Robert Ashton,

Business author and social entrepreneur

‘The story Andrew told was inspiring and he enabled people to look at their situation with fresh eyes and a renewed enthusiasm for tackling the challenges of their work.’

Allison Trimble

Director of The Leading Room, a cross-sector leadership development organisation

‘As the excellent feedback from our event shows he was both motivating and inspirational. As a result we have employed his speaking services again for our annual conference.’

Natalie Sutherland,

Policy & Practice Officer, Chartered Institute of Housing

‘Lord Mawson was an exceptional, inspirational and thought-provoking speaker, very supportive of the overall aims of the event. He provided a welcome but challenging alternative voice that was well-received by our business-orientated delegates.’

Paul Wheeler

Content Director, Base Communications

‘Lord Mawson’s speech on using your ‘entrepreneurial nose’ struck a real chord with those present.’

Sally Bavage,

Education Leeds

What the audiences had to say

Fascinating talk and inspiring. Great ‘can do’ attitude.

Very inspirational.

Very good topic  and thought-provoking for the sector.

Excellent presentation – enthusiastic and informative.

Stimulating – made me think.

Billy Graham is alive and living in East London!

Excellent – proactive, refreshing, and interesting. Good not to have to think about tick any boxes.

Very interesting to see potential achievements with a refreshing, common sense approach.

Very interesting, good to have a challenge to more established approaches.

Excellent and inspiring presentation – well worth coming just to hear Andrew.

Excellent – he gives the sector the shake it needs!

An outstanding contribution – thought-provoking and inspiring

Wonderful!

Inspirational, real and honest.  Some real food for thought in shaping the way that we work

…the quality of his preparation and talk has challenged us all to think harder and deeper about the next steps and processes

…[Andrew was] the best speaker so far: he talked with deep, real life experience, and used stories and examples.

[He showed us there are] no boundaries for achievement

I could have listened to Lord Mawson for hours!

I know from many years of experience working with churches across the country, today as a non-stipendiary minister in the United Reformed Church, that the users of these buildings can often be small elderly congregations who find it very difficult to maintain or use effectively the asset that history has bequeathed to them. As many noble Lords will know, the Bromley-by-Bow Centre, which I founded in East London, began in such unpromising circumstances. Twenty-six years ago, I arrived as the minister to be greeted by 12 elderly people, all over 70, in a 200-seater church, sitting where they had always sat. It looked as though the dead had been carried out and no one had noticed.

By applying more entrepreneurial business principles and developing partnerships with the business, public and voluntary sectors, today we own a three-acre site that is run by 177 staff. The centre manages over 125 different activities each week, and on site there is a polyclinic, which brings together not just the biomedical model of healthcare but a wider range of other public services through an integrated approach. Two thousand people each week pass through the site, and with our partners, the housing company Poplar HARCA and Leaside Regeneration Ltd, we are putting together a £1 billion regeneration programme on an area of land the same size as the Olympic park on the other side of the road. Today, this church-based project has demonstrated new ways of delivering public services that are breaking new ground and challenging the traditional silos of government whose old-fashioned, expensive, bureaucratic approaches have so often failed to engage effectively with local residents and raise their quality of life.

Three years ago, I was approached by the then general secretary of my small denomination, the United Reformed Church. The church was becoming increasingly concerned about the scale of the problems it was facing with the condition and efficient use of its 1,700 buildings. I was told that many of them were listed and were a drain on limited resources. It was a serious problem that called for a new solution. Three and a half years later, my colleagues and I have created a new property agency for the United Reformed Church, called One Church, 100 Uses, and here I must declare an interest as a director of the company. This community interest company, a social enterprise, is now actively involved in the redevelopment of more than 30 church sites across England. Working with the Church of Scotland, we find that it shares similar problems. Yet underneath the apparent difficulties, we are discovering opportunities. We have discovered the rich rewards that appear when local communities begin to provide services for themselves. Not only does it save money, it creates healthier, more responsible people and stimulates an enterprise economy, which in turn encourages social cohesion. That is not a bad win-win scenario.

The church is fundamental to this outcome. Indeed, it has always played a central role in the care and service of local communities. The idea of the servant church goes back 2,000 years. The successful recent amendments to the Equality Bill illustrate that there is still a stomach in the Christian churches for us to play this important role. In past times, the church was coming to this caring/provider agenda from a position of authority and power. Today, it comes to it from a position of weakness and vulnerability. Perhaps that in itself is an opportunity.

If the church stops hiding behind committees and archdeacons, and instead shows strong business-like leadership, it can play an important neutral role in bringing partners to the table and in opening up conversations with the health provider, the local authority, the school, the housing provider and the shop. We are doing that on a number of sites across the country.

The church, the local school and the health centre are often the only long-term stable players in a local community, as governments change and countless new policies pass our door. Successive new policies can often further fragment local partnerships in practice and can prevent positive action. But few Ministers stay around long enough to observe the practical consequences of all this activity.
Politicians on all sides have been talking the language of joined-up thinking for some time now, but often it is not happening where it is most needed. Building partnerships is a complicated business, especially given the contradictory and disconnected commissioning processes that are in place. The connections and partnerships that could bring these buildings to life, deepen community cohesion and use limited funds far more efficiently, are just not happening. I could illustrate this in Glasgow, Bradford, Oldham, Gainsborough and Poole in Dorset, but there is not time. Believe me, it is a serious issue.

After 60 years of the state promising and often failing to provide, let us encourage choice and diversity. Let us not assume that the public sector will deliver it all. It will not. In hard economic times people have to huddle together for warmth. In rural communities, the pub, church, post office and village hall are often not sustainable on their own, which is why there are now 12 post offices in Anglican church buildings and in one of our developments we are looking at a police base in the church.

Perhaps I may describe just one example of a working partnership on the ground where we hope to develop some of these themes; namely, Harmans Water, Bracknell. The community centre across the square from the church closed due to health and safety concerns. A small library next to the church is open only 16 hours a week. A new housing development brings some Section 106 funding and a whole new community. The church, which is home to both the United Reformed Church and Anglican congregations, already hosts a range of community services and has insufficient space. With the support of the local authority and Bracknell Forest Homes-the local housing association-our plan is to build a new centre for the community with a wide range of community facilities, services and a new library. There will still be a librarian for probably only 16 hours a week, but it is hoped that the library, which perhaps will be next to a new cafe, will be accessible for more hours with self-service and will be joined by many other information providers. The police want a help point and the local children’s centre, the primary school and the college need a kitchen where families can learn about healthy living, et cetera.

So what are the key messages I should like the Minister to take from this debate? First, the credit crunch has caused many large-scale regeneration projects to stall. I know that because I am involved in one of them. However, often smaller-scale local developments involving church buildings and the clusters of buildings around them are being missed. Developments such as this are less risky and can provide a real opportunity to lift the local quality of an area. But they can happen only if everyone huddles together and pools their budgets.

To grasp these kinds of local opportunities we require focused leadership in the public sector and the churches. These projects do not happen by chance. We also need practical politicians experienced in the workings of the world. Church-based developments can provide them with an opportunity to redefine the role of the politician as the practical person and the bringer of partners to the table. This is where our politics will be renewed; not here in Westminster.

New Labour says that it believes in community, but this Government have often produced lots of strategies, policies, committees and legislation rather than getting involved in the practical realities of a local neighbourhood. I see little evidence that any future Government have woken up to this opportunity either. Politicians need to be grounded in real projects; the micro and the macro are connected, as any business person knows. I seek to present to the Minister today an opportunity that can enable us to use limited public funds more efficiently, to bring life to underused assets and to create social cohesion and a spirit of enterprise in some of our most vulnerable communities.

Finally, I encourage the Minister to take a closer look at these local opportunities to use public money more effectively. I ask Her Majesty’s Opposition whether it is not developments such as this that provide a practical opportunity in communities to explore what statements about a post-bureaucratic world might actually mean in practice.

I thank the Minister for taking part in this debate and the noble Earl, Lord Cathcart, for a helpful discussion of this subject, and I look forward to hearing what they both have to say.

Joe is a Type 1 diabetic and, having graduated from university in 2008, set up a company to develop products that help people to manage their condition. Amongst these is the second edition of his book, “Joe’s Rough Guide to Diabetes” for which he was featured in The Times. Working with Andrew is helping to grow his skills as an entrepreneur, and apply his desire to positively change people’s lives.

Joe co-ordinates Andrew’s speaking engagements and collaborates in One Church, 100 Uses’ projects.

St. Paul’s Way is a community experiencing change. Very visible is the rebuilding of St. Paul’s Way Community School (please see the architect’s visualisation above) where £36million is being spent on rebuilding and equipping this school at the heart of St. Paul’s Way. But this is not just about exciting new school buildings. New head teacher Grahame Price and his team are developing new ways of enthusing students for learning and the lifetime opportunities this will create. For example, with investment from the London Thames Gateway Development Corporation, a million pounds is being spent on equipping the school to take part in the Faraday project, a whole new way of learning about science. Stronger links with the world of work are being planned too. The school hopes in time to be able to link students with work experience at the new health centre and this could lead to jobs in health care, one of the largest sources of employment in Tower Hamlets.

It is not just about major investments at the school. Alongside these there are two other major schemes. Poplar HARCA has already begun refurbishing some flats on the Leopold Estate and it plans that more new homes will follow soon. Poplar HARCA is also developing a major new health centre at William Cotton Place where Tower Hamlets PCT is planning a comprehensive primary care health service for all the local community. It’s vital that these new developments are set in the context of high quality public realm and the partnership has been successful in obtaining £1 million of funding from Transport for London to improve the St. Paul’s Way streetscape.

To read more about this exciting project please click on the link below.

StPaulsWay

A Freshly Squeezed Legacy: can a future government still deliver a successful legacy on a tighter budget?
10th March, 1500-1630
House of Lords, Committee Room 3
Chair: Lord Mawson OBE
Panel: Caroline Spelman MP (Shadow Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government), Hazel Blears MP, Cllr Steven Purcell (Leader of Glasgow City Council) and Francis Done (Chair of Manchester Commonwealth Games Board)

This Group is looking at how we can get the most socio-economic benefit out of large public sector investments. After a first very successful inaugural meeting, the Group is moving on to discuss how we deliver large scale regeneration to achieve a legacy vision in the context of tighter public finances.

With a general election expected to take place this May, the future Government’s budget will be significantly less than in previous years. During the boom years, an ambitious legacy was promised to Glasgow City who are hosting the 2014 Commonwealth Games and London, host City for the Olympic Games 2012. The group will explore whether this ambition is still fully achievable or whether a tight budget will force a reconsideration of priorities.

Using the Manchester 2002 and Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games as a case study, we will ask the following questions:

What are the specific socio-economic benefits of the Games for local people and the city?

Where should we be investing more funds to ensure a better return on the public purse?

What lessons can we learn from past large scale regeneration projects and how can we use these lessons to efficiently deliver a successful legacy and avoid waste?

The APPG exploring Urban Regeneration, Sport and Culture aims to be more of a working group focusing on practical and entrepreneurial solutions rather than just a platform for debate. The first meeting in November was very successful with a lively panel and audience debate and attendance at full capacity.

At this second meeting we will have presentations from Steven Purcell (Leader of Glasgow City Council), Frances Done (Chair of Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games Board), Hazel Blears MP and we will be hearing thoughts from Caroline Spelman MP, Cllr Paul Brickell (Lead Member for 2012 Olympics, London Borough of Newham) and Gillian Evans (Researcher working with the Olympic Park Legacy Company).

These large scale events which are happening in our cities should make a real difference to people’s daily lives and the benefits should go far beyond the immediate physical impact of new facilities, housing and tourism. Each city suffers from pockets of high deprivation and poverty. The APPG will be discussing how we can use regeneration, sport and culture to lift people’s aspirations, encourage better health and increase job prospects.

Andrew has recently been appointed as a non-executive Director of the Olympic Park Legacy Company, and will lead on the development of communities within the Olympic Park.

He is excited by the prospect and will be instrumental in helping the Olympics deliver its long-term vision of vibrant, mixed-used and integrated communities that benefit not just London but the UK as a whole.

Over the next 25 years the Olympic Park Legacy Company will plan, develop and manage the Olympic Park in East London to become, in time, a new and prosperous area of London – a lasting legacy from the 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games.

By using the energy of and investment in the Games and its sporting legacy, a new metropolitan area of the city will be created, focused on vibrant communities, world renowned sporting facilities, cultural excellence, public parkland and open spaces.

Olympic Park Legacy Company website

Diversity and equality can be promoted through the UK’s public services without incurring significant costs or delays in procurement.

This was the message from speakers at the launch of the CBI’s new report Promoting diversity: the power of procurement. It showcases a range of partnerships between CBI member companies and public sector clients which promote diversity and equality agenda alongside improving the performance of the services and the outcomes achieved for the people using them.

The experience of the companies featured in the report is that achieving good outcomes on diversity and equality goes hand in hand with delivering high-quality public services. Examples included in the report include welfare-to-work services in Cornwall and the construction of the London 2012 Olympics aquatics centre in east London.

The report provides practical guidance for public bodies and their suppliers on using the purchase and provision of public services to improve equality and diversity in the communities they serve.

Keynote speaker at the event was Government Equalities Office director general Jonathan Rees. On the panel were Audrey Williams (hosts Eversheds LLP), Armar Johnston (Balfour Beatty), Frances Brennan (Working Links).

Are you an ethically minded entrepreneur motivated by a strong social mission? Starting a social enterprise gives you a more flexibility than a charity, but the reassurance that your values come first…

The three main characteristics most social enterprises have in common are: a viable business that trades services or products, social aims, and social ownership.

Importantly, community ownership and investment means that some or all of the profits of the business go towards its social, or environmental, mission. Most social enterprises do not have shareholders so their social aims are not at risk of being superceded by commercial greed.

However, the actual definition of social enterprise is ‘hotly debated’, says Dan Lehner, Head of Business Development at UnLtdWorld, a social network for linking social entrepreneurs and investors.

The heart of what makes a social enterprise is ‘businesses driven by social or environmental purposes,’ according to the Social Enterprise Coalition… Read the full article at The Ecologist.org