Learning from the experience

JSP was learning about SA during the first phase of the SA. The organisation was discovering what material was needed and improving the social bookkeeping processes through a realisation as to what material that we needed for the accounts. The embedding of the SAing process was further developed when recommendations from the first SA were taken up by the sub-groups and staff. The SAs subsequently became an agenda item across all sub groups and at Trustee meetings with issues raised out of the strategic review being taken further during the next SAing period.

The use of a mission statement and detailed objectives are the starting point within stage two of the SAN methodology where it is recommended that this is fundamental to the process as a foundation for SAing. The detailed objectives used by JSP to support the mission statement for the first phase (an outline is in Table 5.4) had been developed for a business plan to support the Lottery bid in the late 1990s. These objectives are focussed towards supporting a business case and not a community enterprise, with the omission of a values statement. There was not enough time to revise these objectives during the first phase of SA. The objectives were reviewed and amended during Autumn 2006.

An example of how the objectives were unclear and needed a better focus is provided by the environmental aspects of JSP. The questionnaire in the first phase referred to environmental objectives and demonstrated the low level of awareness the major stakeholders have of the environmental policy and activities49. As a high energy, water and chemical user there is a need to report on these impacts. An improved focus has been achieved in later phases of SAing with increased reporting on improvements and the use of longitudinal data. This improved awareness and focus is part of the revised objectives for JSP.

Part of SAing enables the organisation to reflect on what the actual values are and if they are explicit, which was not the case for JSP, and to decide whether these are suitable or need rewriting (see Figure 5.1 stage two). The stakeholder consultation using the questionnaire was based on these statements and we learned from this exercise that the values of JSP were not integrated with the mission statement and objectives and this was addressed through the

revision. During the early stages of SAing we would not have been able to change them significantly as the main focus of the organisation was still a traditional business focus, for example one Trustee remarked on ‘values’ not being relevant to us as they were too subjective (Personal Diary 05/05).

One response of the Trustees and the panel to the SA was the power of the document. This ‘power’ was seen by bringing together many disparate items which were all in the public domain but either forgotten or hidden, this allowed those involved to see all the achievements of the organisation over the year and enabled the SA to be partly celebratory in nature50. The reaction of Trustees post completion of the account and the ease with which they subsequently accepted and included SAing within the management structure (sub meeting agendas and the strategic planning day) demonstrated their approval of the process and outcome.

During the annual meeting where the 2004 annual reports including the SAs were presented, JSP demonstrated changes from the experience for example the cycle racks and increased volunteer training times “now it’s a lot more – we now make an effort.” (V2). However, whilst there was learning from the SA there were also issues around omissions.

Omissions that arose through limiting the scope of the account were agreed by the Trustees. The focus of the first SAs was consultation with the biggest stakeholder groups, staff and customers. The limited scope meant that other groups for example, volunteers and wider community were not included. The omission was explicit and it was to be addressed through the planned consultation with other stakeholder groups through later phases of SAing. JSP never considered their SAs to be complete, although the accounts were lengthy, a Trustee thought:

“you’d be conning or kidding yourself if you thought they were complete. I think there are always things that can be added to them and there’s things that need to be revisited and can be looked at further - things like environmental issues, there’s lots of things that still need to be developed” (T).

Whilst the approach of not trying to achieve full stakeholder consultation during the first attempt was considered reasonable:

“I thought the approach you had from the start of doing it in a slightly phased way is the sensible pragmatic way of going about things because people can

50 _{This was raised by the social audit panel who asked that the first draft be changed to include a more celebratory tone to the} document.

only absorb so much. If you had, by some miracle, produced the first set of SAs which dealt with absolutely every issue, people would not have been able to understand it just would have been too much for people” (T).

Despite the difficulties faced during the development of the SAs, both Trustees and Project Manager were convinced from the experience of producing phase 1 of SA that this had been a valuable experience and that there was a future for SAing in JSP. It was agreed to develop a second phase of an interim SA for 2005 and to report on this during 2006.