much more effective than traditional resource-intensive interventions." They claim: "In just over two years our work has led to the creation of four social enterprises and charities in a wide range of sectors including healthcare, youth and community, and job creation." Like three of the Shaftesbury Partnership key people, two of the Challenge Network's co-founders are McKinsey men. My head was now swimming with Tory party chums. I took myself back to the simple announcement of job centre staff giving out food vouchers. I wrote to my MP, Brian Donohoe the next day, and asked him to write to the minister in charge of the Department of Work and Pensions to find out more about this voucher for food parcels pilot scheme. In February the minister, Steve Webb, wrote back. "These vouchers were only intended for those refused crisis loans or waiting on a benefit payment to be made," he said. But "crisis loans", I learned, are small interest-free loans made by the DWP from the social fund to people in financial crisis due to unforeseen circumstances such as deaths, flooding, a child in hospital. They're used to buy food and/or credits for gas and electric pre-payment metres in winter when social security benefits are unlikely to cover the weekly winter pre-payments required. While researching crisis loans I stumbled across a coalition government consultation paper issued in February 2011 stating the government's intention to abolish the social fund, and instead give the money, un-ring-fenced, to English Councils who could refer