Republican News · Thursday 30 January 2003

What is the Social Economy and why should we want it?

BY ROISIN DE ROSA

Imagine a world where all businesses were social economy - where all the main economic units in the national economy were in this sector. Of course, this might be hard to imagine, because most people do not have the least idea of what the social economy sector is.

We're talking about 'businesses' not run for profit but owned and run by those who work in them. The objective is social inclusion - a policy of including disadvantaged people in the workplace and incorporating training and education within the working day, and meeting, through the service or product provided, a social need.

If the company makes a surplus, that is makes money above replacement of capital and operating costs, it is ploughed back into the company, or into the community of the workforce.

Some will say, stop your dreaming. That is not our world, nor could it be. We've Esso, Shell, Wallmart, Raytheon, Coca Cola, and so on. Like it or not, that's reality. Immutable, they would have you believe.

But social economy is also a reality. Within the EU, there are 10 million people employed in the social economy. Within the 6 Counties, social economy represents between 5% and 8% of economic activity - that means employment of between 30,000 and 48,000 people. The whole of the construction industry represents 5% of economic activity, and tourism not much more at 5.8%. That is quite a significant fraction of the economy.

Conference

Last week, the Six-County Council for Voluntary Action (NICVA), in conjunction with the Department of Enterprise Trade and Investment (DETI), held a conference in Belfast's Europa Hotel on the subject "Developing the Social Economy - What it could mean to you".

It may still not have been very clear to the 300 or so delegates attending the conference, just what social economy did mean to them, but it was certainly a very interesting gathering, which threw up as many questions as it did answers.

These questions are very relevant to those engaged in planning the economic development of our island and the nature of the economy which can be built, within the context of a world dominated by neo-liberal economics and increasing inequality of distribution of wealth. Then there is the withdrawal of governments from their responsibility to provide essential services for all of the people from taxation revenues.

Of course the conference was general, limited to the Six Counties. Junior minister of state Stephen Timms MP and the Permanent Secretary at DETI, backed by a posse of governmental development agency spokespeople, came to underline their serious commitment to developing the social economy sector. They didn't talk about particular projects or areas of extreme social disadvantage, or how social economy could impact on social deprivation.

Nor did they talk of the glaring social need of communities to address such deficits as transport, environment, recycling, rural development projects or even the provision of services that could mightily improve the quality of life of society as a whole.

They just declared how strongly they supported social economy. Nice.

Social Economy in the US

Between these anodyne declarations of interest and support, there was an impassioned and highly articulate address from Mark Rosenman, who spoke of the declining role of social economy within the US economy. That economy is caught between President Bush's tax cuts and the increasing privatisation of health care, educational and child daycare centres, and the squeezing of the not-for-profit sector.

In this situation of ever increasing inequality within the distribution of wealth, the agenda is to shrink public responsibility for social conditions, to downsize and privatise government, and to return to an alms-giving definition of charity. Much of that agenda is strongly influenced by beliefs that those in need must first be personally redeemed. Social economy in the USA, he explained, is going backwards, fast.

Remarkable case studies

But across in England things do not look so bad. The conference heard of two case studies of social economy projects that are up and running successfully.

Stephen Sears is the chief executive of Ealing Community Transport, which started life as a grant aided community transport scheme with four minibuses, which over 25 years has grown to become an extremely successful recycling company collecting over 70,000 tons of materials from three quarters of a million households. It is now the largest not-for-profit organisation in Britain. It has won contracts to run a London Bus route and is now tendering to run a local railway.

The staff has grown from 1 to 350 people, the turnover from £50,000 to £17 million. Four minibuses have turned into 150 vehicles through the company's expansion into the niche market of recycling.

Stephen Sears quoted Napoleon: "Don't ask me if a general is any good - ask me if he is lucky."

Stephen was followed by Mark Powell. He told the story of RECLAIM, which is not so much about reclaiming plastic as of people reclaiming their lives.

The 'Unemployables'

Mark started out as an actor and then worked with disadvantaged people, care leavers, young offenders, adults with learning disabilities and mental health problems. He learned that what people most wanted was simply a job. He was invited to take on a household plastics reclamation project in Sheffield in 1989. They said they really didn't care who he brought in to work, so he brought in people with mental health problems, the 'unemployables'.

"The social services people nearly fell off their seats. 'Stop him paying these people - they were fine on the benefits system with a bag of sweets at the end of the week'." But they didn't succeed in stopping him.

He described his work gang of 'unemployables' - it was like 'One Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest' when Jack Nicholson introduces the 'mentals'. "In Reclaim, we had Lynn - she'd do anything if you told her that the Queen Mother would like it. There was Steven, who if asked what he would do that day, would pause for a long time, and then reply 'Craig. Call me Craig - that's a working man's name, 'Steven' isn't."

They lost money, but then, sick and tired of relying on grants, they had a feasibility study done. The author of the study asked whether they paid wages - Mark Powell said no, then they asked 'well, what about the disabled having a part in decision making?' Ummh. "Some of my gang would be into licking the rims of the plastic milk bottles coming in for recycling.

"But we learned, we had to institute jobs. We needed to interview for the jobs, how could we make it fair? Many were not able to read the forms, but we worked it out. Now we've grown to a turnover of £1 million, with a third of the staff disabled, who all know now that there is more to days than day centres, with a supported employment agency, and a supported learning unit."

Mark left Reclaim earlier this year to concentrate on the promotion of social and economic inclusion for disabled people, and the development of social firms in Yorkshire and The Humber.

Mark's address to the conference was a tour de force of wit and humanity. His vision held spellbound this strange gathering of people, interested in what the social economy could mean to them.

He had described a different world, but a possible world - which, as he said, "no longer accepted the immutable reality of government".

d what does social economy mean to us? Not very much it would seem, whilst we accept the immutable reality that is government - more is the pity.