THE new Coalition Government’s plans for a radical shake-up of the NHS pose real challenges for social enterprises, such as Sound Communication.

Health Secretary Andrew Lansley claims the Con/Dem changes  are aimed at giving GPs more power and control over the funding of patient care.

His clear intention is to dismantle the health authorities and Primary Care Trusts which largely administer the £80 billion which the NHS spends.

In their place?

Lansley argues that GPs will fulfill the role of the thousands of managers and administrators who currently decide how money is spent.

GPs will get together in large consortia and decide for themselves what is in the public’s best interest.

So who will fill the gap in providing the services of professional managers and admin staff to make the changes work?

The thousands of newly redundant ‘bureaucrats’ who will be expected to suddenly develop entrepreneurial flair? Or a new wave of US-style management companies who see the chance to make a killing?

Lansley says: “”Our ambition is to create the largest and most vibrant social enterprise sector in the world.”

If we take Lansley at his word, the commissioning function will therefore be taken over by organisations for whom making fat profits for faceless shareholders is not the predominant motive.

But it’s not that simple.

The Guardian today glibly describes social enterprises as ‘private companies’ and examines their varying nature and structures.

It is true that most social enterprises seek to make a profit. It’s what they do with the profits that distinguishes them from run-of-the-mill firms.

Some social enterprises are independently-regulated Community Interest Companies, like Sound Communication, whose profits go back into the business or the community they serve.

Others have a less formal structure. With some of these, who may well have strong social or environmental purposes, its not at all clear what they do with any profits they make.

If Andrew Lansley gets his way, the bottom line seems to be that, one way or another, profit will be introduced into our National Health Service.

Of course, profit is already involved in the NHS – look at the drug companies, the outsourced services, the providers of equipment, the management consultants.

But Lansley is going one step further and embedding profit’ into the fundamental fabric of our health service.

And there’s the rub.

How all this eventually shakes down remains to be seen. Perhaps we can trust GPs to have the time and expertise to run an ethical rule over organisations bidding to help them manage health and care services?

Perhaps not.

For the moment, what is vital is that there is open-ness and transparency at every level about how the Coalition Government’s reforms are implemented.

And there must be full and genuine democratic control and accountability.

The NHS does not belong to Andrew Lansley, or the Con/Dem coalition, or GPs, or management consultants, or social enterprises.

It belongs to the public – the patients who depend on the NHS and pay for the service with their taxes and National Insurance.

And whatever new structures are imposed on an NHS already suffering from systemic change-fatigue, it is the quality of the services it provides to patients – and what happens to the public’s money – that really counts

CONSUMER spending on “ethical” goods has almost tripled in the last decade, according to the Co-op Bank.

Their annual ethical consumerism report shows that ethical spending in Britain has grown from £13.5 billion in 1999 to £36 billion ten years later.

Fairtrade products lead the charge with just £22 million spent on them in 1999, compared to £635 million last year.

Spending on “green” products, such as light bulbs and rechargeable batteries, has increased by five times, from £1.4 billion in 1999 to £7 billion.

The controversial financial services market has also seen ethical banking and investments triple over the course of the decade.

Now, half of all adults say they have bought goods primarily on ethical grounds in the past year.

Average household spending on ethical food and drink has increased from £81 a year to £244 in the last decade.

But overall, the market for environmentally friendly goods, that are sustainable or support poor communities is still less than one per cent (more than £6 billion) of the £891billion spent by households last year.

IS the BBC in favour of unfair trade?

That’s the question after the Corporation forced newscaster George Alagiah to quit as patron of the Fairtrade Foundation, a registered charity.

Seems the Beeb thought there would be some conflict of interest because Alagiah, who is unpaid and who was approved as a Patron in 2002, is due to front a programme on food later this year.

The Fairtrade Foundation, of course, helps producers in developing countries to win a fair price for their work – rather than being routinely exploited by corporate conglomerates.

This is the Fairtrade Foundation’s mission:

Our vision is of a world in which justice and sustainable development are at the heart of trade structures and practices so that everyone, through their work, can maintain a decent and dignified livelihood and develop their full potential.

To achieve this vision, Fairtrade seeks to transform trading structures and practices in favour of the poor and disadvantaged. By facilitating trading partnerships based on equity and transparency, Fairtrade contributes to sustainable development for marginalised producers, workers and their communities. Through demonstration of alternatives to conventional trade and other forms of advocacy, the Fairtrade movement empowers citizens to campaign for an international trade system based on justice and fairness.

If the Beeb don’t think it reasonable for Alagiah to publicly endorse these ethical values, the implication is that they think there is something wrong with them.

We don’t share that view.

However, we do think that their is some justice to the charge of ‘hypocrisy’ levelled against the BBC, for refusing to take action against another potential conflict of interest, involving a senior manager.

And there is a financial gain in that particular case – unlike with Alagiah, who got nothing from his valuable work for the Fairtrade Foundation.

We hope the BBC’s unjust stance will not deter other Corporation journalists from holding true to their values – and putting them into practise.

ANY self-respecting journalist will shudder at the prospect of getting a terse ‘no comment’ from the subject of their latest exclusive.

It’s bad for the reporter (s/he looks easily fobbed off); bad for the story (it looks unbalanced); and bad for the subject (s/he/it looks like they have something to hide).

Our advice to any client, almost whatever the circumstances, would always be: “don’t say nothing, at least say something”.

To stay schtum or refuse to comment can sound the death knell for reputation.

We thought this lesson had been well-learnt by the media-savvy corporate world – until this week.

That was until the giant computer company Fujitsu, the employment agency Kelly Services and Her Majesty’s Customs and Revenue all combined to commit the cardinal sin.

In triplicate.

The occasion? The story which appeared exclusively in the Liverpool Daily Post about 20 agency workers with Fujitsu, who were sacked with just half an hour’s notice after up to eight years service – and without getting a penny in redundancy payments to their names.

We declare our interest at this point: Sound Communication is project managing this North West TUC campaign and produced the press release upon which the Post story was based.

We had been speculating about how the three organisations involved might respond to the accusation of the “exploitation” of the agency workers, working on the multi-million pound Government contract.

This is how the Post prominently reported it:

“Fujitsu, which employs 116 of its own permanent staff at the office which handles tax returns for HM Revenues and Customs, last night refused to comment.

HMRC also refused to comment and Kelly Services did not respond to a request for comment.”

Unfortunate that the well-staffed press offices of all three organisations could not manage to formulate a single sentence in reply to the 20 agency workers. For it leaves the strong impression that the sacked staff were the hapless victims of corporate greed and naked exploitation.

Or as one of the workers remarked to us: “No wonder they didn’t say anything: they can’t defend the indefensible.”

• You can sign-up to Support the campaign for fair treatment for agency workers here

BANKERS appear to have overtaken estate agents and journalists at the top of ‘Professions You Love To Hate’.

The credit crunch, global economic crisis, rising unemployment and job insecurity have all combined to make the banker ‘Public Enemy Number One’.

Although Prime Minister Gordon Brown appears reluctant to start mixing it with the money men, the new President of the United States, Barack Obama, has lost no time in pouring scorn on the greed and irresponsibility of Wall Street.

Obama speaks for many of us who believe the worsening recession and billion pound ‘bail-outs’ have been directly caused by the unregulated speculation and irresponsibility of the financiers.

So it is good to hear of one bank – the Co Op* – which has actually turned away business as a result of its ethical approach.

Since it adopted its ethical policy in 1992, the Co Op has rejected £1billion worth of business from a variety of companies of which it disapproves.

Now, after consulting its customers, it is set to toughen its ethical stance even further by refusing to deal with businesses which deal with, or arm, oppressive regimes; make sell, distribute or sell unethical goods; damage the environment or experiment on animals.

Even the most cynical refugee from the dealing room, cannot deny that the Co Op Bank’s ethical policy has been hugely popular with its customers – and commercially successful.

We wonder what the commercial world would look like if more companies refused to do business with others, purely on ethical grounds?

Perhaps now that we have reaped the whirlwind from the wholly unethical activities of The City, we will in future see other companies paying much more attention to ethical considerations?

And doing business differently.

*Sound Communication banks with the Co Op.

LOCAL newspapers have become amongst the first victims of the global recession with major job losses, pay freezes and closures announced.

Some commmentators are already predicting that the future for local papers is bleak, almost terminal, as they are hit both by the economic downturn and the march of the internet.

Editorial quality is always one of the first things to be sacrificed it seems, as newspaper ‘bean counters’ cut jobs and titles to reduce costs and maintain profits for their shareholders.

Here in the North West, for example, 43 journalist jobs are going at Trinity Newspapers on Merseyside, publishers of the Liverpool Echo and Daily Post; the Guardian Media Group, publishers of the Manchester Evening News, has closed local paper offices all over Greater Manchester and the Newsquest-owned Bury Times is now being moved to Bolton! The same story is being repeated all over the country.

All this when many have long bemoaned the apparent lack of commitment to in-depth reporting from newspaper managements which seem obsessed with celebrity and short-termism.

And at the same time as the axe is being wielded, print journalists are under mounting pressure to master the skills of podcasting, blogs and video-making for YouTube, as their newspaper’s editorial activity effectively shifts on to the internet.

It almost goes without saying, of course, that much of this is not being reported – by local newspapers.

But all is not doom and gloom. Readers of the Bury Times in Greater Manchester have been amongst the most active in protesting about the death of their own local paper.

A group on the social network, Facebook, now has more than 700 members, including the town’s two Labour MPs and its Euro MP. The Facebook group has also had some success in gaining publicity for their cause - and apparently causing great embarrassment amongst the bosses at the parent company, Newsquest.

Whether the Facebook friends will succeed in saving the BT remains to be seen. But the campaign shows that local readers are prepared to stand up for their own local paper and that social networks can be extremely effective ways of enlisting online support.

We can only hope that the cuts in local papers will encourage the birth online of a rash of new locally-based news outlets to rival them.

ONE of the world’s biggest advertising agencies is trying to sell its stake in a Zimbabwe company masterminding the re-election of President Robert Mugabe.
WPP, which owns a huge raft of global Public Relations companies including  Burson-Marsteller, Cohn & Wolfe, GCI, Hill & Knowlton and Ogilvy Public Relations Worldwide, has found itself in the embarrassing position of apparently aiding the re-election of Mugabe.
WPP boss Sir Martin Sorrel – one of the world’s richest men – told Radio 4 that he was keen to sell his 25 per cent stake in the advertising company, run by Mugabe’s daughter, “as soon as possible.”
The Zimbabwean advertising company is said to be orchestrating the election campaign of Mugabe whose dictatorial regime  has been roundly condemned by almost everyone.
“There is no reason whatsoever for us to be associated with the Mugabe regime or the campaign for his re-election,” Sorrel declared.

Meanwhile The Times brands a London based mining firm’s £200million investment in Zimbabwe as an ‘outrage’.
So it’s good to see that WPP at least, appear to have discovered an ethical basis to their business, albeit belatedly.
Although cynics might consider Mugabe an easy target, it is encouraging that others agree with Sound Communication that there is room in business for a more ethically-based approach.
Hopefully, we can now look forward to WPP making a significant donation from its mind-boggling profits to social, educational and economic programmes in Zimbabwe – once that blighted country is democratic and free.

TWO interesting developments in the Third Sector – the space between public and private organisations.
First, former Prime Minister Tony Blair hands out some advice to other Third Sector organisations as a result of his involvement in charity work.
Blair’s out-of-government office has now set up four separate organisations which all appear to loosely fit the term, Third Sector.
The four organisations, two of which are termed Foundations, have been set up to concentrate on climate change, sport, Africa and Faith.
Blair, who is also a Middle East peace envoy, concludes that partnership is the key to success for his and other Third Sector organisations.
Blair says: “comparing my old and new worlds, I’d say that in philanthropy, unlike politics most of the time, you can genuinely welcome others alongside you.”
Of course, post-Iraq, the difficult question for Blair now is whether organisations are willing to be associated with him in pursuit of their noble and good causes? Or whether the association damages the cause?
Secondly, an established and successful social enterprise, the ECT Group, has been taken over by the stock market listed private company, May Gurney.
The take-over of ECT which, like Sound Communication is a Community Interest Company, is interpreted by some as a major defeat for the new social enterprise CIC model.
Others see it as a step towards new partnership working between social enterprises and the private sector, without in any way compromising the values on which the social enterprise was originally based.
Again, partnership appears to mean different things to different people. But it might be useful to ask ourselves who does the partnership benefit and who is the partnership really between?

Google has done it again.

The web giant has today started to accept donations to aid the relief effort in cyclone-hit Burma.

Google has created a special web page to channel on-line donations direct to Unicef and Direct Relief International.

It has also pledged to match every penny, cent, or yen donated – up to $1million.

While Burma’s military junta stand by, Unicef have already managed to fly in emergency supplies.

Direct Relief International too are making some progress in helping the relief efforts.

All of which goes to show that Google – company motto ‘Don’t be evil’ – appears to be more effective than the frustratingly impotent Western governments at sidelining the Burmese generals. And helping people in real need.

We wonder which British company (or even a North West-based global arms dealer?), will now volunteer to follow Google’s lead and demontrate their commitment to Corporate Social Responsibility in such a direct and practical way?

We are only surprised that anyone is surprised. Have you ever heard of an arms dealer that acts ethically?

Cynics would say that such a concept is as tautological as, say, a PR company that acts ethically.

Let us leave that particular argument to one side – for the moment.

BAE Systems already stands accused of making corrupt payments to win lucrative contracts. A controversial Serious Fraud Office enquiry into allegations of huge bribes for an arms deal with Saudi Arabia was halted by Tony Blair.

Woolf now finds that BAE Systems, which employs thousands of people in the North West, is overly secretive and did not pay enough attention to ethical standards.

Not surprising when the company exists to make as much money as possible from the arms trade.

We hope that the sinner truly repenteth and that BAE, which devotes a huge slice of its web site to Corporate Social Reponsibility, is determined to change for good.

But we suspect that for all its warm words about CSR, BAE will only ever be truly ethical when it finds another, more productive purpose, for its hugely skilled workforce.