In a speech delivered last December Tessa Jowell argued that the country is entering a ‘mutual moment,’ when a sense of community ownership is created through greater use of social enterprise in the provision of public services. Recent months, prior to the general election, saw political parties ramp up their commitment to social enterprise as a way of providing public services.

Published last month, the Cabinet Office’s Mutual benefits outlines criteria to assess where mutualism is likely to add more value. A number of commitments were set out, including:

• running children’s centres as part of local federations in five pilot local areas
• speeding up the time taken to set up Local Management Agreements - making it easier for tenants to take charge of local housing services such as gardening, cleaning and caretaking services
• improving opportunities for communities to build and run homes on a co-operative basis
• closer work with health bodies to develop detailed proposals on mandating community governance in the Right to Request Assurance Framework, under which NHS staff can set up a social enterprise.

The Conservatives had similar ideas. Their recent publication, Power to public sector workers, set out proposals to give public sector workers the right to form employee-owned cooperatives in areas such as JobCentre Plus offices, community nursing teams and primary schools. Such organisations would be:

• not-for-profit so that financial surpluses are reinvested into the service and the staff that work there
• funded by the state as long as they meet national standards
• free from centralised bureaucracy.

The election manifestos also revealed how entrenched support for social enterprise has become; it’s a theme that runs through the publications from the three main parties. The Conservatives’ manifesto stateed that it would help ‘social enterprises, charities and voluntary groups to play a leading role in delivering public services.’

The Labour manifesto said it would 'extend the right of public-sector workers to request that they deliver frontline services through a social enterprise.’ And although, unlike the other parties, it did not publish a separate document on social enterprise, the Liberal Democrats’ manifesto made its commitment clear. Pledges included support for health care workers wanting to set up and deliver their own services; the encouragement of community-owned renewable energy schemes where local people benefit from the power produced; and a new Mutuals, Co-operatives and Social Enterprises Bill giving a specific minister responsibility for mutuals.

How the new coalition Conservative/Liberal Democrat government will jointly agree proposals is not yet clear. However, the Improvement Network briefing on 'Social Enterprise' (PDF file, 17 pages, 309 KB), explains more about the issue.