Back in the office today after a lovely sunny weekend in Scarborough. We were supposed to be moving house this week but it’s been delayed so we escaped to the seaside in the hope that the sea air and spring sunshine would lift our spirits.

Scarborough, you may know, was recently crowned the most enterprising town in Europe. That’s quite an accolade, particularly for a seaside town long thought to be past its best.

Did we see much enterprising activity? Apparently one of the reasons Scarborough won the award is the efforts that have been made to support digital industries – with free wifi in the harbour offering evidence of the town’s commitment to helping entrepreneurs to stay connected.

I can’t comment much on that, but I can comment on what it’s like as a two-day tourist. I live in Leeds, but when it comes to shopping and eating out I could be anywhere – Clone Town Britain is well and truly alive in Leeds City Centre. Of course there are independent shops and restaurants, but they’re few and far between. The big brands dominate, as they do across the UK.

Not so in Scarborough. And it’s not just because it’s smaller than Leeds – you’ll find many places of Scarborough’s size where most of the indigenous businesses have been squeezed out by the chains. Of course many of the big retailers are there, but there are loads of small businesses – restaurants, shops and cafes – which have Made in Scarborough written through them like a stick of rock.

That makes for a much more enjoyable experience. Or at least it can do. One reason that chains are successful is that they offer an apparent guarantee of quality. So you know that your Pizza Hut pizza in Scarborough will be just like the one you had in Leeds the week before. The temptation, when you lack local knowledge, is to play it safe and go for what you know.

We tried to steer clear of the big brands, with mixed results. The experiences which weren’t as good as they could have been got me thinking about what it really means to be enterprising. There was the B and B which charged premium prices but offered bargain basement service. And the Bistro, half-empty on a Saturday night, with bagged salad and one CD of MOR music, played time and time again.

Both entrepreneurs clearly were keeping a keen eye on their margins. And both probably tell a good story about how hard it is to compete with the big boys – the £19 rooms and the 3 courses for a tenner evening meals.

Whilst I’ll always tend to side with the small, independent businesses, I have also lost some of my sentimental attachment to all that is small. Both of these businesses have clearly forgotten what it’s like to be one of their customers – such a common mistake for many businesses – social businesses amongst them.

How do you compete in markets where prices are driven down by competition – some of which you could probably argue was unfair? You have to find different ways to be better than your competitors who will always beat you on price. You could start by trying to consider how your service looks from a customer’s point of view – looking at your business from the outside-in. It’s hard – and not very pleasant sometimes. But sitting in front of your creditors, with an insolvency practitioner sat to your right, is much harder.

I had a good, productive day in London yesterday. I went to a Health and Social Care conference organised by the Social Enterprise Coalition, then squeezed in the third social impact camp before heading home.

I do a fair bit of work in social care so I was keen to hear from a few people who are active in this field. All too often speakers at conferences disappoint, but most of them were pretty good yesterday (although ironically, for a health conference, I counted four contributors who hadn’t made it because of illness. But the reshuffled speakers did well).

We heard from, amongst others, Lance Gardner from Open Door in Grimsby, Victor Adebowale from Turning Point and Geoff Walker from Sandwell Community Caring Trust. There were some interesting common themes.

Everyone was pretty clear that we’re entering a period of financial constraint, the likes of which we haven’t seen in years. No-one’s underestimating the impact that could have, yet there was a sense of optimism too. It’s widely accepted that the much-needed investment in the NHS hasn’t resulted in a corresponding improvement in service. It’s unfair to say that the NHS had just done more of the same but with more money, but it’s not that unfair. The optimism from the speakers came from realising that big cuts could stimulate proper, radical reforms to how services are delivered, with systems built around the people who should be served. Social enterprises could play a big part in those changes.

Another common theme was to do with social enterprises being well placed to offer a co-ordinated approach, in a market dominated by silo thinking. The NHS, Adult Social Care, the Police, Education, Neighbourhoods and Housing etc etc all talk the language of partnership, but struggle to step outside of their comfort zones, particularly when doing so may threaten a budget. Social enterprises, the speakers suggested, can be more nimble, and offer a chance to bring together budgets to deliver more co-ordinated services. Turning Point’s Connected Care service seems to be a case in point. I accept a lot of this, but have also heard enough stories of social enterprises which clearly deliver outcomes for a wide range of government departments, finding that none of them wants to take responsibility for funding it. Buck-passing in place of joined-up working.

A third theme was around people and purpose. Geoff’s message was that at Sandwell their big success has been to re-connect their staff with the wide-eyed enthusiast who decided to be a social worker twenty years previously. We all know how so many people have been worn down by the system, and have lost any real sense of the purpose of their work. Through treating his staff well, through keeping decision making and responsibility as close to the ground as possible, Sandwell have made impressive improvements in staff absenteeism. Last year average absenteeism was one day per employee. Their local authority counterparts take more than three weeks leave through sickness. Immediately you have a substantial gain in productivity, and a powerful indicator of greater happiness and wellbeing at work. That has to have an impact on the quality of service delivered.

The challenge is about how to make big differences in the NHS. The examples we heard of are impressive, and Turning Point and Sandwell have expanded from their local roots, as have other social enterprises like P3. But, for me personally at least, it’s still not completely clear what the magic ingredients are in these social enterprises, and whether those ingredients can be shared. The suspicion remains that they are one-offs, founded by charismatic, maverick entrepreneurs, deeply rooted in their communities. As such are they replicable? And do we waste our time trying to work out how we can be a bit like them?

I suppose the answer is that in some way, we have to keep trying to work out what those magic ingredients are. And, for me at least, yesterday gave a bit more of an idea as to what those magic ingredients are. A key one is people. Treat your staff well and exciting things start to happen. Geoff was making a clear link between the lack of shareholders at Sandwell, and their ability to treat their staff well. He also had unkind words to say about HR managers, which given that I’m married to one, I’d have to disagree with.

But I can see that he’s saying, particularly about how the loud cries of impatient shareholders can distort a business, but I don’t think it’s necessarily the case that one leads to the other. Keeping money in the business has, in their case, achieved impressive results. But there are loads of for-profit businesses out there which treat their staff really well, whilst balancing that with the need to make money for owners or investors. The progressive ones realise that they’ll probably make more money by treating their staff well.

This is one reason why I’m keen to see social enterprises to jump out of their cosy, structurally defined niche, to start learning more from other businesses which you may class as “progressive”. I bet you that Geoff at Sandwell, and Martin at P3, both high achievers in this Best Companies to Work For poll, will learn more from the other businesses in that list than they will in their local social enterprise networks.

For a while I was pretty much obsessed with bananas.  One of my proudest moments was when I was accused by the Fresh Produce Buyer at Asda (I was working at their HQ at the time) of "revolutionary activity", after I put a notice on the ASDA intranet about a World Development Movement campaign about poor conditions at Chiquita banana plantations.  "Remember what pays your wages" was the buyer's stern warning. 

Some things have changed with time – that conversation was 12 years ago.  In another email exchange with a buyer I was told in no uncertain terms that "The Asda Shopper will never buy Organic."  

Yet some other things don't change.  There was a good piece in the Guardian on Monday by Felicity Lawrence (thanks to Cliff Southcombe for pointing me to it) about the current banana supermarket price war.  It happens fairly often, particularly as bananas tend to be supermarkets' biggest selling line (as the produce buyer pointed out to me all those years ago) – and because they are a Known Value Item – people tend to be aware of how much bananas cost – in a way that they're not so aware of the price of dried borlotti beans.  

I lived in Guayaquil for a year, the port through which most of Ecuador's banana exports pass.  Whenever I travelled to the capital, Quito, I would bump along a pot-holed road through miles and miles of banana plantations, stretching way into the distance. It was an awe-inspiring sight.  

These bananas were dollar bananas – grown on plantations where conditions are regularly denounced as poor – low wages, lack of union recognition, regular use of pesticides etc etc.  It's this kind of industrial agriculture which allows supermarkets like ASDA/Wal-Mart to negotiate really low prices.

Of course ASDA will claim that this is in the interests of the ASDA Shopper.  In my years at Asda House the cult of the ASDA Shopper was something to behold.  There was no shrine in the atrium, but there might as well have been.    Of course any business should be focused on serving its customers, but I don't accept the supermarkets' regular assertions that they are just giving hard-pressed consumers what they want.  This one-dimensional argument is naive, ignores the social responsibilities of business, and is designed to deflect attention from a private company's primary purpose – to maximise profit for shareholders.  

ASDA have responded to Felicity Lawrence's article – with this letter from Alex Brown, their Produce Director.  I'm intrigued by this line:

"The reason we're able to offer the lowest prices is simple:  because we cut unnecessary cost out of our business and pass it on.  That's not because we're squeezing suppliers or trading unethically, it's just because we don't waste money."

One of the core values when I worked at ASDA – I assume it's still the same – was "We hate waste of any kind."  It's a good value – and that's why I can believe that they work incredibly hard to cut costs out of their business.  But am I supposed to swallow the line that they don't squeeze suppliers?  

I'd like to know whether Alex Brown has visited any of the plantations which supply ASDA, or whether he's considered the impact that a banana price war can have on other producers in this market.  If he can't afford the time to go to Ecuador, he could, as Felicity Lawrence suggests,  just take a look at the UK's diminishing dairy industry – and perhaps look a few dairy farmers in the eye and tell them that he's only doing what the ASDA Shopper wants.  

A friend is reading a book which says you can change your life by not complaining about anything for 21 days.

If you follow me on twitter, you'll know that I've just been to the dentist.  And you'll know that it didn't all go to plan.

The "you are no more than a number" welcome from the receptionists is par for the course.  As is the 15 minute wait.  As is the new dentist – the third new dentist in three visits.  As is me having to ask the dentist his name, rather than him introducing himself to me.  And let's not even dare to suggest anything as ridiculous as the dentist addressing me by my name.

The bit I wasn't ready for (having psyched myself up for a bit of discomfort) was that I'd only be in there two minutes, and would have to come back next week.

The scale and polish machine is broken.  So I have to come back.  I suggested to the dentist that I'd wasted my time.  He ignored me.  I asked the receptionist why someone couldn't have rung me to re-arrange the appointment.  She looked down at her keyboard.  I asked her again.  She ignored me again.  So I asked her a third time.  She said that I was due to just have a check up.  But one glance at my records would show that every check up includes a scale and polish.  No-one, at any stage, said sorry.  

What's the wider point here?  I read yesterday that dentists are doing rather well, since they re-negotiated their contracts.  Average income is around £90k.  Not bad.  

It's easy to have a go at them about their income, as I have just done.  But I actually don't mind people earning decent money.  I recognise that dentists take risks – buying equipment, renting premises, employing staff.  

But what I do mind is people earning good money and giving crap service.  And today I got crap service.  I'll wait til after next thursday's appointment, and then contact Patient Opinion.  After all, you don't want someone with a drill in their hand offering you feedback on the complaint you've just made.  

I worked in a number of departments during my two years as a temp at Asda House.  For a couple of weeks I worked on the Tell Archie scheme  - Asda's staff suggestion scheme.   The best bit was that I got to sit at Archie Norman's desk – if I'd been a better impressionist I may have been tempted to phone up all their banana suppliers and demand that they switch to Fairtrade – or else.

As the weather was good, we went away for a couple of days to the North York Moors.  I like it up there, it's less touristy than the Dales (which, in turn, is less touristy than the Lakes) and there's something very attractive about the bleakness of much of the scenery.  I cycled round the Moors a few years ago so I feel quite attached to the area.

This sign was on the door of a conference venue where I had a meeting this morning:

Just heard someone on the Today Programme talking about a new retail
skills academy. Asked whether this was a response to poor service
standards at retailers, he said "we are not in denial that there
aren't significant opportunities." 

It's clear that things are going to get very interesting in the public sector in the next few years.  David Cameron's call for a culture of thrift points us to how things are likely to be from now on.  We'll soon see committees set up to banish Post It notes and replace them with pieces of A4 paper cut into 8 by school-leavers on a guaranteed apprenticeship.  The ultimate win-win.