Tuesday

26th June 2007

Westlakes Research Institute

Westlake Science and Technology Park, Moor Row

Cumbria

A Half-Day Research Dissemination Workshop

Business Effectiveness

Introduction

Benefitting the Economy and Society Through Procurement is a major initiative, based in the East Midlands region, that aims to improve the correlation between public sector expenditure and public benefit, positioning social enterprise as a key delivery vehicle in acheiving this goal.

The Sustainable Developement Research Centre (SDRC) is working as the research partner on the BEST Procurement Programme. As part of the research dissemination exercise SDRC is holding a series of workshops in each of the regions of the UK. Each event is designed to create a forum for communicating the research findings and sharing best practise with and among leading practitioners in the area of social enterprise development and public sector procurement.

Debates surrounding the 'business effectiveness' of social enterprises have emerged during the recent shift towards a more market-orientated social enterprise sector. Social enterprises looking to bid for, and win, public sector contracts need to be increasingly business-like. This means that social enterprises need, and are increasingly offered, support mechanisms to increase their business effectiveness and are encouraged to commercialise aspects of their management. Thus, social enterprises are increasingly faced with a situation in which they need to reconcile a maintenance of the social / environmental goal that underlies their reason for existence with the demands of an increasingly business-like organisation

Aims

The aim of each workshop is to communicate the findings from the research understaken in the East Midlands and to listen to and share best practise with other regions. In this way, we hope to build a UK-wide perspective of activity.

Workshop Objective

This Luton workshop will, through discussion and case study examples, explore the policy context, barriers and drivers for change in access to public sector markets. We will hear the experiences of speakers from both the East Midlands and your local area. We invite you to join our discussion.

13.00

13.30

13.40

13.55

14.15

14.25

14.45

14.55

15.15

17.00

Programme

Registration and Coffee

Welcome and Introduction - Dr Steve Bradley, Principal, Westlakes Research Institute & Elizabeth Ball, Development Trusts Association and BEST Procurement Partne

Dr Sarah-Ann Munoz and Heather George, SDRC - Programme update

Sarah Kirkpatrick, Enterprising Solutions, Northamptonshire and BEST Procurement Partner

Elizabeth Ball, Development Trusts Association and BEST Procurement Partnerl

Coffee Break

Pat Donoghue, Chief Executive Economic Development Services (NM)Ltd

Carol Worrell, Lancashire Social Enterprise Action Plan

Group Discussion, exchanging experiences:

• The benefits of more market-orientated social enterprise?
• The effectiveness of support mechanisms for social enterprises?
• Business effectiveness and public sector procurement contracts

Close

Venue - Westlakes Research Institute, Westlakes Science and Technology Park, Moor Row, Cumbria CA24 3JY

Registration - Please contact Jan MacPherson on 01309 678111 or email:

Jan.Macpherson@sdrc.uhi.ac.uk to register for the workshop