Social Enterprise 'a quiet revolution'

Gordon Brown
^{(image courtesy IMF)}

Gordon Brown, Chancellor of the Exchequer, has joined Cabinet Office Ministers in launching the Government's Social Enterprise Action Plan - and welcomed the way social enterprises are challenging our stereotypes about business.

There are at least 55,000 social enterprises in the UK - including well known success stories like The Big Issue orJamie Oliver's Fifteen - and the Chancellor praised them for lighting the way toward a fairer society by using business acumen to solve social and environmental challenges.

The Chancellor, alongside Minister for the Cabinet Office Hilary Armstrong and Minister for the Third Sector Ed Miliband, announced plans to make over £18m available over the coming years to help knock down barriers to growth and enable social enterprises to thrive.

These dynamic businesses are founded for a social purpose, reinvest their profits in the company or community - and change lives for the better everyday.

Today's action plan aims to open the door to thousands more social enterprises - by raising awareness of what they can achieve and investing money to encourage more people make a difference, either by involvement or investment. The plan includes measures to:

• Promote social enterprise within schools, providing curriculum materials and ensuring it is studied in GCSE and A level business studies courses;
• Consult with the finance and social enterprise sectors on how to improve the market for social enterprise, making up to £10m available for co-investment in social enterprise with the private sector;
• We will conduct a review of how the operation of the Community Investment Tax Relief might be improved;
• Work with Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) and the social enterprise sector to roll out financial awareness training for growing organisations;
• Appoint up to 20 social enterprise ambassadors to be role models for new entrepreneurs across the UK;
• Put £5.9m over four years into RDAs to improve levels business support for social enterprises;
• Improve the guidance available on the Business Links website - making it a holistic information shop for social enterprises;
• Make £2.4m available over three years to support organisations that represent social enterprises at a national level - to raise its profile and provide a voice to government.

These measures, along with others in the action plan by the Office of the Third Sector in the Cabinet Office, are designed to tackle the market failures that currently exist as barriers to growth and ensure social enterprise becomes a mainstream option for anyone setting up a business in the UK.

Hilary Armstrong, Minister for the Cabinet - speaking to the CBI at 1100 today - said: "Social Enterprises are having an incredible impact across the UK - from tackling social exclusion to providing opportunities for the young to help shape our communities. Today's Action Plan puts in place measures to support inspiring people to devoting themselves, using their business acumen, to change lives for the better up and down the country.
"We must have diversity of provision to ensure government, business and the third sector - particularly social enterprise - all play their part in reshaping our public services."

Ed Miliband, Minister for the Third Sector, said: "From classrooms to boardrooms, people need to know what social enterprise is and what it can achieve. That is why we are launching this Action Plan today - to shine a light on a movement that is at the vanguard of social change and enable it to continue to grow and thrive. "

Social enterprises not only tackle some of society's most entrenched social and environmental challenges - they increase levels of enterprise and attract new people to business, catalyse and respond to growing ethical markets, and challenge the private sector to put social justice alongside profit-making at the heart of what they do.