RNIB supports nearly 2 million people with sight loss in the UK

Blind and Partially sighted people are faced with highly disproportional unemployment and economic inactivity. A KTP with LSBU is encouraging investment into Social Firms to help tackle this problem.

Empowering nearly 2 million blind and partially sighted people in the UK is no small task. The Royal National Institute of Blind People, RNIB, has a strategy containing three clear priorities that aim to make the UK a better place for blind and partially sighted people; preventing avoidable sight loss, supporting independent living and creating an inclusive society. One of the goals in this strategy is to increase the employment of the 79,000 blind and partially sighted people at working age, and RNIB has looked to their local University to help take on the challenge. “The KTP with London South Bank University will increase RNIB’s capacity to achieve this target more effectively and at a lower overall cost. This capacity would not have been built without the KTP,” said Angela Edwards, Company Supervisor at RNIB.

“According to our latest survey data with the University of Birmingham, the employment rate of the non-disabled population is 44% higher than that of the blind and partially sighted population, and 50% higher amongst the older working age where sight problems are most common,” reports Phil Sital-Singh, KTP Associate. One method of reducing this is through employment-related social enterprises known as Social Firms. However the presence of these organizations for blind and partially sighted people is low and further development needs to be considered on a larger scale. At the moment RNIB lack the evidence for a business cases persuade key stakeholders to commit to partnership and investment.

Thanks to the KTP scheme, a project has been created, using the academic expertise at LSBU, which will generate the ability to develop a business case, metrics and guidelines, and implement processes to establish new social firms to provide employment and training positions. Associate Phil and LSBU academics Alex Murdoch and Robin John are on the case.

“My project is set into three phases with the overall aim of developing new Social Firm ventures to reduce disproportionately high unemployment of blind and partially sighted people,” says Phil. The first stage of Phil’s project is to build a social impact framework to assess and communicate the benefits to society of reducing the unemployment rates. The second stage is to conduct study visits of successful social firms to identify good practice in social enterprise and governance in key areas. Thirdly, to build a business case based on the evidence gathered throughout the project, including Social Return on Investment analyses, to engage resource. “The project, through the gathering of evidence and best practice will enable RNIB to engage resource holders in developing new Social Enterprises, thus creating more employment and training positions,” comments Phil.

Professor Alex Murdock, lead academic on this KTP project says “The RNIB is competing for limited resources and needs to make a strong business case. The KTP enables the university to bring expertise especially in the third sector and social enterprise to bear on this.”