Leicester Social Economy Consortium Limited (LSEC) was started by three people from three different organisations:
- Archaid – The Leicester Community Technical Aid Centre
- West End Builders
- SHARP – The Shelter Housing Aid and Research Project (Leicester)
Dave says he only became a ‘prime mover’ by default when in the four years after incorporation the other two organisations ceased to trade and the other people involved moved away. And that is of course how LSEC came to be a “consortium” with only one member – SHARP.
Furthermore the three organisations and the three people involved only came together because of the fantastic help LSEC received from the Community Economic Development Project funded by Leicester City Challenge. Dave blames it all on Michael Heseltine who initiated the City Challenge Programme in 20 Cities across the UK and Sir Peter Soulsby who chaired the City Challenge Board in Leicester.
Like many 18 year olds Dave came to Leicester to go to University. But unlike most of them Dave has never left. He dropped out from Uni for a year and helped to run the Leicester Family Squatting Group. Collecting 50p per week from each of the squatted properties was Dave claims the most difficult debt collection challenge he has ever faced. Returning to Uni he picked up a degree in Economics and promptly became unemployed. He worked as a storeman for GEC and then went to Trent Poly to study Town Planning. Dropped out again and became unemployed again. Started doing voluntary work in hostels for homeless people. Then in 1978 got a job as a part-time Housing Advisor at SHARP and has never left.
His role at SHARP has changed completely over the last 40 years. But the basic problem – too many households and not enough houses – is virtually identical.
Since its start in 1997 LSEC has donated over £400,000 to SHARP. At times it was SHARP’s main source of regular income. Right from the start Dave’s main motivation was to create an independent revenue stream for SHARP. A good Housing Advice Centre should always be fearlessly standing up for the rights of homeless and poorly housed people. And according to Dave you can’t do that easily if you depend upon the state to fund your activities. Since far too often it is the state that has denied those rights to people in the first place.
LSEC has grown its income and its asset base over the last 25 years. It has borrowed almost £2 million from various banks. It has acquired more properties. It has in short used the classic methods of capitalism to accumulate wealth. And used the classic method of communism “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs” to redistribute it. Dave’s family say he was a communist when he was a student and is not much different 50 years later. Dave disputes this saying he was always a reformist not a revolutionary. It was just that the reforms he wished to make were sometimes revolutionary ones.
Dave says Social Enterprises are important because they can combine the good intentions of the state with the brilliant tactics capitalists use to create wealth. Not all do so but they do have the possibility of changing society for the better from the bottom up. And that is why they are a better way of doing business.