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Some specific observations:  No such thing as the Big Society? – considering that at one stage this was supposed to give policy substance to the Big Society, it is striking how absent the Big Society is from the White Paper. That’s one cut it didn’t make.  I did a control search and only came across one Big Society reference in the whole report, and this was not to the idea but to the Big Society bank. So this leaves an obvious question about how central the Big Society now will be to the Government? One practical effect of there being no Big Society strand is that the tenor of the White Paper is much more consumerist, gone appears to be the emphasis on social citizenship and responsibility.  This leaves a big gap because, as our Commission on 2020 Public Services argued, the big challenges of the future will need to be met through citizens and the state working together to create better social outcomes.  Very few concrete proposals – This is about direction of travel, rather than specific proposals. In fact, there are very few concrete proposals. Instead this is much more like a Green Paper in which general propositions are put out for consultation, with the question being what specific policy changes would these require? This is clearly a long way from what some of the Big Society evangelists had originally wanted to see.  No short term wins for the voluntary sector – Earlier in the year there had been speculation that the White Paper might contain some specific guarantees for the voluntary sector to help offset the consequences of Council grant cuts.  But, whilst there are warm words for the role of the voluntary sector, and some new development money and support to help develop social social enterprises, there is no specific commitment to, for example, a quota of Council services to be subject to voluntary sector right to bid.   Diversity of provision – the boldest statement in the White Paper is that there is no case for monopoly state provision of services, except for the special cases of defence, criminal justice and policing.  The case is made for all public services to be run on the basis of autonomous institutions such as Academies and Foundation Trusts, which could be run by businesses, mutuals or social enterprises.  However, there are no specific proposals to apply this to any particular service area.  Local government is the big winner – this is the most pro-local government policy paper to have been published by the Coalition.  Whereas, the distinct impression in previous policy developments on public service reform has been that local government was being sidestepped, now it is much more central to the Coalition’s plans for decentralisation.  The principle of decentralisation which is set out in the white paper bears some similarity with the subsidiarity principle developed in the 1990s by the European Union, under which decisions should be devolved to the lowest possible level of government.  The new twist to this is the emphasis in the white paper on establishing neighbourhood councils in urban areas to mirror parishes and to be responsible for the same types of very local, community and public space services.  But the White Paper also makes the case for more powers and greater financial autonomy for local authorities and, in one of its few specific proposals, also recommends that skills funding should pass to some Councils, something which cities like Manchester have been strongly pushing for.

As Nick Timmins noted in the FT today, there are a number of tensions within the White Paper, which are not even acknowledged, let alone resolved.  He cited the principle of promoting diversity whilst at the same time needing to guard against failure, a weakness of successive health reforms and a particularly current concern given the collapse of Southern Cross.   But this isn’t the half of it. Other questions which the White Paper doesn’t confront, but which a credible reform plan would have to resolve, include:  Service integration vs institutional autonomy – how can local government integrate services in the way that the white paper suggests, whilst at the same time vertical service silos are being strengthened through the promotion of institutional autonomy in schools, hospitals, and now in every other service?  Consumerism vs social citizenship – how can a consumerist approach to public services help strengthen the co-productive relationship which there will need to be between citizens and services to meet the social challenges of 2020 and beyond?  Ideas vs practice – how can the Coalition move from exhortation to implementation? The White Paper may contain a framework of principles but it does not set out a convincing strategy as to how reforms based on these could be implemented.  Over the coming weeks we at 2020 will be analysing the Coalition’s reform agenda in more detail and looking to see where the opportunities exist for developing better social productivity practice.  Please let us have your comments and ideas.  Ben Lucas

A4 Who is this guidance for? Trustees and those who make decisions on behalf of trustees about a charity's investments and assets should use this guidance as a tool to help them make confident, informed decisions and publicly to report on those decisions.

Social business - the 3rd way money. Unlike traditional business, social business operates for the benefit of addressing social needs that enable societies to function more efficiently. Social business provides a necessary framework for tackling social issues by combining business know-how with the desire to improve quality of life. Therefore instead of being self-focused social business is all about others. Prof. Yunus has already shown the effectiveness of this new type of business: his clear focus on eradicating extreme poverty combined with his condition of economic sustainability has created numerous models with incredible growth potential.   Social business follows seven principles.

It will be an entirely new kind of business. Until now running a business has always been self-focused, founded for the purpose of making

Another potential barrier to this pay-for-success approach is that the funding to pay investors their return ultimately comes from government. These investments are not necessarily creating a new pot of money. Rather, they’re transferring the risk from taxpayers to private investors. In the past, government funding for social projects would pay for everything upfront, regardless of outcomes. Now, under impact bonds, they will only pay for results from non-profits after they have been achieved. So, are pay-for-success bonds a truly revolutionary way to fund charitable work, or is it just government funding repackaged?

espite potential shortcomings, these pay-for-success bonds are forcing people to rethink how the not-for-profit sector operates and funds its work. Applying private sector principles to charities is not necessarily a bad thing – many non-profits can benefit from working more efficiently and measuring their results. But whether these new bonds are the mechanism that will transform philanthropy remains to be seen.

The new social economy Segueing into his lecture, "The Promise and Peril of the New Social Economy," Reich promptly informed his audience that his talk would not be about Facebook or Twitter or other social media.

"Same name, different guy," he said. "For the political junkies among you, you will know what I mean when I say that while I am lesser in stature, I am greater in height."

After a short performance by the a cappella group Everyday People, some welcoming remarks by Howard Wolf, president of the alumni association, and an introduction by Provost John Etchemendy, Reich stepped to the lectern. He prefaced his lecture by offering his apology to anyone who thought they were going to hear a talk by "the other" Robert Reich, the diminutive Secretary of Labor in the Clinton administration.

"By 'new social economy,' I mean the broad new landscape of organizations that seek to produce social benefits," he said.

"The exciting fact about the world that you graduates are about to enter is that there are many novel and innovative ways for people to do good." Rattling off some of the buzzwords associated with the new approaches, such as "impact investing," "venture capitalism" and "social return on investment," Reich acknowledged the enormous innovation and ferment that has been taking place. "This innovation brings along with it great promise," he said, "but also, I hope to show you, some real peril." Historically, he said, a flourishing democratic society is composed of three distinct sectors: the business or for-profit sector; the government or public sector; and the social or nonprofit and philanthropic sector, this last constituting the social economy.

Blurring the lines But innovations of the past 20 years have broadened the social economy far beyond the world of nonprofit organizations and foundations, and the new social economy is full of hybrid organizations and philosophies.

In the for-profit sector there have been innovations such as "corporate social responsibility," in which corporations assume responsibility for the social impact of their actions.

And there is socially responsible investing, in which investment funds avoid industries embroiled in moral controversy, such as tobacco companies, or purposely invest in companies that produce social returns. Such funds barely existed 15 years ago, but now constitute more than 10 percent of professionally managed investment funds. There are nonprofit organizations that seek to create operations that earn revenue in addition to accepting donations, and "philanthrocapitalism," as The Economist dubbed it, in which philanthropists purposely employ business strategies in their grant-making efforts.

Government also acting

Even government is getting into the act, Reich said, with the creation of the White House Office of Social Innovation, which seeks to create new types of partnerships between government and the private sector, and between government and the public sector. The "Investing in Innovation Fund" of the Department of Education involved 12 foundations, including the Gates and Hewlett foundations, which contributed $500 million to the department to unlock $650 million in federal funds. "Now there's a genuinely novel idea," Reich said. "Foundations making grants to the federal government." Because of this blurring of boundaries between the traditional three sectors, the new social economy offers today's graduates a host of choices in "doing good." "If you aim to do good and pursue a social cause, you can be sector agnostic: It doesn't matter what sector – public, private, civil society – one enters," he said. "That is an amazing new world and quite possibly a brave new world."

Will it work? But innovation can also be perilous, as there is no guarantee that all innovations lead to positive social change, Reich pointed out. Hybrid organizations like social enterprises might seem great in theory, but in practice they must cope with a deep tension between the profit impulse and the social mission impulse. "Will profit overwhelm principle?" he asked. Reich said the 20th-century regulatory framework governing the old three-sector society will eventually prove inadequate for the cross-sector collaborations that are increasingly popular in the 21st. So, he queried, what does this brave new social economy mean for those about to graduate from Stanford? Citing the purpose of the university as set forth by Jane and Leland Stanford, "to promote the public welfare by exercising an influence in behalf of humanity and civilization," Reich called it "a beautiful, honorable and worthy mission." "As you commence the next stages of your life, remember this: Your education here has not been frivolous," Reich said. "It has qualified you for personal success, yes. But – not to put too much pressure on you – we adults are counting on you to solve the global financial crisis, to figure out the war on terror and to come up with the governance structure of the new social economy."