BSSEC » 2012 » November

GFS starts foodbank with a difference

November 30, 2012

There is an interesting story over on Gateway Family Service’s blog. Yes, it’s about a new foodbank — at least, a foodbank of a certain kind — but that isn’t what makes it instructive. What makes it instructive is that it illustrates what some social ente

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Heseltine Review argues for greater devolution of funds, local partnerships and competitive bidding as foundations for economic growth

November 29, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Lord Heseltine’s economic growth plan, No stone unturned in pursuit of growth has just been published. In it he calls for a major rebalancing of responsibilities for economic development between central and local government, and between government and the private sector. Heselti

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Social value — literature review available

November 26, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Further to these posts on our Barrow Cadbury funded work on public services and social value, you may like to know that we have completed a first literature review. This constitutes what we think is probably the first comprehensive literature review on the subject and includes comment

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Health Exchange promotes benefits of easiest & cheapest exercise – walking

November 22, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Health Exchange’s B Active programme is seeing new community-based walking groups springing up in Kings Norton. Over fifty local people are now involved in the walking groups and what they have to say is testimony to the companionship and health benefits to be gained from these

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SE UK publishes further guidance on social value

November 21, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Further to these posts about our continuing Barrow Cadbury-funded work with Birmingham City Council and others on implementation of the Public Services (Social Value) Act, SEUK in association with BSSEC members Anthony Collins Solicitors has just published The Social Value Guide: Impl

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Kings Norton social entrepreneurs amongst winners of SEUK social enterprise awards 2012

November 19, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Birmingham’s Jayne Hulbert and Jayne Cresswell, founders of The SWEET Project, are winners of SE UK’s Social Enterprise Award 2012 in the Social Entrepreneurs category. The two Jaynes set up the SWEET Project in 2010 in Birmingham to deliver high quality work experience pl

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iSE says Digbeth-based SEs can turn their ‘clustering’ to advantage

November 16, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Business support organisation iSE believes that many social enterprises in the Digbeth/Cheapside/Highgate ‘quarter’ don’t recognise that they constitute one of the densest concentrations of SEs in the city and consequently are missing an opportunity to create busines

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SE UK announces preferred suppliers for membership deals

November 15, 2012

by Alun Severn

1 Comment

SE UK has just announced that it has struck deals with nine preferred suppliers from whom SEUK members will be able to buy services at preferential rates or even get free introductory services. And this has given Roots HR, one of our own members, good reason to celebrate Social Enterp

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Dynamic celebrates Social Enterprise Day with a collection of the best free resources for marketing

November 15, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Happy Social Enterprise Day, one and all. Over at Dynamic Marketing, Ranjit has been busy tracking down the best free resources on marketing, branding and communications. Why not take a look — they’re free, someone else has done the donkey work, and it’s Social Enter

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iSE launches new skills development programme – Digbeth & Highgate

November 15, 2012

by Alun Severn

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Situated in the heart of Digbeth, iSE (the Initiative for Social Entrepreneurs) has been awarded an ESF grant by Birmingham and Black Country Community Foundation to support unemployed residents into work through a mixture of soft skill development, mentoring and work experience. The

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Govt puts up new website for ‘set up a social enterprise’

November 09, 2012

by Alun Severn

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The government is in the process of replacing the old Business Link online resources with new pages for a range of business topics. I’ve just been notified that there is a new page called Set up a social enterprise. I’ll be honest — it really is bargain-basement stuf

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Social value: the best of intentions could be thwarted by EU procurement rules

November 09, 2012

by Alun Severn

1 Comment

Further to these posts on our work around social value and the Public Services Social Value Act, we were surprised the other day to see Third Sector Online carrying an article suggesting that EU procurement laws might mean that contracts below the EU threshold would be exempt from the

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NHS – ‘the power is back where it belongs: with GPs’…

November 02, 2012

by Alun Severn

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There’s a fascinating post over on Health Exchange’s blog by its chief exec Graham Beaumont. In it he muses on some of the speakers he heard — and some of the conversations he overheard — at the recent National Association for Primary Care (NAPC) conference in

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CIOs – are we nearly there yet?

November 02, 2012

by Alun Severn

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After more than 4 years of waiting (or almost 20 years if you count from when the idea was first mooted!) it looks like CIOs will be available by around the end of this year. Regulations bringing CIOs to life were put before Parliament on 30th October. Just in case you’ve missed

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