EUROPEAN UNION
Investing in Your Future
European Regional
Development Fund 2007-2013
Exploring
Social Enterprise
Social Enterprise in Context
Government Policy
The Big Society
The Big Society has 4 main elements
• Empowering and shifting power to local communities, to tailor
approaches to meet local circumstances
• Encouraging people and business to take an actives role in their
communities
• Transferring power from central to local government
• Opening up public services, including enabling mutual social
enterprises to engage activity in the delivery of social services,
including the “Right to Provide”
What is a Social Enterprise?
A social enterprise is a business with primarily social
aims, and whose profits are reinvested back into its
services or the community.
Social enterprises are distinctive from traditional
charities or voluntary organisations in that they
generate the majority, of their income through the
trading of goods or services rather than through
donations.
Who are social entrepreneurs?
• People like YOU who;
– Have an innovative solution to a local
problem / need
– Want to make a difference
– Want to create social change
A Social Enterprise is a Business
Like all businesses social enterprises must have
•A business plan
•A financial strategy
•A sustainable trading income stream
•Robust systems in place to comply with company law,
insurance requirements, VAT etc
•Good management and leadership
•Recognised Legal Structure
Social Enterprise in the UK
UK hosts an estimated 62,000 social
enterprises which contribute £24bn
to UK output.
Social Enterprise in
Gateshead
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Actively supports over 80 social enterprises in Gateshead
Approximately 350 local jobs
Benefits approximately 15000 local people
Social Enterprises across all sectors
Help to develop 8 new social enterprises per year
Currently supporting 33 potential social entrepreneurs to
explore and develop their business ideas
Social Enterprise in Gateshead
Examples
• Gateshead Food Co-op CIC
• Happy to Help
• Renew North East
• North East Counselling Services
Employee Mutuals
• An organisation owned by members made up
in part or entirely by the employees
• Mutual organisations exist for the principal
purpose of delivering a benefit to their
members.
• Members can be employees, customers,
other key stakeholders, or some combination
of all three
Employee Mutuals
• Principles:
– Pursuit of profit is not the sole reason for
existence.
– Shared ownership,
– Democratic accountability
– Governance structures that ensure
members have control over the
organisation’s direction and decisionmaking.
Spectrum of Mutual's
• Employee Owned – eg John Lewis
Partnership
• Consumer Owned – eg The Co-operative
Group
Community of Interest
• “ A group of people that can be
identified by common social, political,
economic, or ethnic similarities.
• “ A community is a group of people who
form relationships over time by
interacting regularly around shared
experiences.”
Legal Structures for Third Sector
Organisations
• Mutual
– Charity
– Community
Benefit Society
– Company Limited
by Guarantee
– Co-operative
– Community
– Limited Liability
Interest Company
Partnership
• Social Enterprise
The Right to Provide
• Public sector workers are given a new right to form
employee-owned co-operatives to bid to take over
services they deliver
• Aimed at empowering workers to deliver better
services and control their organisations
• Proposals need to:
– Deliver savings
– Maintain or improve service quality
– Prove their capability
• Possible opportunity for Gateshead post Pathfinders
The Pathfinders
12 pathfinders including;
•Development of an employee led youth support service in Kensington &
Chelsea
•Integration of Community Health and Adult Social Services in Swindon
•Development of an employee led Trust to run an agricultural college in
Cumbria
•NHS employees forming a social enterprise to provide joined up support
for homeless people in Leicester
Right to Request
• Introduced in 2008, closed September 2010
• Invited proposals from staff to form employee-led
social enterprise to help transform local health and
social care services.
• Right to Request freed staff to use front-line expertise
to structure services around what really works for
patients.
• Outcomes
– 61 innovative social enterprises created
– Delivers £900m worth of services
– Employers 25,000 former NHS staff
Right to Request
Examples
• Community Dental Services (Bedfordshire) delivering
services to vulnerable people who don’t have regular
access to oral health care
• Spectrum Community Health CIC (Wakefield)
delivering general medical services, health promotion
and wellbeing interventions to hard to reach
communities.
• Care Trust Plus (Lincolnshire) delivering mental
health services for older people
Discussion
Is social enterprise an
opportunity for you?
SWOT Analysis