provide these opportunities – local partnerships are key to making these business models work. Partnerships with private sector employers are needed to move offenders on post social enterprise engagements (social enterprises as an Intermediate Labour Market (ILM)). (4)

• Draw on existing expertise e.g. Probation Trusts, VCS etc. (1)

What support already exists for social enterprise start-ups Votes working with offenders and what further support is needed to ensure they have the desired sustained social impact?

• More support for people leaving prison to set up their own social enterprises – support should begin whilst still serving sentence. (1)

• Establish mentoring support from business professionals who understand social enterprise. (7)

• Social Enterprise Directory – listing social enterprises and advice agencies. (1)

Recommendations


Why social enterprise? Votes

• Easier to establish a meaningful relationship with social enterprises given their scale (usually small and agile) compared to commercial or large charities (the unique selling point (USP)). (1)

• Develop commissioning approaches/packages that nurture social enterprises and innovation. (5)

• More honesty – conference of ‘spectacular failures’ – if we believe growth comes from learning derived from failure.

How do we inform ‘Joe Public’ about social enterprise? Votes

• Crack public ignorance – TV adverts; build into Sat Navs; Google maps; phone apps. (4)

• Combine some research (do you know what a social enterprise is?) with telling people what they are. (1)

• Get a local champion (possibly MP/Local Councillor) to advocate for local social enterprises. (3)

• Get a relationship with the media – local newspapers, national media campaign, adverts on TV. (5)

• Use a ‘crowd-funding’ approach to promoting the social enterprise, getting some money to assist start-up. (2)

RecommendationsRecommendations


Branding/PR for social enterprises involving ‘ex-offenders’ Votes

• Understand what the media do and what they want to say.

• Stick to your story – make sure of your aims and objectives.

Realistically, what can agencies / services do to help offenders Votes into employment?

• Specific groups targeted by work programmes – offender specific.

• Payment in relation to difficulty / level of work.

• Employer-led solutions, based in prison. Employers take and implement resources in prisons to fulfill their purpose. Specific training and focus. (3)

• Practical use of funds – get prisoners photo identity, Construction Skills Certification Scheme (CSCS) card etc.

• Ability to set up benefits in custody to receive immediately on release. (2)

Recommendations


These are some of the comments made at the end of the meeting:

It’s been a really interesting day and the format has been good - I may well take this format back and use it back up North. It’s been interesting to speak to other people who are knowledgeable in this area. Hope it continues to grow. Thank you and it’s been fun.

I think it’s been great too. I learnt loads and there’s plenty of food for thought.

I thought it was a very good structure for people like me who can only concentrate for five minutes at any one time. It kept my interest.

Excellent day – still trying to catch up.

Thank for a very different way of running a day.

Thank you all - I’m now thinking what it is that I do next.

I learnt a lot to take back.

I had some challenges with trying to work through this topic and it’s helped talking about it with others who are knowledgeable.

Really enjoyed the day.

Cheers for the day and its great seeing people who are prepared to wrestle together with the same issues.

We just need to crack on and do it!

Concluding remarks


Been great to hear people’s ideas and the amount of enthusiasm and energy.

I liked the open format and it encourages you to do something yourself.

I found it incredibly inspiring! Although it’s quite hard work as you can’t switch off for a moment.

Met some interesting people - a very mixed group of people. We have to keep on having these kinds of meetings and remember the importance of ‘keeping on keeping on’.

I think that the importance of social responsibility and engagement rather then competition is what’s important. Given its culture, the Prison Service is going to find it hard to engage with this. Thanks to Clinks for arranging for this.

Can I make a suggestion that in the future it would be good to have assisted video so that other people can benefit from the work?

Thanks – it has been a good day.

I’m here to help, if any one wants to talk to me (NOMS).

Good mix of people and I look forward to reading the report and hearing what the Home Office and others are going to do about it.

Don’t forget – social is good, but cash is better.

Lesley: Finally, many thanks to you all for attending and sharing your experience so generously, to Annette Zera for facilitating the meeting, and to Chris Leeson for her support and the photographs in this report.

Concluding remarks

16

Getting on Brilliantly

Event led by Annette Zera [email protected] www.gettingonbrilliantly.co.uk

Design: Richard [email protected]

Photos by Chris Leeson and Annette Zera

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