Matthew's RSA blog

Just how do you get to Australia without stepping foot on a plane?

We returned to the office from a snow-covered Easter to an exciting week of events.

We kicked off on Wednesday with Rt Hon Jack Straw MP who spoke to a heaving Great Room about building community confidence in the criminal justice system. The lecture was a great opportunity to launch the RSA's new Prison Learning Network and we had some excellent questions from the audience, you can listen again here.

Later that evening we screened No End in Sight. Nominated for an academy award for best documentary feature the film was the first of its kind to chronicle the reasons behind Iraq's descent into guerilla war, warlord rule and anarchy. Director Charles Ferguson spoke about making his first documentary film and what led him into the gritty world of documentaries from an earlier career in software technology.

Finally we wrapped up with this week's RSA Thursday, by welcoming slow-traveller Ed Gillespie to the RSA to prove that you don't have to get on a 747 to holiday in Australia you just need a lot of time....Read his blog about his 361 days of slow-travel global circumnavigation here.

We draw a quick breath before we launch into the Spring programme. No rest for us as we have just announced our April events, you can see the full list here but highlights include: Julian Barnes, Tim Harford, Jonathan Powell and Charlie Leadbeater.

Hope to see you all at JAS soon

Beyond the third sector

I was great fan of the Eurostar until last Friday. I was among the people stranded in Paris when it was cancelled due to a fire near the line in Wandsworth. Eventually I got home via Calais and Dover but the people I felt sorry for were the young couples - lots of tearful faces - crestfallen at their plans being kyboshed.

The fire wasn't Eurostar's fault and no business is going to fold because a meeting gets cancelled, but maybe for the Friday journeys in particular they should go out of their way to offer an alternative route for those with their hearts set on a romantic weekend away.

I was in Paris as the 'keynote' (flattery will get you everywhere) speaker at the launch of EUCLID the first pan European network dedicated to third sector leaders. I told them there are powerful ideological, organisational and social reasons why the third sector is being so heavily courted by the political establishment in the UK and some other countries.

The ideological opportunity is presented by the emerging consensus formed by a right of centre that no longer thinks markets and individualism is sufficient to solve social and environmental problems, and a thinking left of centre seeing diversity of supply as a good way to bring innovation into public services.

The organisational opportunity comes from a recognition of the problems of communication, motivation and engagement in large bureaucratic organisations. The more devolved, ethically driven, diverse third sector seems to offer a better way to connect with people and provide services.

The social opportunity lies in a growing awareness that many of the most pressing problems we face are not amenable to answers which treat people as objects. Instead citizens must be the active subjects developing their own individual and collective solutions. As third sector organisations are generally created from the citizen up they seem more suited to this new way of thinking.

But with each opportunity comes a set of issues to be confronted. It is great that every political party wants to hug the third sector, but one of the important aspects of its role is advocacy, which sometimes needs to be outspoken and controversial. There is no inherent reason why charities can't combine service delivery with advocacy but they need to think through the dilemmas posed.

Two issues are raised by the idea that third sector organisations are better suited to delivering certain social outcomes.

First, are they? I must admit to having sat through too many dispiriting and failed attempts to demonstrate that there is something about, say, a social enterprise - that makes it more responsive, dependable or innovative.

Second, if third sector organisations do grow they have to make sure they don’t simply become inflexible bureaucracies themselves. All large third sector organisations should have a copy of the last page of Animal Farm on their office wall.

Finally, the sector should see the social argument about needing to engage people more ambitiously and directly as a starting point for a wider debate. To develop what I have called a citizen-centric (rather then Government-centric) model of social change means reform beyond the third sector. It requires a rounded model of citizenship involving entitlements and expectations, a more participative democracy and radically new ways of working for the state.

Avoiding the temptation of self congratulation, the third sector should be at the forefront of this debate showing it is as driven by high ideals as by winning the next contract or spot on the Today programme.

So, there you have it. On the plus side you’ve avoided the fifteen minutes speech and read the argument in two minutes (which as readers of his Observer column know, will be a relief to my newest fan Henry Porter). On the down side you didn't get the nice buffet, the lovely walk through Paris and the evocative pleasure of a windswept, deserted night ferry to Dover.

Back from holiday

Oh dear. I have to start my second blog post with an apology. I said I wouldn’t let holiday stop me blogging but the demands of family, friends and dog, and the allure of long walks and slow drinks proved too great. Aviemore was great and my sons got in a few days snow boarding. As a small step towards reducing our carbon footprint, rather than flying our group all travelled by train.

This year has continued the trend of less snow on the slopes and my older son asked one of the small army of instructors whether they worried about the impact of global warming. “We never discuss it, it’s too depressing,” was his reply.

Back at work, yesterday was my first meeting of the RSA Council. I made a presentation outlining a strategy for the RSA which tries to bring together our ideas, our model of change and a vision for the Fellowship into a single brand and vision. The Council members were pretty positive but want to know how we are going to deliver. One council member suggested I do a version of my presentation as a webcast.

Would anyone listen I wonder?

Later on Monday I went to a Government seminar on 'co-production' of public services. This is the idea of getting public services users – patients, parents, pupils, carers etc – to take shared responsibility with providers for meeting outcomes.

Everyone (across the main political parties) seems to support the idea but the really hard question is how Government encourages public service professionals and institutions to develop innovative ways of working in partnership with citizens. This is one of the issues I hope we can explore as part of our project on 'pro-social behaviour'.

While I was away we had another successful Thursday debate – this time with Will Hutton and others debating the impact of private equity (you can download the MP3 file here). I am really pleased by this series as it shows we can move fast and intervene in very current issues, as well as get audiences of over 100 in three days. The website will have the details of the each Thursday event as soon as they're decided.

Also finally just to reply to Michael Smethurst who commented about the Cialdini lecture, to say that the transcript is up on the RSA website and can be read or downloaded here.