Health Exchange is looking for an experienced Finance Manager to join our successful team.

The post is Full Time and offers a salary of circa £35k.

Having had 2 difficult agency experiences in similar posts we are not interested in approaches from such organisations.

For details or an application please contact Graham<dot>Beaumont<at>healthexchange<dot>org<dot>uk.

The closing date for applications is 24th May 2012.

You can download the person spec here.

Consequently the organisation is offering for sale a range of office furniture which is now surplus to requirement.

This needs to be disposed of as swiftly as possible. If you’re in the market for good quality ergonomic chairs, bookcases, filing cabinets, pedestal desks and so forth, and at unbeatable prices, then click here to see the full list, along with photos, contact details and collection arrangements.

SIB is calling for providers of “investment and/or contract readiness” support to apply for accreditation which will see them become approved providers to the scheme.

The fund expects to make a total of 120-150 grants over a three year period to “social ventures” capable of scaling up and achieving high growth. The grant can be used by successful applicants to finance the specialist assistance they require in order to achieve an agreed “investment and/or contract readiness” plan. Grants are likely to be £50K-£150K.

Now, I have only made a cursory reading of what SIB refers to as “early guidance” (suggesting there may well be more to come) but here’s what I read in to it:

• With grants pitched at £50K-£150K, these will have to be big business cases coming forward.
• Equally, providers of support, one can anticipate, will have to be operating at some considerable scale and capability.
• “Social ventures” applying for grants must do so in partnership with a provider of support of their choice — the guidance states there are “no exceptions” to this. Does this imply that providers will have to do some work up-front at risk, not knowing whether the applicant will be successful or not? The guidance says nothing about this, but it seems an inescapable conclusion to me.

Anyway, make of it what you will. The guidance is here. I think it can be assumed that  SIB is already targetting major consultancies with invitations to consider applying for approved status.

The approved list goes live on the 21st May, according to SIB and the invitation to apply for approved status has been open since 30th April.

We knew already that the Government had watered down the potential of this power by explaining that, even if the expression of interest was accepted by the public body, the effect in many cases would be that the services in question would go out to a procurement exercise. Those initiating the procedure may or may not win this process.

Draft regulations have now been published which list the reasons a public body can give for rejecting an expression of interest under the right to challenge. Our initial optimism, such as it was, has now been severely dampened by this downpour which makes the recent torrential rain look like April showers.

If enacted as set out in the draft, there are ten widely drafted reasons an authority can use to reject an expression of interest. Examples include that “the authority considers … that the relevant body or, where applicable, any member of the consortium of which it is a part, or any sub-contractor referred to in the expression of interest is not suitable,” the authority considers that any information provided is inadequate or inaccurate in a material respect, or that the service is already the subject of a procurement exercise, or the subject of negotiations, or the subject of a possible ‘spin out’ run by at least two employees.

To our mind, the upshot of this is that any authority which wants to reject an expression of interest can do so fairly easily by relying on one or more of the grounds in the legislation. How easy will it be, for example, for a community-based organisation or consortium which is not currently running the service, to submit an expression of interest which contains no material inaccuracies or inadequacies whatsoever? How easy will it be for an organisation to prove in sufficient detail that it, and any sub-contractors or consortium partners are able to take on the service in question? This is in the expression of interest, after all, not in a full tender submission. It looks increasingly like the community has the right to challenge, but an unsympathetic authority has the scope to reject any challenge it wants to.

To succeed, the expression of interest document therfore needs to be clear and focused. From the outset, groups will also need to do their homework as to what will be involved and whether or not they are really prepared to deliver the service in question. This will mean an investment of time to understand the service properly before expressing an interest, as well as in preparation of the expression of interest itself.

So, is this going to be a case of primary legislation promising much and secondary legislation undermining it entirely? Trying to find the positives, at least community groups wanting to express an interest now have a very clear checklist set out in the draft regulations of ‘things to avoid’, and an awareness that the process of the community right to challenge is itself very challenging. Understanding what you need to get where you want is, at least, a good start in getting there.

The report — the first attempt to ‘audit’ the first two years of Cameron’s key policy — was covered yesterday in the Guardian here. The research was undertaken by The Civic Exchange with support from the Democratic Audit and DHA. The work was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

You can read the full report here. Frankly, little of what it says will be news to many in the sector but the executive summary does provide a useful overview of not just the audit findings but also the roots of the big society/civic renewal idea in public policy over recent years. Worth a look.

An evaluation report, Green Deal Opportunities for Social Enterprise, has just been published.

The report shows the potential social enterprises have to act as ‘neighbourhood gateways’, popularising and marketing energy efficient retrofitting of homes, and providing routes to other social enterprises and SMEs that can deliver installation of energy saving measures and energy advice, further increasing the local multiplier effect.

Go to the LWM website here or go straight to the report here.

Social Enterprise Mentor, is the leading regional networking event for social enterprise and this month we have two event for social enterprises, supporters or those just wanting to find out more…

Our ‘on the move’ networking event, run in conjunction with SEWM CIC, takes us to Solihull this month for a special event and announcement from Blaze FM and the Social Enterprise Mark. The event takes place from 3.00pm to 5.00pm on Wednesday 16th May at Solihull College. For more information and to register for this free event click here.

Our regular Birmingham returns at 3.00pm to 5.00pm on Monday 14th May at our new venue BVSC. This event features a special announcement about new forthcoming services from SE Central and details of future networking plans from Social Enterprise Mentor. For more information and to register for this free event click here.

But did you know that what started as a fairly modest idea to promote more inter-trading between social enterprises and third sector organisations in Birmingham has taken on truly national proportions?

Well over 300 social enterprises now offer over 450 services and products on the Shop for Change website — you can see them all here. And the directory is still growing. If you want to buy from or sell to social enterprises in Birmingham, the West Midlands and beyond, SfC now offers one of the fastest routes to identifying them.

And recently, as covered elsewhere on this blog, SfC has branched out with a new pop-up store offering monthly special offers and exclusives that you can’t buy anywhere else.

There have been many of us over recent years who have been involved in attempts to develop social enterprise directories of various sorts. It always seems such a good idea — and at first sight, an easy one. But it isn’t. To work, businesses have to vote with their feet — or at least, their keyboards and mouses.

And in the case of SfC they clearly are. Has your enterprise registered?

As a voluntary sector, not for profit organisation, Enta works across Birmingham to provide learning opportunities, training courses, information, advice and guidance, and employment support to help people think about and prepare for paid employment. It also runs a range of further social enterprises including a conference venue, two cafes, outside catering services and a construction/landscaping business.

The Board of Directors meet six times a year to support strategic direction and set policy, goals and targets for Enta, as well as ensuring the organisation works towards its mission of changing lives and communities in Birmingham.  This is a voluntary non paid position.

If you have vision, sound judgement, experience in legal, financial, business, human resources or educational arenas, and feel able to contribute to a growing third sector organisation at a key point in our history, we would love to hear from you.

We have had some applications already and are reviewing these.  If you feel you could add to our important work then please send us your C.V. and a short statement saying what you think you have to offer.

Please send applications to Pat Hayes at pathayes<at>entapeople<dot>com. For more information visit the website or ring 0121 380 4800.

Unlike so much that is written about impact measurement, this is short, practical and accessible. It also focuses on what many often miss — it’s about winning hearts and minds!