Low Carbon Hub re-opens its Community Energy Fund

Birmingham-based award-winning social entrepreneur and leading mental health counsellor, Martin Hogg, founder of Citizen Coaching CIC, launches a new book series focused on accessible strategies to improve mental health for all.  As Citizen Coaching CIC approaches its 20th anniversary, Martin Hogg has instigated a step-change in the highly successful and sustainable social enterprise, Citizen Coaching CIC.  Citizen Coach CIC operational and day-to-day leadership is now being headed by Carla Lees as the new Managing Director. Meanwhile, Martin continues to drive innovation and develop new products and offers to support positive social and behavioural change for those seeking support strategies to tackle mental health challenges.  His first book series launches March 2025 with three new books capturing his twenty years of specialist counselling experience, and translated into readable, bite-size, practical mental health strategies delivered in his unique and engaging style.  Highly qualified, yes.  Lived experience, yes.  Proven results, yes.  Martin says, “Back in 2005 the waiting times for counselling support were long. I believed that not everyone needed to see a psychologist or doctor and that some small practical, non-jargony, and motivational interventions in non-clinical surroundings could be effective for many people.”  “In 2008, I was asked how I funded the work I was doing. I described the Citizen Coaching CIC model as a modern-day Robin Hood business model, delivering counselling services for those with the ability to pay subsidies to support those who couldn’t afford to pay but were in most need of support. Apparently, that was a social enterprise business model, and that legal structure could help me help more people and secure the service for the future.”  Today, Citizen Coaching CIC works in a third-sector consortium with several other local counselling providers, and together they deliver half of the mental health sessions to the people of Birmingham, Europe’s biggest local authority.  Now, with Martin’s creative approach and drive to support more people to live better lives, he has put pen to paper and written three books as the first release in a series of positive mental health personal development paperbacks.  Just launched on Amazon, ‘My Mental Well-Being Coach Series’ presents My Anxiety Coach, My Relationship Coach and My Anger Coach – not only personal development books but counsellor reference books and additional downloadable tailored management plans to support the journey to well-being.  Martin says, “The hardest thing is that, as a counsellor, you can't help everyone immediately. As counsellors, we hate waiting lists but the fact is there is way more demand than supply. We must use all the tools and technology we have to ensure people get the best possible service.”  “With the continuing demand for mental health support, I want to share what I know with others so it can help them with their issues or equip them with the tools to help others. I like to keep things simple, easily understandable and memorable. It’s the practical application that will mean success or failure.”  “As a social entrepreneur, I’m always looking to innovate and see Citizen Coaching CIC leading the way in creating more quality and accessible mental health resources, courses, online products, books and audiobooks.” citizencoaching.com

68 GLL pools taking part from Cornwall to Cumbria, Belfast to Basingstoke. Youngest challenger is just 8 years old The UK's foremost leisure charitable social enterprise GLL will host 1054 fundraising challenges in 68 of its managed pools for Swimathon 2025. The world's biggest fundraising swim happening over the weekend of 28-30 March sees fundraisers' proceeds going to Cancer Research UK, end of life charity Marie Curie and Swimathon Foundation. Participants can choose to swim 400m or Triple 5k and they can swim as individuals or part of a team. GLL has been supporting Swimathon over the years in its 'Better' branded pools. Customers preparing for Swimathon 2025, were invited to a special training tips webinar hosted by Olympic Gold Medallist swimming legend Duncan Goodhew - with inspiring words boosting the number of  take-ups even further. GLL is the largest provider of public swimming pools in the UK (140 pools and 9 lidos) including the iconic Manchester Aquatic Centre, West Reservoir and London Fields Lido - and the biggest provider of swimming lessons - teaching 200,000 people a week, including adult swimmers. GLL's Head of Sport and Aquatics Andrew Clark said: "The best of luck to our fundraisers - with over 1000 taking part, Swimathon 2025 promises to be one of the biggest challenges of its kind we've hosted. "Not only are Cancer Research UK, end of life charity Marie Curie and Swimathon Foundation going to get a boost out of this - it's also offering many the chance to start a lifetime fitness habit." Swimmers young and old have been flocking to GLL's 'Better' pools to train for their individual and team challenges. Among them are mother-and-son fundraisers from Peckham, Leo Garnett (8) and Anna Garcia who train at Charlton Lido in Greenwich.  Anna comments: "Leo's been swimming since he was 3 months old.  "We used to live in Gibraltar and everyone had a pool, I was so scared of him not knowing how to swim. He swims in the school squad and also trains with Dulwich Dolphins." "I swim to challenge myself firstly but realised I could also raise money for Cancer Research - the disease has affected family friends. "We are stepping up and will both do 5km this year  - Swimathon believe Leo is the youngest swimmer attempting this distance." Among GLL's pools that are hosting the largest number of fundraising swims are: London Fields Lido - 118 Charlton Lido - 122 Britannia Leisure Centre - 50 Manchester Aquatic Centre  - 40  Swimathon Foundation is a registered charity working with charitable, facility, national operators and governing body partners to promote the health, wellbeing and life skills that swimming can provide. It also owns the Marathon Swims and other Swimathon campaigns which offers the public the opportunity to swim and fundraise for charity. gll.org

Georgia Gould MP tells attendees at the Social Value Leaders’s Summit that she wants to give social value “more teeth, more strength, more clarity”.  Georgia Gould MP, the Cabinet Office minister responsible for public sector reform, has said the government intends to consult on further reforms to public procurement processes, as announced to Parliament in February.  Speaking at the Social Value Leaders’ Summit yesterday, Gould said she wanted to give social value ‘more teeth, more strength, more clarity’ and was keen to explore how to really capture the social value of social enterprises.   “If I’m back here in a year’s time, I want to see a real change in the way government and the public sector buys that is thinking about how we support, incubate and maximise spend with SMEs and social enterprises,” Gould said.   To build on progress thus far, the Government will consult on a range of measures to potentially take forward public procurement processes and drive economic growth, support small businesses, and better support innovation.   Declaring herself “a big believer in social enterprises” Gould was addressing a crowd of nearly 200 social entrepreneurs, commissioners and corporate social value leads gathered for the tenth Social Value Leaders’ Summit at the headquarters of professional services firm PwC in central London.   Gould shared that the potential for procurement as described in the government’s recent National Procurement Policy Statement had captured the imagination of her colleagues in the Cabinet Office. The statement sees public procurement as a key lever to achieving Government aims by sourcing goods and services that deliver value for money and social value.   The challenge that remained was to make sure that the people procuring goods and services really prized social value. “Too often procurement teams are isolated from policy objectives,” she said. “There is a culture change needed across the system and there’s a lot we’re doing to push this forward”.  Smaller contracts, more notice, efficient auditing  The minister was preceded by Gareth Rhys-Williams, Chair of National Highways, who lamented the various instruments available to measure social value and called for a joined-up approach to “avoid a chaos of measures and metrics”. This was important, he said, as a third of all tax money goes on public spending.   To try and create social value, Rhys-Williams explained that National Highways have worked on breaking project work up in order to offer contracts that are manageable for VCSEs to service. He also revealed that the organisation will set targets for VCSE expenditure for the first time from April next year.   The mismatch between what commissioners want and what VCSEs can provide was also touched upon by Karolina Medwecka-Piasecka, East Birmingham Programme Development Manager at Birmingham City Council, who called for better forward planning of significant projects so that VCSEs have time to plan and possibly collaborate. “If you know a big contract is coming it might take three years to build a consortium, so the notice of that contract needs to be very advanced,” she said.   The role of VCSE organisations in delivering a mission-led procurement system had earlier been debated by representatives from Kings College London, facilities management provider MITIE, social enterprise Groundwork and law firm Stone King.   Graham Duxbury, CEO of Groundwork pointed out that, although social value is now part of the procurement lexicon, it’s not always followed through into contract management, with the result that it was too easy for social value to slip down the agenda. Another view on this was offered by Sara Rial, Social Outcomes Lead at business consultancy Jacobs, who told the audience in the last session of the day that she had seen clients she was advising “make big commitments and deliver absolutely zero” in terms of social value.   Fellow panelist Chris Luck, CEO of employment charity Shaw Trust offered some context on the environment in which VCSEs were trying to win contracts, explaining that for most small VCSEs, there were only one or two people working on bids and that for many organisations, the cost of bidding is prohibitive.   Overall, the summit offered a wealth of thinking on the delivery of social value which a more developed procurement system has the power to unlock. We’re grateful to our partners Anthony Collins, Jacobs and PwC for supporting us to host an event which showcased a range of opinions and ideas to further advance a more impactful procurement environment. It feels like we’re at a real turning point for social value, and this is a key theme of our new position paper, which we’d like to share with you. It sets out that this moment is the start not the end of a journey towards mission-driven procurement and will help guide this work going forward.   Over the coming weeks we will also be working on a document bringing out the key learnings from the day.   View some pictures from the Social Value Leaders’ Summit