Workstreams

Innovative models for service delivery and new partnerships between communities, businesses and the public sector can radically change social and economic outcomes. From creative solutions for localised social care and education delivery to the benefits of community-owned energy and community-run housing associations, this workstream cuts across all sectors of policy to re-imagine the terms of these outcomes and the resulting benefits.

In 2012 this workstream will encompass our research into new models for private, public and third sector partnerships and delivery of public services, including innovative approaches to welfare, health and social care, education, social housing, employment and skills. Drawing on a number of recent legislative developments - most notably, the Localism Act, the Open Public Services White Paper and the Public Services (Social value) Bill - the importance of social value in commissioning and service delivery is fundamental to our work.

This workstream explores the structures and processes which shape and define day-to-day economic life. From the local to the national scale, we will examine how communities can best access the macro advantages that globalisation brings. Encouraging new market entry, ensuring supply chain resilience through more localised control, promoting greater diversity of business models and wider asset distribution are all prerequisite to building a more stable and healthy economy that is grounded in human and social relationships.

Models of the past have led to unbalanced economic growth and barriers to market entry and competition. Our work within New Economies, Innovative Markets therefore seeks to provide practical policy solutions for a moral capitalism which transforms the terms of economic and social wealth. Our objectives in 2012 include re-defining economic competition, diversifying the market for SMEs and social enterprise, innovating solutions to enterprise and infrastructure financing, and exploring the benefits of business clusters and localised growth, in order to achieve an economy based on trust and reciprocity.

The Queen’s Diamond Jubilee and the Olympics in 2012 mark a monumental year for Britain, and complement our work on the social and cultural heritage of civil society. From grassroots groups to embedded institutions, civic association maintains a central role in cultivating an engaged and connected society.

Within this workstream we will explore the use of community assets and cultural hubs for wider social and public good, the importance of the family and other social institutions in cultivating values and citizenship, and the social action and ethically instructive role of faith and other civic groups. Our work on British constitution will examine how the House of Lords can best reflect the diversity of British civil society and the value of the monarchy as an institution alongside others for citizens today. These projects all enforce that social capital as an engine of progress as much as economic capital, outline principles to empowering individuals and communities, and emphasise quality of life and human relationships as key to the progression of a social common good.