Over the past few decades the policy environment in the UK has gradually sought to encourage public sector workers to 'spin-out' their services into social enterprises. This paper reports the common experiences and barriers experienced by four local authorities in the UK that 'spun-out' a public service into a social enterprise. The analysis is underpinned by Takahashi and Smutny's (2002) theoretical model of partnerships and uses this to present a new model of the spin-out process. In doing so, the research identifies the complex partnership arrangements used in a spinout involving collaborations with staff, services users and public/private/third sector organisations.
This article uses qualitative interviews to explore the identity of care micro enterprises, focusing on the motives, values and practices of the people who set them up (the 'micro entrepreneurs'). It draws on a bricolage framework to demonstrate how they use local resources and networks, as well as traits of creativity and improvisation, to overcome limitations and get ahead within a turbulent and under-resourced social care sector. In doing so, it contributes to debates on hybridity, in particular the internal and external conflicts that hybrid organisations like micro enterprises face when managing competing social and market logics.
Although research in partnership with older people has been slower to develop than that with some other service user 'groups', there are a growing number of health and social care studies that have involved older people as co-researchers. We build on this existing evidence by addressing two key areas. First, despite the growth of participatory research with older people generally, some groups tend to be excluded. We focus particularly on a project in which older people with dementia and older people from a black and minority ethnic community were involved as co-researchers. They worked with academic researchers in all stages of the research process, exploring other older people's experiences of transitions between care services. Second, recent literature suggests a lack of critical evaluation of involvement, arguing that researchers tend to emphasise the positives on the basis of retrospective narrative accounts of the process, rather than critically appraising the impact of involvement. This article offers a critical account of the impact of a participatory approach at different stages of a research project, evaluating this from the perspective of different stakeholders. In so doing, we engage with incisive critiques which claim that, far from empowering service users, much service user involvement activity contributes to their oppression. We conclude that participatory research with marginalised older people has the potential to achieve meaningful change at both individual and social levels. However, in view of its dangers and limitations, we argue the need for the impact of participatory research to be carefully evaluated from the perspectives of all parties in the process.
PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations behind public sector spin outs, focusing on the Right to Request policy, which enabled NHS staff to set up their own social enterprises to deliver healthcare services.Design/methodology/approachThe paper draws on empirical data gathered from 16 in‐depth interviews with individuals who had led a Right to Request proposal.FindingsMotivations to spin out of the NHS into a social enterprise were often "empathetic" in nature, built around the good of the service for staff and users. Alongside this, some felt "pushed" out of the NHS as a result of government restructuring policy, with social enterprise offering the only hope to survive as an organisation.Research limitations/implicationsThe study captures a particular point in time and there may be other perspectives that have not been included.Social implicationsThe paper is of use to academics, policy makers and practitioners. It provides an important contribution in thinking about how to motivate public sector staff, especially those from a health profession, to consider spinning out into social enterprises.Originality/valueThe paper is the first to look at the motivations of healthcare spin outs through the Right to Request programme. The findings are related to previous literature on social entrepreneurship within public sector settings.
