So now down at Brighton. 2 down ; 1 to go! Started of this morning with a fringe organised by Social Investment Business and Big Society Capital. Hazel Blears MP reminded us that the origin of BSC lay with Labour legislation. She is right but as I pointed out one of the good things about the social finance agenda is that it has strong cross party support. David Cameron has been a huge fan of social finance and made this one of the themes at G8. Indeed there is a G8 task force , led by Ronnie Cohen to take forward this agenda. This has been hugely beneficial.
And on that cross party theme it was good to see support
for the new plans for a rehabilitation revolution launched last week. Stuart
(NCVO) and I were able to meet key officials last week to discuss the last
details of the announcement. We both felt much progress has been made in
understanding the special circumstances of charities and social enterprises in
bidding for contracts. Much has been learnt from the Work Programme about PBR
and sector tendering. And credit to Chris Grayling and his MoJ officials for
the time they have spent listening to our views and our input. It has been more
than the traditional "consultation”; we have been involved in the design.
Now before I get carried away we have yet to see how the tenders will go and
whether we get the private sector cleaning up again; a point I made at a
roundtable we held down in Brighton today!
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