Social entrepreneur, Vanessa Augustus met with Lord Nat Wei, the government’s chief advisor on “Big Society”, on 16 July 2010 to share ideas about how Big Society can happen. The event was hosted by the Commission for the New Economy to introduce Lord Wei to a select group of Greater Manchester’s social entrepreneurs and change makers.
Lord Wei is on an informal fact finding mission to learn about the “flavour” of “Big Society” here in Manchester and is intent on meeting members of the community to build long term relationships. Vanessa Augustus spoke with Lord Wei about her self-financed social enterprise, the Social Solutions Academy which she set up in September 2009. It is an innovative network bringing together leaders of social change from public, private and third sector to find practical solutions to social problems.
Lord Wei is firmly behind social enterprises and sees them as a means to develop leadership within the community, and enable local people to define their own services. He also talked about simplified commissioning with the ultimate long term vision to be a move to citizen based commissioning. Social Solutions Academy is building a reputation as a dynamic social innovation forum and is the embodiment of this “Big Society” concept.
Through intelligent networking, partnerships & shared learning members of the academy are coming together with private sector organizations as well as other social enterprises to deliver services, social enterprises are receiving active and on-going business support to build their enterprises and the academy is alive with unique ideas for the design and delivery of public services.
Lord Wei said of Social Solutions Academy “This is an example of innovative social participation”, he went on to say “We are looking for opportunities to join up existing ideas and enterprises within communities. The Government ultimately wants to enable citizens to take power for themselves.” He also talked about the government’s plans for the Big Bank whereby funds will be released from dormant accounts administered by credit unions and cooperatives, who will work with existing networks to find projects that need to be scaled up.
Speaking of her experience of the meeting Vanessa Augustus commented “It was fantastic meeting Lord Wei. He showed great interest in the innovations taking place here in Manchester I feel like things are being turned on their head and there are great opportunities for local social enterprises to prosper for the benefit of the community.” New East Manchester was at the heart of the industrial revolution at the turn of the 19th Century and with resident social entrepreneurs like Vanessa Augustus it is set to be at the centre of social revolution in the 21st Century.
Words by Tamsin Feilden-Providis Group www.provadisgroup.com