Beyond The Commons

 Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Idea alert

by Aaron Wherry on Tuesday, October 19, 2010 11:05am - 0 Comments

Deborah Coyne looks abroad.

We need to rethink how government should work with the social sector to overcome the inertia of a bureaucratic, rule-bound public sector. We should open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises, and private companies with the goal of increased social innovation, diversity, and responsiveness to public need.

One model of this kind of forward thinking is Barack Obama’s Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation. Through the Social Innovation Fund, this department is creating new partnerships among government, private capital, social entrepreneurs, and the public.

Another model, the British “Social Impact Bond,” facilitates considerable up-front funding to non-profit organizations to create successful models for helping the young or the elderly. This Dragon’s Den approach secures long-term funds for promising ideas, with public investment tied to positive social, environmental, or economic benefits.

The Office of Social Innovation and Civic Participation is online here. Last month, the British government launched a pilot project aimed at prisoner reform.

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  • bergkamp

    "We need to rethink how government should work with the social sector to overcome the inertia of a bureaucratic, rule-bound public sector."

    So we need The State to come up with new ways to fight The State and it bureaucratic tendencies? I don't know about other provinces but here in Ontario, 'partnerships' between State and private orgs to provide welfare services already exist and they are incredibly bureaucratic.

    Here's an idea – how about government actually remove itself from offering these services and let the little platoons pick up the slack. People are compassionate and generous, we don't need The State to involve itself in our lives because we naturally take care of one another.

    • Emily

      ……..and other bosh.

    • Reverend_Blair

      In that spirit of compassion and generosity, can I have some of what you're smoking?

      • Alyssa

        I always read your comment's but i really just wanted to know you either… in Alyssa you can message me here alyssa_kallie@yahoo.com
        hope to hear from you…

        • Mike

          Hey sweetie… you mean me?

    • MostlyCivil

      "we naturally take care of one another."

      Sorry, you're going to have to provide some impressive examples to back up that statement.

    • BGLong

      More gruel please, Sir ?

    • brooster2

      "Here's an idea – how about government actually remove itself from offering these services and let the little platoons pick up the slack. People are compassionate and generous, we don't need The State to involve itself in our lives because we naturally take care of one another."

      And what happens when the local community lacks the capacity or the motivation to "pick up the slack"? The government, by necessity, must intervene. So, you end up with a patchwork wherein taxpayers are paying to deliver services to some communities while others are striving to be self-reliant.

      Almost sounds like the state of education in Ontario in the early part of the 19th century. How novel.

  • Geiseric

    So if we call it something else it won't get all soft and lumpy?

    sweet.

  • alfanerd

    Government funding to NGOs in order to accomplish social work is not a new idea – not even close. In fact, its a model we should be moving away from, not moving towards. It creates the perfect circumstances for corruption, cronyism, legislation by stealth, and reduces accountability. And whenever funding to an NGO is cut we are treated to cries of 'the government is anti-[insert NGO's cause here]", all dutifully played over and over again by the CBC (unless the government is Liberal).

    "We should open up public services to new providers like charities, social enterprises, and private companies with the goal of increased social innovation, diversity, and responsiveness to public need."

    Look at this giant turd of a sentence. Can you cram more left-wing cliches in there while maintaining the substantive content to zero?

    • tobyornotoby

      "It creates the perfect circumstances for corruption, cronyism, legislation by stealth, and reduces accountability."

      Actually the perfect circumstances are created in so-called public-private partnerships where the government investment is used to create a private profit. This is why we shouldn't let private companies run the social service known as prisons.

  • bennji1977

    Really, and you are basing this on what?

    I have worked for national and local NGOs for my entire career – and I can tell you that this is far from the truth.

    At that national level, we were bound by a contribution agreements that had hard targets set to it that we had to achieve. We had to provide both financial and program reports on a quarterly basis. The programs had to go through both a Formative evaluation (looking the the structure of a program) as well as a summative evaluation which looked directly at outcomes. Apart from being accountable to our funders, we were also accountable to our members who trust me, pushed us more than any other partner on delivering on outcomes.

    At the local level – where I am now, we receive only 8% of our funding form government sources. The remaining 92% comes from individual donors. I will tell you they DEMAND accountability and they expect us to use almost all of their dollars on direct service delivery.

    Even local United Ways – who used to fund organization only based on mission, or now moving towards results based outcomes. You want funding, you gotta set targets, and you have to meet them if you want the funding reviewed.

    So ya, in the reality with my work I can't say that I can turn 1$ into 5$, or create x amount of jobs – but I can tell you that we deal with the not so sexy social issues that no-one else wants to deal with.

    • alfanerd

      im basing that on my general impression and in particular from news reports that the Harper government was cutting funding to a bunch of feminist organizations recently. perhaps i was hasty in tarring every NGO with the same brush, but I recall one aggrieved feminist from one of the orgs who got their funding cut, and *HORROR*, thanks to Harper's mean funding cut, this poor lady could not continue developing a "framework for analyzing the impact of multiculturalism on women" or maybe it was an "analysis of the framework in which women impact multiculturalism" or something. not exactly 'hard deliverables'.

      that's not to say every NGO is like that.

      if I were you I would actually advocate in favour of significantly lowering the debt-burden of every canadian – they would then be able to give more to charities.
      http://www.amazon.com/Who-Really-Cares-Compasiona…

      • brooster2

        It appears to me that the problem here is not a lack of accountability but a lack of congruence between the stated objectives of the NGO and government policy. All the accountability constraints in the world wouldn't resolve that impasse. The government bailed because it didn't like what the organization stood for. Period.

      • Jan

        Meanwhile your side spends an inordinate amount of time worrying about women wearing veils. Ironic don't you think?

        • alfanerd

          No my side worries about women being forced to weir veils by a misogynistic culture which regards women as chattel, while your side coddles that misogyny in the name of multiculturalism. And that's not ironic, that's disgusting and pathetic.

          • Jan

            Careful alfanerd, you're sounding like a feminist. That will get you thrown off your team. Given what you just said, shouldn't you be supportive of helping immigrant women integrate into Canadian society.

          • alfanerd

            Im extremely supportive of helping immigrant women integrate into Canadian society. Why wouldnt I be? What a ridiculous comment.

          • Jan

            So you're extremely supportive but solidly against supporting anything that might facilitate it? Right.

          • alfanerd

            and what is it that might facilitate it that im solidly against?

    • brooster2

      Based on my own experience on the board of a local non-profit service provider, with I agree with your assessment of accountability requirements completely. Even though only a portion of our operating budget comes from government sources, the service agreement we sign to access that funding imposes strict terms of compliance and accountability.

      And, increasingly, non-profits are being challenged to dedicate charitable contributions almost entirely to direct services, to a point that basic organizational requirements are sometimes in danger of neglect.

      • bennji1977

        Yup, I am firmly believer that the donor does not always know best.

        It is a case of damned if you do, damned if you don't. Donors don't want any money going into staff or administration, but then cry foul when stories hit that there is improper management or a lack of oversight in operations.

    • Mike T.

      Who are you to argue with alfanerd's conservative imagination?

  • tedbetts

    I have to say I really really loath this type of lazy nonsensical response.

    Because of some vaguely indicated general opposition by possibly the author (without any substantiation) and vague others who are vaguely related to her (her "ilk") to something about a former somebody (i.e. Bush) somewhere in the past, a specific proposal by a specific current somebodies (i.e. Democrat Obama and Conservative Cameron) to be applied to a specific circumstance of today?

    What the *%$@ does Bush have to do with anything here?

    • http://scottdiatribe.canflag.com/ Scott_Tribe

      Joan is a Conservative.. she doesnt have to justify her arguments with logic.

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