Yes.

We’ve had the scale, I suppose, to at least have any number of learning experiences, which have given us an ability to bring some of these insights together.

Yes. It does there. Some of this is quite Akina-centric. We didn’t consult on this document. It was our document. We can only really speak from our point of view. It’s also fair to say, in terms of sector development, we probably have a fairly unique insight, in terms of ...

What we are basically saying, there are a number of barriers here where we’re not asking government to lead, but government has to be an enabler. There are certain things that only government has the capability and resources to support. It is a traditional role of business to step in ...

What we haven’t had has been this more intentional or formalized approach to the support and development of social enterprise. While some organizations have done well, it’s been inefficient. We haven’t been realizing the full potential of our people and the full potential of the sector.

This is probably the stuff which is most specific and of interest in terms of New Zealand in a development context. Like anywhere, there has been social enterprise forever really, or at least 300 years. The Maori would say much, much longer in New Zealand.

Yeah. The point of this slide is really building confidence in politicians here that this isn’t something which is dreamed up in a backwater in New Zealand. There are probably issues of veracity in any number of these statements. Again, the purpose is really just to give a sense of ...

We’ve learned the hard way, in some respects. There is a lot of energy and interest in social enterprise. But it has to be reinterpreted to come from a place which is owned by Maori. That’s going to be a really interesting dynamic to the upcoming world forum.

There is a Maori term called kaupapa, which is the way of doing, effectively. Social enterprise with kaupapa Maori is one of the conversations now. It’s like, "We don’t want just another Western idea foisted upon us." A more well-intended colonialism, but it’s still a colonization of ideas.

That’s a conversation that is being had. We have been doing quite a bit of work recently of social enterprise in the Maori context. What’s been clear is Maori are interested but also want to take it apart and put it back together in their own understanding, values and image.

Yeah, rangatiratanga. It’s the principle of self-determination for Maori people.

Nothing else in there. They are generic, not least because I took a lot of them directly from the Scottish work.

Of course, the third part about data measurement is it’s good management information. Every social enterprise should be incredibly keen to actually understand the effect it’s having, so it can improve its work.

Yeah. Exactly. That’s what I’m saying. One part of it is about that kind of traditional public accountability. But the other thing is the value driver. If you can demonstrate the value you’re creating, that’s actually a real enabler.

Yeah. It’s less subjective. More full value accounting will actually differentiate different services.

It’s not just about supporting entrepreneurs and organizations. It’s about trying to create all the conditions which generate the maximum value for society.

There are whole heaps of stuff around the way we set up the markets, rather than just build the enterprises. That goes back to this infrastructure building.

Whereas, in Scotland, you had a far more intelligent conversation around which organizations are best to deliver what in a social economy. It’s not to say that big corporates don’t have a role. They definitely do. But also recognizing that other organizations may be better placed and also create more ...

You can’t rely on government to be sophisticated in that way. We’ve seen in other sectors that they end up outsourcing based on price, not necessarily value. I can remember good conversations with colleagues in the UK that spoke around, quite cynically, that social enterprise was used as the acceptable ...

It’s more the case of, I suppose, make it be more explicit around the type of services that you’re procuring. For example, if you’re procuring doorstep meals to the elderly, maybe you’re not just procuring the food service. You’re also making sure that you’re explicit about procuring the human, face-to-face ...

Yeah. It needs sophisticated procurement. I don’t think you can discriminate necessarily who goes for contracts sometimes. What would you say? You need a certain legal form.

Whether we run old people’s homes or prisons, maybe we run them in the same kind of way. I don’t know. There’s a key question here as that outsourcing agenda continues. It’s already here. Who do we want to enable to be able to win those contracts? People that are ...

There will be a challenge of adaptation from traditional service providers. There’s an opportunity for new mission-led organizations to do things in good ways. There is the challenge, from big established commercial outfits, who are just expanding the list of things they do.

An organization, which was set up as a charitable organization, has been doing this for years on a roll over contract is suddenly going head-to-head with an international corporate, which says, "We’ll install a microwave and deliver you 30 frozen meals a month."

Well, no. This is why it’s a contested space. Government may actually, depending on who the government is, be less interested in who delivers the contract. They will be going out. It will be like, "OK, we are contracting for door-delivered meals for the elderly."

Or do we want organizations being able to successfully compete for contracts, but are still driven from a place of care and compassion? There’s suddenly a real keen interest in making sure that mission-led organizations have the capability to succeed, when they’re in direct competition with organizations which are driven ...

Not just easier. It makes it compulsory potentially. You get to an interesting situation there, in terms of who we want, as citizens, succeeding in those environments. Do we want a large international corporate, in the way that a lot of those corporates are running prisons now, who may want ...

Yeah, potentially. Unless there is a radically brave and bold government, there will be an evolution of the way things work, before we get there.

Sometimes an enterprise is not an enterprise through an autonomous decision. It’s just the market conditions change around an organization. They find themselves having to trade, whether everybody likes it or not.

This is outside of technology, but as soon as government, for example, says, "Rather than us deliver services to people with disabilities, rather than us contracting someone else to deliver those services...", going to the point where we’re actually delegating budgets to service users, who are then choosing who they ...

Organizations, which didn’t exist in markets, will find themselves in a performance. They’ll be effectively trading. There is a sense of social enterprise is not just the sort of thing of social people wanting to do social enterprise themselves.

What I’m saying is that organizations, which previously would never have seen themselves as social enterprises, effectively were grant-funded, because people hoped they would deliver stuff, but didn’t know, will, before they know it, actually be working in environments, where they are being directly financially rewarded for the success of ...

The technology and the data piece are us to enable, to appraise the effectiveness of different interventions in new ways. That will inevitably drive new market models.

Likewise, now, the big data thing. The governments are being able to drill down, literally, to a kid in a school in any given town, and understand how they are interacting with different services over time and therefore given the sense of what is being effective or not.

The environmental sector’s been doing this. Things like the carbon markets, in that sense. Technology as an enabler to do things which are large-scale and complex. Satellite technology was essential for anything to do with forestry, in terms of the carbon market.

There’s a sense of if you can better appraise where baselines are, and then what the changes are against that baseline, you can actually value the effectiveness of interventions in different ways.

Our government, specifically, is making a big play around the use of data in forming how to target the provision of services. That will also play into how those services are then funded.

It’s also an enabler, as in we are able to measure things that we previously hadn’t been able to. In that sense it’s a value-driver, as well.

That accountability goes in a number of ways. One, it’s that traditional idea of being held to account, so you better make sure you’re doing good.

Again, hopefully getting people in power to see that there are things here that resonate with them, where they might not have previously connected social enterprise to.

The purpose of putting this in, again, it’s almost going back to the thing I was saying on the front page, was this is not a niche thing. It’s actually a dynamic model, which is being enabled or driven by a number of other, bigger things in the world.

This is plagiarized in many sense, referenced, what I thought what was really good about the Scottish Social Enterprise Strategy they released at the end of last year was they located social enterprise within a number of wider meta-trends.

Yes. The thing is, the business itself has to be viable, whether that business is nested in a set of other activities, which are funded in different ways. What you don’t want is a business model which requires an ongoing subsidy.

Exactly, you can stack these things in different ways. It’s great if you have the opportunity, the time to have the conversations with people, but sometimes you’ve got to try and find shortcuts.

...but we want to say it is, also, there’s a nuance here, in terms of there may be a completely viable business model, which is then best placed to receive grant to do stuff which is sub-market, because it can actually make that money go further because those grants don’t ...

That, in itself, is viable, but...

We also recognize that there are some very good social enterprises, which are within a larger charitable or not-for-profit organization, where there is a distinct trade...

One of the problems, this is almost a guideline. This is also recognizing that there is an audience here, which is potentially not aware or informed about this. We’re basically trying to say these things actually do have viable business models. That’s almost the key message.

This notion of intent, rather than artificial constraints.

I think some of these boundaries have been, ultimately, about managing risk, so have become ideological. It’s important to renegotiate some of our thinking around that.