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Cabinet Office
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Byrne pledges unprecedented Government support for social enterprises
Businesses with a social mission [that provide social value], like Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, are to benefit from a wide package of new measures to designed to boost social enterprises in creating new jobs, new businesses and delivering public services, announced this week.
The Minister for the Cabinet Office set out three new ways in which Government will back social enterprises seeking to deliver public services, ahead of a major Social Enterprise Summit.
The summit will be jointly chaired by Liam Byrne and Business Secretary Lord Mandelson and brings together social enterprise leaders to take forward in the UK the Prime Minister's G20 commitment to make business more responsible.
The new measures include:
* A new Ministerial Working Group, chaired by Liam Byrne, Minister for the Cabinet Office, will ensure a level playing field for social enterprises and charities to compete for specific public service delivery contracts, furthering the Government's commitment to create 25,000 new jobs in social enterprises and charities.
* A new Guide to Social Return will equip public service leaders with the tools to understand the social value that social enterprises can bring to local society, when they deliver services.
* The new Futurebuilders Investment Plan setting out how £45.6 million of public money this year will help social enterprises deliver public services, through a new fast-track investment process.
Further announcements will follow at the Summit and on Wednesday.
Minister for the Cabinet Office Liam Byrne said:
"Social enterprises put good values to good effect - fast. The sector has never been stronger thanks to our support of the last ten years. Now, 60,000 British social enterprises turnover some £27bn.
"But we want to see the sector get stronger still.
"Social enterprises are well placed not only to respond the any increasing demands for services for vulnerable people. They also provide a blueprint for the kind of ethical and sustainable businesses that will help build a new, more balanced economy."
The lessons from the Summit will be taken forward across Government through a new cross government social enterprise policy forum. Government departments will be asked to bid for funds to help build evidence on how social enterprise can contribute to solving their policy priorities.
The series of new measures announced today by the Cabinet Office builds on the extensive support already in place to support the third sector and businesses. Our commitment to public service reform, and to tap into the creativity of social enterprise, is illustrated by programmes such as Futurebuilders, which provides loans and other support to third sector organisations to win public service contracts.
Notes to Editors:
1. Social investment wholesale bank
A Social Investment
Wholesale Bank would work with existing investors and lenders to
increase the supply of investment in the third sector strengthen
demand for finance and develop the social investment
market.
The Office of the Third Sector will consult by the
summer on the design and functions of a Social Investment
Wholesale Bank and will report back with substantive proposals.
2. Guide to Social Return in Investment
The Office of the
Third Sector (OTS) is running the Measuring Social Value project,
which is being taken forward over 2008-2011. The project is being
run by a consortium led by SROI UK, with New Philanthropy Capital,
New Economics Foundation, Charities Evaluation Service and
National Council of Voluntary Organisations as members. Further
details on the project can be found on the Office of the Third
Sector's website here.
The project is running alongside a
complementary project funded by the Scottish Government's
Third Sector Division (TSD). The Scottish Government's
project has responsibility for the development of a SROI portal
and of new training materials for practitioners. More information
on this project can be found here.
The SROI Network is a
network dedicated to the consistent and effective use of SROI. It
is a membership organisation with members who are practitioners,
academics, funders and investors with an interest in the use and
development of social return on investment. The growing membership
is led by accredited practitioners who have pioneered SROI in
England, Ireland and Scotland. More information can be found at
the SROI Network website here. For further information please
email info@sroi-uk.org
The new guide on Social Return on
Investment (SROI) will help charities, social enterprises and all
organisations with a focus on social and environmental value to
communicate their impact effectively to customers, government,
public service commissioners, investors and the wider public.
For commissioners, SROI can be used initially as a way to help
them decide where to invest, and later to assess performance and
measure progress over time. As part of phase two of the National
Programme for Third Sector Commissioners, we are committed to
working with SROI as part of the training programme.
For
investors and funders, SROI can help them gain a better
understanding of the social and environmental value they
seek.
Cabinet Office Press Office 22 Whitehall LONDON SW1A 2WH
