GUEST BLOG: Nick Temple OBE, CEO of Social Investment Business
16th August 2024
A new start? A tough start.
BSSEC CIC originally asked me to write this blog off the back of a relatively positive event: Lisa Nandy’s opening speech as Secretary of State for the Department of Culture, Media & Sport – a department which also has responsibility for civil society, including charities and social enterprises. The (very hot) room at the Science & Industry Museum in Manchester was filled with a bevy of sector leaders, and a general air of optimism and a sense of the potential in the years to come. It was good to reconnect with colleagues from across the social economy, especially from social investment and the youth sector. It was also good to hear George Orwell, Tony Wilson and Take That quoted in the same speech.
Since then, we’ve had less positive news. First came the government’s initial reaction to the economic situation it has inherited; whatever your view on what they really inherited or not, the initial actions so far have been to cut spending and tighten things up
More recently, we’ve then had the tragic events at Southport, followed by indefensible racist and Islamophobic violence in various cities and towns across the UK. Charities and social enterprises, particularly those operating at a community level, have been caught in the middle of this: places of worship, libraries, community hubs, advice centres.
At Social Investment Business, we recently funded four youth organisations in Southport (through the Youth Investment Fund) and dozens more in Merseyside and the North West – to whom we have directly provided support and guidance. Many other organisations are affected in a range of ways: staff and volunteers feeling unsafe; events being postponed or cancelled; security being reviewed and strengthened; and so on. As a fully-remote employer, SIB itself has a diverse workforce spread across the country, affected in different ways by events.
So that optimistic feeling from the keynote speech in the Museum has dissipated somewhat – but recent events do provide an opportunity, albeit an opportunity no-one wanted. That opportunity is to put action behind the warm words to civil society and social economy: to work now in collaboration to respond to the riots.
Our belief at SIB is that should include a short-term response, helping organisations swiftly repair and rebuild, maintain their events and activities, and increase safety and wellbeing; but more importantly a medium-to-long term response which works on both community cohesion and bridge-building and also invests in local economies: all of which is integral to addressing the root causes of the violence we have seen. Social enterprises in all their forms, and social investment to strengthen and support their work, should be included as elements of any such response.
The extent to which the new government can identify funding and resources for both this short-term and longer-term work, in the midst of a constrained fiscal environment, will be the first test of its commitment to the sector being an important and valued contributor to its five missions and wider policy objectives. The social economy too can step up – as we have started to see in the distribution of swift small grants, in the provision of guidance and advice, and in the convening in order to collaborate. For the sector and the government, as ever, actions will speak louder than words in the weeks and months ahead.