Oldham has been awarded Social Enterprise Status by an organisation I can guarantee 99% of you have never heard of, Social Enterprise U.K., and definitely won’t care about. This news is exiting apparently for our deluded council and the ever growing number of CIC’s targeting deprivation management, Oldham’s only real growth industry. You know those not for profit social enterprises that pay their management the same salaries as people in the private sector and allow volunteer staff to access full benefits because of their charitable volunteering. This is a title which Oldham Council actively sought to achieve rather than being awarded it for their sterling work and as the website states the council had to provide a three year plan for social enterprise provision in the borough. So seeing as OMBC claim to be a council promoting cooperative values where is the three year plan published so the tax payers of Oldham can see their priorities and feel included in Arooj’s social endeavours? Truth is you will never see the plan because it would expose their prejudices as this council wears their priorities on their sleeves and those priorities are central Oldham only. Oldham has many established social enterprises doing great work it also has many more that are reactionary often pushing ideology rather than solutions. These are the majority in Oldham catering to the outcomes of social problems, poverty and deprivation but doing nothing to try and change those circumstances and in many circumstances they are part of the system, institutions and culture that causes the never ending problems which move from generation to generation.
