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Many people use the term partnership referring to a contract, rather than a true partnership with shared risks and opportunities. Do you have a good example of a true partnership and how social enterprise(s) responded to holding some of the risk?

Date: 08.06.21

An example of true partnership is the delivery of the public bus service on the island of Jersey by the charitable social enterprise HCT Group. An orthodox tender (in competition with UK and French commercial operators) was won with a partnership proposition. In addition to the public benefit purpose alignment and the commitment to comprehensive route coverage and higher service quality, the pricing offer was based on open-book pricing, including a reasonable surplus, as opposed to the normal closed-book profit maximising price. Profit above the reasonable surplus was to be shared.

The service was significantly improved, as was demonstrated by increased bus use, to the extent that the island consequentially needed to import less fuel for private vehicles. And the service profit levels reached the point where the profit-sharing provisions were activated.