Tag Archives: Phil Copestake

A rush and a push… and the Big Society’s ours?

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By Phil Copestake, OPM principal.

Phil CopestakeI enjoyed taking part in a spirited discussion at the RSA last week, as part of a roundtable launch of the 2020 Public Services Hub’s latest report – a really excellent one – which proposes a ‘social productivity framework’ to bring down the barriers between business, the public sector and citizens, thus enabling better collaborative policymaking.

The timing – coincidental with the second anniversary of another launch: that of the Prime Minister’s Big Society – made it impossible not to draw comparisons between that seemingly ill-fated agenda and the successful reforms showcased in the 2020 report. It was a shame that Cabinet Office minister Francis Maude couldn’t be there as planned (something about a strike) because there was real practical wisdom to hand.

I was particularly taken – as were others around the table, judging by their remarks – with one of the report’s defining dictums: ‘Government has to jump first’ and its cousin: ‘Government can’t do it all, but it can set clear goals and establish values’. The report contains an illuminating case study which highlights what a difference these principles can make in practice: that of the Zero Carbon Hub.  Continue reading →

Simple but powerful: making community leadership work in practice

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By Phil Copestake, OPM principal.

Phil CopestakeThis is the latest in a series of posts in anticipation of new research from OPM about what local government can do to unlock local capacity. To find out more about the free evening seminar on Tuesday 21 February where the research will be launched, click here.

When looking to unlock the capacity of local communities, local councils find nothing is more fundamentally important than the language they use. This was one of the points that struck me most powerfully at a really excellent, wide-ranging debate last week at the RSA, to launch the 2020 Public Services Hub’s evaluation of Sunderland City Council’s community leadership programme.

In amidst thoughtful opinions offered by amassed luminaries including the RSA’s own Matthew Taylor and head of volunteering charity CSV Lucy de Groot, the leader and chief exec of Sunderland both made telling points based on their practical experience.  Continue reading →

Why employee owners must be more than just shareholders

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By Phil Copestake, OPM principal.

Phil CopestakeThe Deputy Prime Minister’s speech yesterday highlighted a paradox at the heart of the employee ownership business model. You can’t have a mutual without actual shared ownership, and yet owning shares does not in and of itself guarantee the benefits of being a mutual. As Mr Clegg said: sharing ownership means sharing power. But to really maximise the potential of mutual models the staff who own the business need guaranteed influence too. Continue reading →

Vital service for public sector mutuals re-launched

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By Phil Copestake, OPM’s head of communications.

Phil CopestakeFor some time now we’ve been writing on this blog and elsewhere about the importance for new public sector mutuals of knowledge sharing, peer support and joining up access to relevant expertise. Yesterday there was really good news on this front, with the Government’s re-launch of the Mutuals Information Service (MIS).

The MIS brings together information, advice and guidance, including a new website to support individuals and teams who are looking to begin the journey, a new national hotline, and – perhaps most significantly – potential access to funding for bespoke professional support (the long-promised £10m Mutuals Support Programme). Continue reading →

Practical tips to overcome the challenges facing public sector mutuals: event report

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By Phil Copestake, OPM’s head of communications.

Phil CopestakeLast week saw OPM’s Spinning Out Mutuals fringe event at the National Children and Adult Services (NCAS) conference. The session was really successful, with a packed room at the cavernous ExCel centre, excellent speakers (well, apart from yours truly) and a lively debate. For those who couldn’t make it, I thought I’d post a few of the best practical tips mentioned for overcoming the genuine challenges facing those wishing to ‘spin out’ public sector mutuals. The important contribution that events like this make to raising awareness of mutuals was underlined by Jesse Norman MP:

The short inquiry report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on Employee Ownership, which I chair, emphasised how important it is that the Government’s mutuals programme is better understood and viewed as a means to drive real improvements in our communities. Organisations like OPM play an important role in building awareness about mutuals and helping to create the capacity for change. Only by understanding the real life experiences of people who have already started down this route – such as the speakers and participants at this NCAS event – can we capitalise on the tantalizing possibility of public sector mutuals.

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New challenges face the social care sector: Now is the time for mutuals

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In this guest post, Dr Guy Turnbull, director of Care & Share Associates Ltd (CASA), talks about how new models of ownership may help the health and social care sector overcome its challenges.

Dr Guy TurnbullWith the residential care system rocked by allegations of abuse and the collapse of one of the country’s leading private providers of residential care, the situation has never more needed a radical rethink of how health and social care might be delivered safely and securely. Continue reading →

Making the case for mutuals: three key ingredients

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By Phil Copestake, OPM’s head of communications.

Phil CopestakeAs my colleague Hilary noted in her post last week, questions are being asked about whether the Coalition’s grand ambitions for developing staff-owned mutuals in the public sector can be fulfilled. The national picture may be mixed, but when it comes to individual local areas it all boils down to whether you can make the case (and whether there’s a case to be made, of course).

In advance of OPM’s Spinning Out Mutuals fringe event at the National Children and Adult Services conference – which is free to attend – I thought I’d road-test what seem to be some of the key ingredients for checking whether a mutual is right for you, your service and your community. (I’m also going to speaking about public service mutuals at an EU-sponsored conference in Brussels, next Tuesday, so if you’re able to offer your thoughts on this post in the comments box, or via Twitter @philblogs, then you’ll be doing me a considerable service!) 

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Using social media for engagement: more than ‘just another tool in the box’?

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By Phil Copestake, OPM head of communications.

Phil CopestakeThe first of the Local Social Digital events – one for each of the three main party conferences – was a big success, I’m pleased to say. Fifty people, most but not all sporting Lib Dem yellow somewhere on their person, talked passionately and knowledgeably about how best to take advantage of the potential that new technology has to offer for community engagement. But is social media just another tool in the box, or the only game in town? Like many, I began by thinking the former, but now I’m not so sure…

The fringe events are a joint effort from FutureGov, OPM and On Road Media. On Sunday, in Birmingham, editor of the LGC Emma Maier chaired a panel of people at the cutting edge: Councillor Daisy Benson from Reading, Julian Huppert, MP for Cambridgeshire, and Mark Pack, editor of Liberal Democrat Voice. The focus was purposively positive, and I was struck by how, for many councillors and local authorities, new technology has genuinely transformed local democracy. Daisy, for example, is able to have contact with literally thousands of people who live in her ward and elsewhere, through Twitter and Facebook. Whilst that might be asymmetric in many cases – with people listening most of the time to what Daisy tweets about her daily activities rather than anything more – it’s a hell of an improvement on annual doorstepping and a monthly newsletter that goes straight in the recycling bin. Continue reading →

Moving to mutuals at the right pace and scale

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By Phil Copestake, OPM head of communications and strategy.

Phil CopestakeThe Government has a truly ambitious target of one million public sector workers moving to employee-owned mutuals by 2015 – a sixth of the workforce.

There’s a danger of this kind of target leading to a pace and scale of change that could be damaging for new mutuals, which experience shows have most chance of flourishing if they’re allowed to evolve at a more natural rate. Whatever happens, it will be vital for the right support package to be in place. Continue reading →

Setting an agenda? The Open Public Services White Paper

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 By Phil Copestake, OPM head of research.

Phil CopestakeThe Government’s Open Public Services White Paper published on Monday identifies the issues and questions it wants to answer over the course of the coming months, and the principles that will underpin its reform agenda. But when it comes to the role of local authorities and the place of employee owned mutuals, we all know the devil will be in the detail. As Nick Timmins writes in the FT today: ‘The white paper on its own changes nothing. Its success will be decided on how cleverly, vigorously and practicably its principles are applied.’

Like everyone else, at OPM we’ve been waiting for the Open Public Services White Paper with baited breath for many, many months. I say ‘everyone else’, but of course the rather muted coverage of the Coalition’s launch of its ‘comprehensive policy framework’ was to be expected. This is the Government setting a broad agenda and high level principles, rather than making specific policy commitments: it’s too wide-ranging for those. And policy frameworks are not exactly sexy, however comprehensive.

Local government driving reform?

So with that said, what to make of it? In the day or so it’s been in our hands, OPM’s interest has focused on what the White Paper indicates for the future of local government, and what it has to say about mutuals. Continue reading →