Jill's Initial Response to MCCH Report

My next comment concerns the issue of the status of the Old Moat which Diane Woods wrote would be placed in the voluntary sector as the MCCH report says it is not viable in their time limits to be run as a social enterprise/firm. Also in this report,although we are not allowed to see proper accounts the problems of the high overheads as an obstacle in making a profit at the garden centre are seen as a reason for it not to be a social firm or enterprise. But I have been reading around and there is no reason why the garden centre could not have part of its activites set up as a commercial firm/enterprise and the other part in the voluntary/charity sector and so eligible for whatever grants they want to see coming their way. For example this is a quote from the Charities Information Bureau on Social Enterprise:

'Very often part of an organisations activites can be classed as 'social enterprise' but not all. For example, a charity in itself is not a social enterprise. However, the trading arm which sells donated clothes and other household good from a high street shop is definitely a social enterprise.'

I think the MCCH report and Diane Woods attitude at the PCT shows inflexibility in accepting potential organisation structures for the garden centre which could combine both job creation and profitability in the commercial side of the business as a social enterprise together with subsidies for the training and therapeutic rols which cause the high overheads and stop the centre itself being profitable now. I have only just started looking at the potential organisation structures available and have found a lot on this subject on the WWW. MCCH and the PCT have had since Spring 2005 to look at all the options but they have taken a rigid either/or attitude that does not need to be adopted.

Once again it is hard to be precise without the true facts of the accounts available to us but it is obvious that they do not need to be so inflexible.