On Monday, 7th March, Scottish Govt (SG) announced its decision, that the single intermediary for the social enterprise community will be Social Enterprise Scotland and that, from July, Senscot’s funding will cease. As one of the founders of Senscot (1999), you can imagine how I feel about this. When calmer, I’ll write a considered piece about this decision – my first reaction is that Senscot freely endorses certain important principles which SG doesn’t like.
The first Senscot influence they’ll remove is: “The third sector is separate from the private sector”. As, throughout Europe, Senscot defines social enterprise as ‘asset-locked’ – whereas ‘impact investing’ seeks a” fundamental convergence of the social and commercial sectors – from a completely different fields, to a common space”. Scottish Govt can now switch to the model preferred by the USA/English money markets.
The second Senscot influence being subdued is: “The third sector is separate from the state”; our field famously defined by Beveridge as “action by citizens not under direction of any authority wielding the power of the state”. Scottish Govt seeks to ‘streamline’ our third sector infrastructure with a reduced number of big, complicit delivery agencies; this annexation has proved easy.
If I was younger, I’d get out amongst the SENs cultivating an appetite for their own independent representative body; not state-funded – outside the tent, pissing in. But being old has its own compensations. In the garden this week (very well clad), I sit for a while facing full sunlight – let it seep to my soul. It’s likely that I have survived my 82nd winter, I think, and can plan for the year ahead. But not Senscot.
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Sunday’s Observer carried a rare article by Neal Ascherson; what a pleasure it is to read such a gifted writer, who actually understands the history and culture of both Russia and the Ukraine; I learned so much from this piece. Ascherson is unequivocal, that Putin is a psychopathic dictator – but he also recognises that not all Russia’s historical grievances are propaganda. He speculates on possible outcomes. With some shock, the Ukraine tragedy has made me aware that the lifestyle I’ve enjoyed – my lunches in Spanish beach bars – depended on direct physical security; uniformed men and women and the backstop of coercive force. Passing a large part of this burden to the USA doesn’t make it any less true.
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When, last May, Nicola Surgeon picked her new ministerial team, it was obvious the third sector has dropped in priority; not even mentioned. Scottish Govt’s recent publication of its economic strategy has prompted this strong response from Anna Fowlie of SCVO, expressing her ‘bitter disappointment’ that the strategy fails to adequately recognise the role of Scotland’s third sector. There’s a pattern here.
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According to the Scottish Public Health Observatory (Scot PHO), Scotland has around 5,000 unexplained excess deaths annually – our drug and alcohol problems are a source of national shame. This week, Audit Scotland said that it was very difficult to find out what Scottish Govt’s annual £50 million was being spent on. Auditor General, Stephen Boyle, has called for more transparency.
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During COP26, it got home to me, that saving our planet from climate change would require us in the west to change our lifestyles – reduce our emissions, but Govt’s are too scared to spell this out. This links to a Guardian article which details six lifestyle changes which would keep global heating at 1.5c – but you’re not going to like the list (one flight in three years).
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An important scientific study, led by Edinburgh University, has pinpointed 16 genetic variants which put people at risk of serious illness; which is why some people develop life-threatening Covid, while others get no symptoms. The study is a major leap forward in understanding how our genetic make-up influences severe illness – the value of ‘whole genome sequencing’.
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This is a link to the history of SENScot, from 1999 to 2020; the text is 19 pages, covering the emergence of Scotland’s social enterprise community.
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Norman MacCaig (1910 – 1996) wrote a poem ‘Like you, like everyone.’ I remember it in the context of today’s intro—’That we all move in whatever wind blows from whatever spaces.’
“Forgive me, unknown creators, forbears whose blood flickers and dwindles in me. Like you, I’m a leaf that hangs down helpless on the tree of my people. And like you I move in whatever wind blows from whatever spaces. Forgive the love I feel in only my way and the griefs I suffer in only my way of suffering. For Time’s microbes work ceaselessly, changing you and me and everything with no thought of forgivingness”.
