Company Boards are missing out on a massive talent pool because no-one's asked them about caring

'Professional me' works with various Boards of companies, charities, social enterprises, etc as a trusted advisor, consultant and facilitator.

But as some may know, I'm also an unpaid carer - which limits the ways in which I can work, and the ways in which organisations might have otherwise benefitted from my support.

And I'm stating these things because they reflect national and growing trends that I think we should be having more conversations around. But don't take my word for it:

- Carers UK have identified roughly 600 people quit their paid jobs and careers every day, because the demands on them as unpaid carers reaches a tipping point that means they're no longer able to live these dual lives. 

- There's a Government consultation on how employers might do more to help keep people in work when they're also unpaid carers, because it recognises the future impact of this growing issue (that many people struggle to talk about or recognise).

the scale of the problem of unpaid carers being absent from company boards

In my journey to date, I've only been sharing the experiences and insights of how the self-employed and freelancers like me are constantly re-mixing our lives and work to reconcile the caring responsibilities with a need to pay the rent. But I've recently realised that there's another part of our wider economy and business ecosystems that is also 'missing out' because it's never thought about unpaid carers - corporate boards.

Now, some people reading this will be thinking 'so what?' - how big an issue can this really be, if no-one's been talking about it in the usual governance circles (Institute of Directors, etc)? But let's have a quick check of the data on this:

- Carers UK data from 2025 says roughly 300,000 people who are unpaid carers also hold senior management and Director roles. I think these are largely people who were already in posts before becoming carers, as this research also highlights how being an unpaid carer significantly actively limits the career development and opportunities for roughly half of all such people. And remember that this is a shrinking number because this group of people are amongst those 600 who are being forced to quit every day...

- Now, assuming a roughly even split in this figure between senior managers and Directors, and Companies House data about how many Company Directors there are, creates a ratio of 2%.

Only 2% of corporate boards are tapping into, and benefiting from, the insight, expertise, and skills of people that might otherwise be enabling them to further grow, expand, etc.

Let me put this another way - 98% of all Boards are missing out of what might otherwise be helping them become more successful and impactful, simply because they've never thought about how they'd support or accommodate a candidate who's also an unpaid carer.

why has this blind spot in corporate governance never been spotted before now?

This isn't their fault - no-one's ever talked with them about it before: the IoD, Actuate, and other national bodies who represent, support, and advocate for this organ of governance all seem equally quiet on this too when I've looked into their messaging and content about the things Boards should be considering, and how individuals can make the most of opportunities to join them.

time to start a new rallying call?

I've shared in the past how current national policy and legislation about unpaid carers is already actively discriminating against about 1 million of us, simply because it never assumed that someone who is self-employed or a small business owner would ever also be an unpaid carer.

So is it time to also start 'poking a stick' at the worlds of corporate governance, as it might seem that this other end of the economic ecosystem is similarly unknowingly ignorant - which comes with increasing future risks and costs to us all...

  

more awkward moments for CIC Regulator?

OK - so this post is in my bucket of 'more likely to cause upset and controversy', but sometimes you have to be unpopular for the sake of trying to further a debate or conversation, in trying to figure something out for yourself...

I've never hidden my confusion about CICs since they were first mooted by a drunken solicitor, as to what it is that they actually add to the social enterprise sector (there's nothing unique in them that you can't have in any other legal form, they're no more attractive or eligible to apply to grant making bodies than a 'regular' company, and don't enjoy any of the tax breaks that charities do).

But I was always encouraged by the CIC Regulator in its early days - for its being open to engage in critical debate, and willingness to hear and receive arguments that there may be parts of the CIC design which needed to be reviewed.

However, in more recent years, I can't help but start to think that the CIC Regulator is increasingly doing not just itself a disservice, but also the CICs that it oversees, and the wider social enterprise community:

In the past the CIC Regulator has:

• Publicly stated that in order to protect trust in the CIC brand, that it will never disclose or reveal any investigations it opens, or actions it takes, against any CIC (including to the persons who may have initially raised concerns about it with them). But such secrecy surely only builds mistrust, especially as its in complete opposition to the position of every other regulatory body.

• Stated untruths about the general public's relative trust in CICs over Charities.

• Created a governance code for CICs, to help guide and inform Directors of them as to best understanding the legal duties associated with being such, and how to effectively lead a CIC in this capacity - but never told any CIC about it (and it's not even hosted anywhere in their website pages).

• Admitted that there are parts of the CIC legislation that don't make sense, and shouldn't be as they are, but don't have any direct powers to act on this when it's brought to their attention.

And more recently: 

from late 2023 to the present - I've noticed that I'm increasingly meeting more 'new' CICs (registered in last few years) who are missing core details in their registration documents which should have meant that the CIC Regulator automatically rejected their application: 

• they don't have any stated social objects clauses in their Articles; 
• they don't have any statements about how their profits will be used; 
• there's contradictory details about the named recipient in their asset lock.

- These are part of the key features of being a CIC, which are apparently regulated and assured by the CIC Regulator (except they're obviously not).

in 2024 - the BBC exposes a the illegal, unethical, and questionable management practices of a CIC that have been taking place over several years. The feature drew national interest, response, and comment from the Fundraising Regulator, Police, safeguarding bodies, and even the Charity Commission. But there were no responses from the CIC Regulator to any requests made to it for comment (including not even an acknowledgement of the request).

in the spring of 2025 - I've just been approached by a CIC who's annual accounts were accepted by Companies House, but it's taken the CIC Regulator a further 6 weeks to spot and request that they amend the CIC34 part of their return in relation to an oversight on the CICs parts about a note in the accounts. 

But the CIC has fulfilled its filing obligations with Companies House, so is surely legally compliant - its hard to understand how the CIC Regulator would then take nearly another 2 months to check what was submitted: a Regulator is surely supposed to check everything is in order before accepting them as being filed? So if Companies House have already accepted the accounts (which the CIC34 forms part of), then it's hard to see what/how the CIC Regulator can do to enforce getting any such oversights subsequently resolved, as they relate to documents that have already been legally accepted? 

The only resolution I can currently think of to this contradiction is that CICs are subject to even more confusing regulation, which means that even though they've been told by one regulator that they're compliant, another could then overrule that decision - which in this instance would mean that the CIC in question is suddenly and unexpectedly facing backdated fines, prosecution, and being struck off the register by Companies House for not submitting compliant accounts when they were supposed to have (even though they were told they had at the time), because the 2 regulators that CICs are subject to, don't seem to be able to work that well together as we all think they do?

I know many people extoll CICs as a great legal form - and I've always been open to hearing their arguments, experiences, and evidences. On occasion, I've also agreed with them that this legal form really was the best choice for them. But when the regulator of a legal form that was so publicly marred in controversy as it was in the national media last year; and when so many 'advisers' seem to keep reiterating 'truth illusions' about CICs; and that their Regulator seems to be increasingly 'asleep at the wheel', surely only makes us more concerned about how far we can trust and have confidence in any enterprise adopting this status?

But as always, I'm open to people helping me spot what I've otherwise missed, and if the weight of evidence so compels me as it has in the past, to once again change my mind...

  

  

merging not closing - the future of charities?

Regular readers of my blog will know that I enjoy analysing a good data set - and trying to turn them into simple charts that usually make everyone who seems them stop in their tracks and start to rethink what they thought they understood and knew.

Well, it's time for another 'pause and wonder' moment, as I turn my spreadsheets' gaze on charity mergers...

In the past I've looked at data on the 'churn rate' of charities (how many are being wound up each year, and also in comparison to the extent to which other legal forms are being wound up) - but recently, I came across the register of every charity merger since the end of 2007!

Now, despite my having been involved in 'refereeing' some mergers between charities in the past, it's always felt to me that there's something of a taboo about charities merging - Trustees don't usually seem that comfortable wanting to talk about it (unless their charity is in immediate threat of going bankrupt), by which point any other charities doesn't want to entertain taking it on as a liability which would drain and distract from their existing resources. Perhaps this is why about 3% of all charities are wound up each year in comparison to the 0.2% who merge. Does the variance in these figures suggest that charities are finding it easier to wind up, rather than be able to successfully merge with another charity?

This hypothesis, coupled with the time that a merger between charities can take (6-12 months if you want to do it properly?), seems to suggest that merging as a means for a charity to continue to see its purposes achieved beyond it's own existence is usually not taken up or enacted, even if it may transpire to be the best choice: Trustees are simply leaving things too late in the hope that something will magically resolve before feeling they can start talks with other charities about a merger option while there's still plenty of time (and reserves) to do things calming and in a less risky way.

But what of this 16-year data set about charity mergers I teased you with at the start?

Well, here's the chart:

And to help you make sense of the squiggles in it 

• the blue line shows the number of charity mergers happening each year. Interestingly, these started to significantly increase in the years BEFORE the Covid pandemic, and have now started to drop, even during the cost of living crisis. This suggests that massive financial shocks to the sector are not having any influence on charities exploring merging.
• the orange line shows the average number of mergers each year over the last 16 years. 
• the dotted line is the next one of interest: it shows the linear trend of charity mergers over the last 16 years - admittedly, it's rising very slowly, but it's rising nonetheless, which suggests that ever so slowly, more charities are starting to pursue the merger option to best safeguard their purposes and support for their communities. For example - in the period 2016-2022, the likelihood a charity would merge increased by roughly 75%, in comparison with the likelihood a charity would be wound up increasing by approximately 10%. 

But is it too little too late?

We're still seeing only 0.2% of all charities completing a merger each year in comparison to the far larger 3% who are wound up.

Perhaps this chart and the notes below it will help more Trustees start to explore the merger option sooner rather than later, and so better protect the people they were originally set up to support?  And if they do, could this see a flipping of the current numbers, so that in the future, more charities merge than are wound up?

social enterprise legal structures for humans

Some people regard me as an expert authority on legal and governance forms for social enterprise, community businesses, and co-operatives - and while I always encourage people not to trust any guidance I offer them on this topic (because I'm not academically accredited in legal stuff, and more importantly because I'm not the one who's going to be legally responsible for administering the chosen form), people take encouragement from my achievements in changing company law, navigating Society Rules with the FCA, and finding paths through charity legislation.

Over the decades that I've been supporting people understand these choices, I've created a few tools/prompts to help focus discussions and reflections ('CHAMP' and 'Adrian's 4-boxes') - but this post isn't about those tools - instead it's about a 3-part limited youtube series I was invited to be part of the 'main cast' for.

A contact through one of my networks had approached me to ask if I could help them explore and understand what the best legal form for a new social enterprise they were developing might be. And as we talked about how I might offer guidance and assistance, we hit on the idea of making this a 'performance piece' - drawing back the curtain on how people usually go through this process as an encouragement to the wider sector, and also a working out of some of their (and the emerging enterprises') values.

So we scheduled 3 afternoons to talk though approaches to not only understanding why this legal form question is so important to get right, but the different ways we can pick and choose between them, and finally, applying all of this learning in real time/live to their nascent social enterprise.

There's an 'official' long post on LinkedIn by Matthew Bellringer (the contact that sparked this) where you can get the official story of how this series came to be: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/foundations-thriving-social-enterprise-matthew-bellringer/ but I wanted to take the opportunity to reflect on how I found this process, in it being different to the ways in which I usually offer this type of support - to pull out what surprised me that I hadn't considered before, what was an encouragement in allowing more time and space to explore than is usually available, and some of the things which you don't normally hear or read about in this area.

So - the below points are what I think are useful framing/warm-up for anyone thinking of approaching either choosing or reviewing a legal or structural form for their social enterprise - if you want to know more about them, you'll have to follow the links to youtube and watch all 3 episodes...

- Comparing legal structures to buying second-hand car: you wouldn't buy a car without wanting to know some of its history to assure you that it's been built well, and looked after, so why don't we seek the same assurances when deciding between legal forms?

- The risks of using data that maps legal forms used by social enterprise in helping us choose one for our own: as part of the episodes, we looked at research into how far different legal forms are popular/less popular by the wider social enterprise sector. But as you'll see as you watch this segment, this mapping - as undertaken by national sector bodies, often presents a contradictory picture of findings. As with all research, what you find depends on how you ask the question, and whom you ask it of. And it seems that our sector leaders can sometimes do this in ways that might not seem to be that robust..?  

- None of the existing tools designed to help you plan your social enterprise model (social enterprise canvases, specialist business plan templates, etc) help you relate your ethos and values to the legal form you'll pick. Which seems a bit bonkers, because your chosen legal form is probably one of the best ways you have to make sure said ethos and values can be best protected into the future. That's why I developed my 'CHAMP' framework, which is profiled in detail through these episodes.

- Your legal structure as a social enterprise can influence your credibility to lobby and speak out on social issues. For example, charities and CICs are banned from undertaking political activities: but if we're serious about creating systemic change as a social enterprise, then at some point we have to engage with the policy and law makers (which perversely, our chosen form may actually prevent us from being able to do!).

- The problem with all of the toolkits designed to help making the process of picking a legal form easier is that they assume you understand the jargon, and underlying concepts associated with legal forms and governance. Which most of us don't, which explains why these toolkits are so underutilised by the wider sector.

- There's a confusion about Members, members, and membership, that knots so may people up when approaching social enterprise legal forms: one has legal power over you, one is a supportive friend, and the other is about collective activism that influences your decision making. Can you tell which is which?

- Stickers and badges, or legal power – which would people prefer to have in your social enterprise? And which would you want people to have? (remember that there are wider trends going on in society that means formal membership bodies are generally seeing their numbers start to plateau and decline - people may be more interested in being part of you for specific periods, rather than for life).

- We managed to compress over 400 years of legal structures for social enterprise into just over 10 minutes. A new personal best for me!

- How the regulator for your chosen social enterprise legal form can strengthen others' trust in your venture. None of the toolkits or other materials 'out there' that I come across to help you decide about legal forms ever talk about the regulators: what they can do to you, how they can support and protect you, and how they may influence how others see you. But this is also a far wider issue and problem: I also see it a lot of start-up programmes, where social entrepreneurs are supported and encouraged to start-up and incorporate their ventures, but then given no support in knowing how to 'look after it' with their respective regulator - leading many early stage social enterprises to suffer fines, penalties, and even enforced winding up because no-one explained to them about the regulators... 

- It turns out that knowing how to bake cakes can be very helpful in informing how we approach designing different membership models in social enterprise legal forms.

- Campfire songs can be equally important in the selection of choosing a legal form for a social enterprise.

- and finally - why every social enterprise should be wary of S&M clubs if they’re going to be a CIC.

I've found myself enjoying this process of working with a group to find an answer to a question, and also that it's encouraged us to take more time in how we consider the options and implications - despite doing the whole thing remotely to each other with video calls, etc, it's felt like it's helped to make choosing a legal form a process that's allowed us to be more human. 

Episode 1: what's a social enterprise, and why do I care?  

https://youtu.be/5T7TzanQh0s 

Episode 2: what do social enterprise legal structures mean to me? 

https://youtu.be/EaRRsWPfDK0

Episode 3: social enterprise in the real world. 

https://youtu.be/JmEi3b6f9_g 

Why I think Ed Mayo got it right (but mostly wrong) about co-ops and charities

Ed Mayo blogged recently about how he saw charities and co-ops being able to learn more from each other than is traditionally thought (after all: charities are based on philanthropic gifts and a desire to help out other people, whereas co-ops are based on an ethos of mutual self-help through economic trading).

And I was interested in what he had to say because I've also often thought that many other movements and sectors are more aligned to co-ops than might appear at first glance (for example - trade unions; but more on that later...).

But as much as I like Ed (after all, he did buy me a round of whiskey after I called him out at a conference he was chairing!), I can't help but feel he only scratched the surface - and I think that co-ops and charities are much more aligned with each other in more fundamental ways that he argued in his piece.

Ed pointed to 3 areas that related to how many charities are seeking to encourage more open memberships and participatory governance (both principle tenants of co-ops), and exploring 'social investment'. But these could equally apply to many other types of organisations within the wider and broader social enterprise movement.

Sorry Ed, but I have an idea that co-ops and charities are much more closely related, and at fundamental levels:

Firstly, lets look in general terms, starting with the values that define co-ops - 

• self-help, self-responsibility - internal to co-ops and their members, these are both things that charities would agree that they try to encourage and nurture within the people they support
• democracy - as Ed highlights in his blog, participatory governance is something that's a growing trend amongst charities
• equality and equity - are both enshrined in charity law to ensure that charities support people and communities in a transparent and fair way, regardless of circumstance
• solidarity - it's extremely rate to find a charity that isn't working collaboratively with other charities, or part of bodies such as the ncvo (the charities' counterpart to CooperativesUK)

And going on from that, lets then look at the principles through which co-ops enact these values - 

• voluntary and open membership - charities offer support without any condition of a person being a member, in much the same way as many co-ops
• democratic member control - membership charities have AGMs and other governance functions that mean their Trustees remain accountable to the members
• member economic participation - OK, so you got me on this one. This is pretty much co-ops only (although I do know of lots of co-ops where members aren't engaged economically with what their co-op does...)
• autonomy and independence - just like co-ops, charities are required by law to be free from any undue control or influence over them by means of corporate membership or private ownership
• education, training, and information - just as co-ops need to ensure their members are supported to be able to fully discharge their responsibilities of being such, so charities also need to be offering the same 
• Concern for community - a principle of co-ops, this is a mandatory expectation on charities through the public benefit reporting requirements that they're subject to

But the correlations don't stop there:

1. There are examples of recognised co-ops also being registered charities (for example the Co-op College)
2. The development and support needs of co-ops and charities are often the same 
3. Co-ops and charities are both recognised as being pillars of the wider social enterprise/Third/social sector (as typified by the mapping undertaken by the likes of Social Enterprise UK, and ncvo grouping them together)
4. In manifesting and managing their values and principles, some co-ops have created separate charities
5. Just as charities can trade, many co-ops can also access and be awarded grant funding 

So - charities and co-ops are closer bed-fellows that some might care to admit. And that means that when we think about who we should look to for inspiration and models of practice to learn from, each shouldn't automatically dismiss the other.

And to end where I began - co-ops and unions are closer than many might think in many ways, and this is being recognised and furthered through memorandums of understanding being created between some of the federal bodies of each sector. So might we see similar agreements and commitments starting to appear between the bodies that represent, support, and advocate for charities and co-ops in the future..?  

how the CIC Regulator protects people's trust in social enterprises by not telling anyone anything about the complaints or concerns we make to them...

If the title of this post sounds counter-intuitive, that's because I'm still struggling to reconcile the inspiration for it: a statement by the CIC Regulator in their latest annual report about how they strive to help protect the CIC brand:

"our approach is to neither confirm nor deny whether an investigation is taking place...to protect the integrity of the CIC." (p.12)

and if you follow this through to the CIC Regulator's published guidance on making complaints about CICs, you'll find that if you do raise a concern, you'll find that this opaqueness goes ever further in that they won't "publish or tell the complainant about the outcome." (p4)

This seems to be a little odd at best for a number of reasons:

1) all other regulators are usually transparent about investigations they opened and reached a decision on (unless there are over-riding legal reasons or concerns);

2) a 'back of the envelope' study I did into CIC complaints a while ago found that we, the general public, were increasingly raising concerns about them to the Regulator, year on year - and...

3) ...as most complaints received by the Regulator relate to a CICs governance, then why not share some of the details of these with us all, so we can better structure and manage CICs to avoid common pitfalls and mistakes in better protecting the shared brand and respective integrity of the wider CIC community..?

Worryingly, the CIC Regulator also reveals in this latest annual report, that for the first time since CICs were introduced (14 years ago) they've actually acted on a complaint to investigate the affairs of a CIC. (Although they don't disclose any details of this, so we can't learn from other's mistakes in strengthening our own respective understandings and practices).

There's a relationship between trustworthiness and transparency, and if the CIC Regulator isn't being transparent about how they're handling the concerns people are raising about individual CICs, then there's a limit to how far we'll not only be able to feel we can trust them to protect the reputation of the social enterprises they're responsible for, but also how much faith individual CICs will have in them to act with any integrity themselves as their regulator.

All of this isn't meant as another CIC-bashing post (goodness knows, I seem to make enough of those already!), but part of my questioning aloud about some of the wider practices in the social enterprise sector that more of us should surely be aware of and asking about, if we're to make sure that as a movement, we're as credible and impact-ful as we have the potential to be.

But, all in all, I'm reminded of a post I made about the CIC Regulator a few years back, wondering aloud why it was that they were giving away so many free branded air fresheners...

why spin the bottle beats psychometrics in getting Boards to perform better

I often find myself working with the Boards of various social enterprises, charities, and other types of businesses as part of wider packages of support - my time with them is usually spent helping them reflect on how well they're collectively performing in supporting their respective ventures to further pursue their mission, and that can take all sorts of forms...

Case in point: I recently completed several months of working with the Board of an up and coming social enterprise as part of supporting the venture explore and pursue social investment - any venture seeking investment will find it's Board coming under scrutiny sooner or later as part of the due diligence process of any financing body, so I was concerned to make sure that it was fully 'fit for purpose': not just for now, but also for future scenarios it may face.

I agreed with them how we'd approach this and over the space of 4 months developed codes of governance, terms of reference, formalised a range of procedures and practices, and also did some psychometrics (group and individual) with them to help Directors reflect on their individual role and how well they supported each other's performance. And at the end of this process, the only outstanding decision to be taken was who should take on the role of the Board's Chair. 

And that's when everyone suddenly found they needed to check their phones, shoelaces, and bottoms of mugs... formal and professional governance development practices and psychometrics could only take them so far, so I resolved to break this sudden impasse by taking a relatively unconventional process which everyone was surprisingly excited about and wholeheartedly agreed to abide by the outcome of: spin the bottle! (they don't call me #notyourtypicalconsultant for nothing!).

Moral of the story?

It's your venture, not your consultants - if you don't like the approaches being used and suggested, use your own, however 'unprofessional' they may appear as it'll mean you can continue to enjoy working on what you're creating rather than having to compromise yourself into fitting into someone else's expectations of you.

Making the tea – the most important skill for being part of a co-op?

As some will know, I'm involved in supporting the start up and growth of co-operative enterprises of all types through various programmes, contracts, invitations, (and 'personal accidents'...). And having done do professionally for nearly 20 years at local to international levels, I'm of the view that often, the support offered to co-ops doesn't emphasise enough the importance of “co-op working” skills.

 

On the face of it, co-ops are much like any other business – they buy and sell stuff, keep accounts, pay taxes, employ people, and so on. But at their core is a set of values and principles which set them apart from all other types of organisations. And it’s how the Members and workers in co-ops understand and apply these values and principles in their work and relationships with others that usually determines whether the enterprise will succeed or fail.

 

Now I know of fellow co-op enterprise supporters who have written at length on what these co-op working skills are and what's involved in developing and encouraging them. I know of others who offer detailed training programmes on them (myself included!). There's even been a scientific formula for co-operation developed and endorsed by the national body for Co-operatives in the UK.

But I have an idea that like all great ideas and systems, they can all be summarised in a simple concept – for me, that concept is making a proper 'milky brew' (cup of tea).

 

Making a round of drinks for your fellow co-op Members and workers involves various things that are crucial to establishing and sustaining appropriate working relationships: knowing when the best time of day is to step away from the servicing of customers for a time without risking losing their trade to brew up; knowing that there's enough tea bags, milk and clean mugs to hand; knowing how people like their tea (I'm a “leave the bag in for ages, then lift it out before adding a splash of milk” type myself...); and knowing when they prefer to receive it. All of which can be taken as clear allegories for establishing the basics of the systems, procedures, and knowledge of others that underpins good working relationships in any context (and if you can't see what they are, then I'll explain it to you over a cuppa sometime... ;-)

 

Of course – not everyone likes tea; some prefer coffee, or even gin as their afternoon tipple. But in my experiences so far, it’s usually the things that appear inconsequential, like making the tea, that turn out to be the most important in revealing the state of workplace relationships and corporate culture.

 

 

(Oh yes – and my proper first office job was as a tea boy: within a year I was supporting the firm to gain new business and had discretionary control over budget spends, but always made sure that everyone kept getting their tea on time, just the way they liked it and as a result I became one of their longest-serving and most trusted employees...)

 

the paradox in exposing corruption...

I recently had the opportunity to hear a presentation fromLaurence Cockcroft, one of the founders of Transparency International, on the progress made over the last 20 years in exposing and challenging corruption around the world.

And while it was encouraging to hear about the introduction of various pieces of legislation, regulation, and how the rise and rise of social media has enabled instances of corruption to be highlighted much more quickly and easily, I was left wondering if the drive to expose corruption isn’t somehow normalising it...

You see, we increasingly hear of instances of corruption in business, government, and even charities, but the sanctions levied against them subsequently only seem to fuel our outrage further for their seeming insignificance in light of the original transgression. And that’s what’s concerning me – it seems that whenever an MP might fraudulently over-claim their expenses, or companies dodge their taxes, when they’re caught and exposed, their ‘punishment’ seems trivial of how much they’ve originally defrauded others by.

And that starts to create a wider narrative which says: if you cheat, you’ll be caught – but it’s OK as the cost of your punishment will be far less than you’ve gained by illicit means, so why not do it anyway?

Exposing corruption isn’t enough. We also have to fight to ensure that the punishments on those found guilty far outweigh what they hoped to gain by cheating others for their own personal gain.

 

 

Global Corruption: a lethal mix of politics, money and crime was one of a series of lectures organised by RSA Yorkshire

Why we’re to blame when our leaders fail us

A lot of media coverage has been given in recent weeks to an ex-chair of a national ethical bank, and it strikes me as interesting for a couple of reasons that you might not expect –

1) what finally ‘tipped the balance’: this is someone who’s expenses claims on the boards of several charities where they served as a trustee were seriously questioned over the years, and who’s Council computer they used in their duties as an elected councillor were apparently found to contain images that would breach most company’s IT usage policies... but it was only after they were ‘caught’ buying (not taking!) drugs that they were ousted: both as Chair of the Bank and as a Minister of the Church.

Does this mean that as a society we have a scale of (un)ethical behaviours that we’re prepared to accept? (probably - I've written about how pornography is more ethically acceptable than tobacco before...)

2) And given the above, how were they allowed to keep holding (and gaining) the positions of power and authority that they did?

And these questions get me thinking about how they were able to fall so far – why did no-one intervene sooner or spot warning signs?

I think it may be something to do with the way we treat and support those in authority: the higher up an organisation you rise, the less support you have available and offered to you.

For example: think about volunteering for a charity, or being the shop-front worker in a small business – there’s clear induction to make sure you know what you’re doing, regular check-ins to see if everything’s going well, and lots of legislation to make sure that employers are properly looking after you. But become a Director or a Trustee and all that seems to vanish... there are few formal inductions or reviews at the Board level in private, social and charitable enterprises I've walked alongside over the years – and this is echoed by the Charity Commission who've found that the majority of complaints they investigate are due to governance failings, and the need in the private sector over the years to introduce Codes of Conduct for Directors.

So – as the troubles of an ailing bank are heaped upon one person who succumbed to human weaknesses, do we really only have ourselves to blame when we've set them up with no means of helping to support them do the jobs we're asking and expecting of them?

Is there an ideal size for a co-op business?

The co-operative brand and model of doing business has taken a bashing in the public and media realms recently – the co-op bank being bought out by private investors; its board being found to lack the skills and awareness needed to manage such an enterprise; the co-op groups' collaboration with Thomas Cook over the future of its travel business turning sour, and plenty more besides… all things which anyone who's a member of any co-operative enterprise will feel shamed, embarrassed, upset, and angry about because they show that our ideals and hopes for this alternative model of doing business have been 'betrayed' by one of our largest number...

Many are commenting and writing elsewhere on the implications and reasons for these fall-outs, but I find myself wondering about the question it raises about the dangers of a co-op enterprise of any type becoming 'too big' and in doing so, too distant and removed from its members who are the reason for its existence, and if by extension that means that there might therefore be an ideal size for any co-operative enterprise?

Anyone who's been involved with any co-op will know that people become members of it for all sorts of different reasons: ideology, need, economic gain, community, employment, … and with those different motivations come different expectations as to how they want to be involved in, and influence, that co-op's trading and development.

Sometimes co-ops can focus on their members' interests over maintaining a profitable enterprise which leads to trouble, but conversely those co-ops who neglect their members' interests in pursuit of a profitable business also find themselves in danger...

But does this mean that as well as an ideal size, there should also be an 'ideal type' of co-op member? After all, doesn't it get too messy otherwise to be able to manage? But pursuing this line of thought likely leads to madness: we live in a wonderfully diverse world, and its because not everyone thinks the same that new expressions and ideas and opportunities can emerge.

So – back to the original question: should we limit the size of a co-op? I know of several worker and housing co-ops who've wrestled with this question in the past, and decided that 'yes', there are natural limits to how large a co-op should be allowed to become before it has to enact formal democratic structures that would dilute and stifle their members' voices and influence  to levels that they deem to be too low to be acceptable.

But conversely, scale brings advantages despite its governance and regulatory challenges, the Co-operative Group has been able to support thousands of local community projects with grants, campaign globally on numerous issues, and help hundreds of existing and new startup co-ops across the UK through its Enterprise Hub initiative solely because its large enough to be able to generate the levels of trading surpluses it needs to commit itself to these national programmes as part of its manifestation of the defining co-op values.

Co-ops exist for the benefit of their members. 

Co-ops need to be answerable to their members. 

Co-ops should be informed by their members. 

Co-ops should therefore regularly review how well and appropriately they are ensuring this in light of changes to their business models, marketplaces and wider societal expectations and pressures. If not, then co-ops fail to properly evolve, and just like dinosaurs will quickly become extinct after an all-too-brief parade and flurry of excitement.

why being a charity isn't always the best way to 'do good'

The recent news about Charity bank giving up its charitable status to better allow it to gain access to investment in pursuit of its social mission caught my interest - it challenges the accepted norm that charitable status is always the best form to adopt to gain revenues in pursuit of achieving social goals.

I’ve always cautioned start-ups with a social mission about the risks associated with charitable status: it can be limiting in allowing you the flexibility to change your focus and activities in response to changing needs (owing to the strictures of charity legislation); it enforces limits within your governance that prevent you being able to be led by beneficiaries or employees; and as to the argument that you have to be a charity to access grants - many grant making trusts and public funding programmes aren’t concerned about your having a charity number. 

Finally, some feel that being a charity is a vital part of their business model in allowing them to gain business rate relief, but I’d suggest that any business model that is dependent upon securing rate relief is perhaps far too fragile to be able to survive in an increasingly competitive environment.

So - well done to the Charity Bank for recognising that being a charity isn’t always the best way to pursue a social mission: a salutary example to the wider sector.

the delusions of senior management (...and why it harms all of us)

At a recent seminar I attended, I noticed that the more senior a persons’ role is, the more likely they are not to have brought a notepad/pen, etc. with them - yet they know they're coming to an event where they’ll be exposed to learning, and so be wanting to keep notes for their reference later. 

Perhaps this is because that due to the seniority of their role, they assume that others will have taken care of such ’basic’ administrative needs for them (a self-delusion of how important they think they are)?

And this concerns me - this obvious erosion of a person not taking responsibility for themselves is surely at odds with their responsibility for the performance and well-being of others under them? If they can’t be trusted to make sure they’ve a notepad and pen when going to an event where they know they’ll need them, then how can we have faith in their competency to manage significant budgets or large numbers of other people?

There are, thankfully, exceptions I’ve seen to this - people who’ve been on leadership programmes with the likes of Common Purpose, people in co-operatives (where one of the defining values is ‘self-responsibility’), and people in faith-based organisations, where there is a commonality of theological teaching around proving you can be trusted in the small things before being allowed to take on the larger responsibilities…

So perhaps we need to challenge people in authority more; not over the public failings that cost people’s livelihoods, but before they can get to that stage - check that your boss carries a notepad and pen with them when out and about…

are co-ops the most sustainable form of social enterprise?

Ok, so by the title alone, I’ve already probably upset some people by inferring that co-ops are a form of social enterprise. And I’m not sorry about that – I’ve spoken at national conferences over the years on the relationship between the two, and there are plenty of articles published by academics on the question. For now, let’s just take it that co-ops are a type of social enterprise.

Anyway – back to the purpose of this post: sustainability in the financial sense. Social Enterprises are regularly touted as being the saviours of the economy, society, little kittens stuck up trees, etc and it’s implied from research figures released by Social Enterprise UK that as they’re outperforming private firms, they’re more successful, and by extension more sustainable.

But I was wondering recently about how ‘true’ this might be from the perspective of management cultures: privately owned businesses are about generating profit and so usually focussed on the short-term gains (at a cost of long-term benefit), but social enterprises have this ‘asset lock’ thingy - a mechanism in their legal forms that means in the event of being wound up, the assets its accumulated are given to the local community to ‘carry on the good work’. And that’s all good and proper – after all, the enterprise will have grown and prospered in part at least because of its commitment to doing the right thing by a specific community so those assets were generated in their name.

Now, co-ops kind of pioneered this asset lock thing back in the 19^th century under the phrase “common ownership” as a tool to ensure that the members of a co-op could consider that they were only temporary custodians of the venture, that they were managing it on behalf of a future membership so needed to consider the (very) long-term benefits and interest of the business. Their focus is on the generations not yet with us, whereas social enterprises’ is on the here and now. With regard to the impact this has on management’s long-term thinking and considerations, are co-ops therefore playing the longest possible game and so most likely to be the more sustainable form of enterprise?

Charities now being created at more than 1 every hour!

The charity commission published its annual survey of what’s happening on the Charity register recently, and I think it makes for slightly concerning reading.

With 3,003 new charities being ‘approved’ in the last year this means that charities are now being created at more than 1 per hour! (assuming 252 working days and 8 working hours a day).

What’s more, the median income of these new charities is less than £30,000 – suggesting that they’re what I refer to as ‘pet’ charities.

In an age of austerity measures, when resources for charities are getting harder and harder to come by, why are so many people feeling the need to form new charities, rather than engaging with, and supporting, exiting ones who are crying out for new blood on their boards and struggling to raise sufficient finance. Surely we need to be better educating people who are thinking of setting up a new charity to encourage them to consider carefully if their energies wouldn’t in fact be better used in supporting those that already exist; or perhaps, as I’ve argued before, charity legislation isn’t flexible enough to reflect our changing society and so people are being forced to create new charities to continue to meet the needs of those most vulnerable in our communities?