Social care innovation: Learning from the social economy in Greater Manchester

Greater Manchester is moving towards a more personalised social care system where services are embedded in the local community, respond to people’s goals, and there are links to wider support and opportunities. This is a shared ambition that cannot be delivered by any one organisation, partnership or sector but the social economy could play an important role in helping to achieve it. Rather than focussing on maximising short-term profits, co-operatives and other socially focussed organisations can give priority to meeting community needs and/or offering better terms to staff, with an emphasis on co-operation and collaboration.

This paper describes some ways that social economy organisations are responding to the ‘crisis of social care’ in and around Greater Manchester. Though by no means a survey of all relevant activity, the examples help to highlight the capacity for innovation within social care, as well as the need to design a system and not just a set of services that support a more relational, person-centred approach to care.