Thought Leadership

TCES National Online School – whose pupils have special educational needs, with many at risk of becoming ‘ghost children’ through missing out on school entirely - has been named as the first online special school to be accredited under the Department for Education’s new Online Education Accreditation Scheme (OEAS).  The clampdown scheme was launched in response to growing concern about the quality and safety of an unregulated and rapidly growing online education sector. In a blog post explaining the scheme, National Director of Education, Christopher Russell, has identified the risks as: ‘Anyone - qualified or not – could cobble together an unsafe platform, plan a few lessons, and start to charge fees to unsuspecting parents. That’s bad for children, bad for their parents, and it's also unfair for the good online providers that are proud of their work and welcome independent oversight.’ A two-day inspection, during which inspectors spoke to children, parents and the Local Authorities who fund TCES National Online School places, concluded that the school had met all OEAS quality standards: ‘Led by the proprietor, leaders and staff are driven by a strong moral purpose to improve children’s academic and pastoral outcomes. They expertly intertwine education and therapy, working tirelessly to identify, reduce, and often, eliminate the barriers to learning children have faced.’  ‘In line with TCES’ other schools and services, TCES National Online School provides for pupils’ holistic development through a five-part curriculum: academic and vocational, enrichment, engagement, therapeutic and pupil leadership. The curriculum is designed to meet pupils’ educational, therapeutic and SEMH needs and is mapped against the targets in pupils’ EHC plans. When joining the provider, pupils are enrolled as full-time learners, with timetables specific to their needs. As they develop trust in their tutors and build in confidence, pupils access an increasing range of learning opportunities.’ Welcoming the first-of-its-kind quality mark, TCES Founder and CEO Thomas Keaney says:   ‘Being the first online special school to achieve the Department for Education’s quality mark is a huge achievement for my team. It proves that we’re doing what we set out to; provide a first-class, well-rounded education for children with special needs, anxiety and other challenges that make it impossible for them to attend school in person.   ‘Just as importantly the quality mark provides vital reassurance for families and Local Authorities. Now they can look for an online provider with the OEAS quality mark and know that we meet the standards demanded by the Department for Education.’ 10-year-old Daniel has a diagnosis of autism and ADHD and has been studying with TCES National Online School since May 2023. Prior to joining TCES, Daniel’s attendance at his mainstream primary school had fallen to around 50% and getting him into school had become increasingly difficult for his mum Louise, who says:  ‘I used to dread waking up in the morning to get Daniel into school. Sometimes I couldn’t get him there until midday or 1pm.  I felt like I was failing as a mum because he was suffering so much. I want him to have an education, but not at the expense of his mental health. Daniel could certainly have become one of the so-called ‘ghost children’ without TCES National Online School. His school said they couldn’t meet his needs, I would have had to take him out and maybe try home-schooling, but I don’t have any training in that area. Everything could have become very, very difficult for us both. Since he’s been with TCES, I’ve seen Daniel thrive and be independent. He’s excited rather than stressed. He’s calmer, happier, he knows he’s in a safe environment and doesn’t feel threatened.’ TCES CEO Thomas Keaney continues: ‘Most TCES National Online School pupils have Education Health and Care Plans (EHCPs) owing to their medical diagnoses, special needs, or mental health challenges. Often, they are victims of a broken system which has seen them permanently excluded with no other school that will take them, or waiting years for a special school place in a sector where chronic underinvestment means that need far outstrips supply.  For these families, online school is not a lifestyle choice, a nice to have, it’s quite simply the only way that their complex and vulnerable children can access the education they are entitled to. With more than 36% of children with EHCPs persistently absent, and more than 3,000 reportedly waiting for a special school place, it’s high time we stopped thinking of attendance in a physical school as the only solution. Today is a first for the online education sector, and I hope it sends a clear message that online special education – be it interim or permanent – is a viable option for the future. Regulating the sector must be just the start of the journey for the Department for Education. Next it must consult, invest, and plan for the expansion of state-funded online special schools, rather than allow a two-tier online school system to open up where only those parents who can afford it get the specialist education their children deserve.’ About TCES TCES National Online School has been providing a full online curriculum and school experience to pupils since 2020. It is part of the family-owned, social enterprise group, The Complete Education Solution (TCES). TCES was set up in 1999 by founder and CEO Thomas Keaney whose authentic commitment to inclusion means that no child has ever been permanently excluded in the Group’s 24-year history, and there are no fixed term exclusions either.  Increasingly, pupils referred to TCES National Online School have been out of school for long periods, and at substantial risk of becoming ‘ghost children’ and/or being drawn into criminal and other forms of exploitation owing to a chronic lack of support for them and their families. Working to the same therapeutic education principles used in TCES bricks and mortar schools (rated Good with Outstanding features by Ofsted) TCES National Online School aims to prepare pupils to ‘step down’ into physical mainstream or special schools wherever possible. Pupils attend TCES National Online School for a minimum of six weeks, with the average placement lasting 28 weeks. However, pupils also attend for longer periods where appropriate. The OEAS inspection report confirms that ‘no pupils leaving the provider [TCES National Online School] become NEET’ (not in education, employment or training).

At Social Enterprise UK we run the Secretariat for the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Social Enterprise, encouraging politicians to explore the impact of social enterprises in addressing key national policy issues. On 16 January the APPG hosted a discussion on social enterprise solutions to challenges in the UK food system, facilitated by Jo Gideon MP, highlighting Middlesex University research on how the sector can improve access to healthy and sustainable food. The gathering of parliamentarians heard from Prof Fergus Lyon, Dr Anastasia Loukianov, Dr Ian Vickers and Dr Doirean Wilson about how existing approaches have been largely unsuccessful in addressing poor dietary health and unsustainable food production. Social enterprises grounded in local communities offer an alternative to top-down public health initiatives, which can come across as patronising and jar with lived experiences of food poverty. Social enterprises involved in the research also shared their experiences. The Selby Trust spoke about their food hub, global garden and community café that provide fresh food to the local community and a garden space where people can grow their own food. Showing the harsh reality of the food crisis, in the last year they delivered food to over 12,000 people. The Ubele Initiative discussed their work on food sovereignty; they support Black and Minoritised communities through social prescribing work focused on growing food -making the link between healthy eating, community activity and mental health. The research also involves London Early Years Foundation’s nursery chef programme, as well as a local food hub and therapeutic growing work by Social adVentures. From health and care to early years education, community hubs and transport providers – this research shows how diverse social enterprises are finding innovative, empowering ways to transform the food system. The project is ongoing but its resulting report will be published on our Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre later this year. Wider discussion included conversations on the role of procurement and social value in supporting social enterprises working in this space, the need for better support from government for local food initiatives, and calls to make grants and other funding options more accessible. Commenting on the roundtable discussion, Professor Fergus Lyon said: “It was an honour to be invited to present to MPs and there was lots of interest about the role that social enterprises can play in tackling the food issues. It was also a great opportunity to bring together a range of thinkers on food issues and discuss how social enterprises can be part of the solution”.

On New Year’s Day, the social enterprise community woke up to the news that Nobel Laureate, Professor Muhammad Yunus was to be sentenced to six months in jail on charges of violating labour laws in his home country of Bangladesh. He is currently on bail pending an appeal. Professor Yunus is one of the true pioneers of the social enterprise movement crediting with lifting millions out of poverty through the innovative use of micro-finance, something which earned him the title of ‘banker to the poor’. The harassment and now sentencing of Professor Yunus has been condemned by fellow Nobel Laureates, global leaders and concerned citizens from around the world as being politically motivated. Amnesty International stated that the Bangladeshi Governments’ actions are “emblematic of the beleaguered state of human rights in Bangladesh, where the authorities have eroded freedoms and bulldozed critics into submission.” Not only is Professor Yunus an inspiration to social entrepreneurs around the world he is also a real friend of Social Enterprise UK, having spoken with and met some of our members at a reception in Parliament and also taken part in our online Social Enterprise Futures conference in 2021. Our Chief Executive, Peter Holbrook believes that not only is the persecution of Professor Yunus politically motivated but also point towards the real dangers faced by those who dare challenge the status quo, telling Pioneers Post that “if you really get close to achieving your mission [of] positively changing the world in a structural and systemic way, then existing sources of power will come after you.” Show your support and solidarity We’re encouraging our members to show that they stand in solidarity with Professor Yunus through sharing a picture of them holding a sign stating ‘I Stand with Yunus’ and then posting this on social media using #IStandWithYunus. Whilst work proceeds behind the scenes to fight for the overturning of this unjust sentence, showing that Professor Yunus is supported and appreciated by the movement he did so much to inspire will keep his case on the radar and hopefully help keep his spirits up. His team at the Yunus Centre are encouraging everyone to get involved and are in direct contact with him passing on messages of support. Please do show your support by taking this simple online campaign action.   You can also still add your name to this open letter signed by 188 global leaders created when the Bangladeshi Government’s harassment of Professor Yunus became apparent. Signatories include over 100 Nobel laureates, Barack Obama, and former UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. To add you name email protectmdyunus@gmail.com.

We're thrilled to announce the expansion of Impact Hub London, with the opening of our second hub in Spring 2024! Introducing Impact Hub London Euston at Regent’s Place A fully sustainable and accessible workspace, rated BREEAM Excellent, Impact Hub London Euston at Regent’s Place provides a vibrant space for collaboration, connection, and inclusive innovation. It’s perfect for social entrepreneurs and growing impact teams, with 6 private offices, 16 team desks and coworking space. Located between Camden, Regent’s Park, Fitzrovia, Euston and Marylebone, and with five tube stations within an 8-minute walk, it is one of the most accessible areas in London, helping to bring changemakers from across London together.  Read more about our new location here. Workspace features Micro-office Team desks Coworking space Bike parking Breakout areas Members library Communal kitchen Dedicated event space Fully accessible design Meeting rooms Dog friendly Join the Movement Join us in Euston as we create a vibrant community dedicated to making a difference. Together, we can harness the power of collaboration, innovation, and collective action to build a more sustainable and inclusive future. Download the brochure Book a call to find out more!  

Find out about social enterprise Beam's 131,370 Reasons to Act Now campaign to help support individuals and families experiencing homelessness to find safe and stable homes. Only 4% of Brits gave money to the homeless in 2023, according to the latest research by Beam, the social impact start-up supporting homeless people and refugees. Rates of giving have also declined year on year since 2021. 11% of people reported donating to the homeless in 2021, falling to 9% in 2022. Average giving in December has fallen from £9 in 2022 and £7 in 2021 to a new low of £3, month to date this December. These falling donation rates come at a time when the latest government figures state 131,370 children are now legally homeless, living in emergency accommodation due to the lack of social housing and the deepening cost of living crisis.  According to a survey of 2,000 adults in the UK conducted during the first week of December 2023, the reasons for declining giving were: not carrying cash (34%), the cost of living crisis (31%), unsure of what the money will be spent on (19%), don’t know enough about the individual (11%), and other causes being a priority (5%). The new data highlights the growing impact of a cashless society on giving. The survey also highlights the misconception that homeless people are mostly rough sleeping or begging, when over 80% of homeless people are off the streets in emergency accommodation.  However, there may be signs of a way out. The average one-off donation to people using Beam’s crowdfunding platform is £31.09*, highlighting that online giving, personal stories, direct connections and transparency on where donations go can significantly increase the size of donations.  Beam is the world’s first crowdfunding platform for homeless people and others in need. Beam has been able to help people like Regina from South London, who was introduced to the social impact start-up after almost four years of homelessness. She had to flee her home from an emotionally abusive domestic situation for the safety of herself and her daughter. To afford the hostel that the council offered her, Regina had to quit her estate agent job and go onto Universal Credit. Through Beam, the public funded Regina’s employment training and nursery bills so that her daughter could receive support while she levelled up her career. With Christmas around the corner, Beam has launched its “131,370 Reasons to Act Now” campaign. There are currently 131,370 homeless children in emergency accommodation in the UK. Beam is urgently raising £131,370 to support the individuals and families working with Beam to find a safe and stable home so that next Christmas their situation will be brighter. Alex Stephany, Founder and CEO of Beam: “This winter, we face a deepening homelessness emergency. Beam’s latest research highlights the UK public still holds some outdated beliefs that directly impact people’s willingness to support homeless people. Beam’s online donation platform tears down barriers like lack of cash and worries about where the money will be spent. At the heart of this new model is technology that can directly connect people who care about this issue with those in need. Homelessness is one of the biggest social problems of our time and the need has never been greater. By backing someone on Beam, people can give transparently as each homeless person has their own budget with costs broken down to the nearest pound. Efficiently - as 100% of donations go towards the campaign's cost. And responsibly - as Beam holds all donations securely on behalf of the people we help.” Regina comments: “Homelessness isn’t a choice anyone makes unless they are out of options. People not only need your help, but your kindness. I got 1-1 support from a Beam caseworker and financial support from Beam’s community. And I also heard directly from the donors who left messages of encouragement - those messages were lights of hope in the darkness. I will never forget one I got from a little girl who wanted to use her Christmas money to help the homeless. Those messages kept me going. This Christmas you could help someone like me and your money and kindness could mean that next Christmas they too are out of homelessness and on to a brighter future.” About Beam Beam is a start-up supporting homeless people and refugees into stable jobs and homes for the long-term. Its unique crowdfunding platform helps disadvantaged communities to raise funding for job training, work tools, rental deposits and other financial costs related to finding a job or home. Over 200,000 donations and 60,000 messages of support have flowed through Beam’s platform to homeless people and others in need of support. Donations come from the public and companies, who can view transparent budgets of financial barriers required to support each person. By partnering with the government to fund its overheads, Beam also has a unique 100% giving model, allowing every penny to fund financial barriers for some of the UK’s most vulnerable people this Christmas. Since launching in 2017, Beam has supported more than 2,500 homeless people and refugees into stable jobs and homes.

Serving London for over 20 years, Tarem Services Limited is a social enterprise dedicated to addressing the ongoing issues surrounding in-work poverty within the UK. We firmly believe that every cleaner and other blue-collar worker deserves to earn more than just a ‘living wage’ - this is especially true as the cost of living continues to soar. Our social mission is to “tackle in-work poverty for all and deliver real change within our workforce, create awareness of the issue, and drive better social values. We fully understand how critical our role is in providing our clients with the highest standards in terms of the services we provide. More importantly, we take the well-being of our entire workforce very seriously as they are the backbone of our excellence and persistent successful track record. We’re pleased to share Tarem Services' latest Social Impact Report July 2022 – August 2023.  The report highlights Tarem Services' commitment to delivering positive impact over the last 12 months.  As a social enterprise, we continue to take purposeful actions to uphold our responsibility to create a more sustainable and brighter future.   Download the full report from here

We are proud to announce that pioneering social entrepreneur Joanne Anderson has joined us as an Associate Director leading our Social Value 2032 Programme. As the first female Mayor of Liverpool, Joanne spearheaded efforts to deliver social value for local communities, introducing and monitoring targets across local government contracts to make sure that procurement benefitted people and planet. Her achievements include setting up the first Black social enterprise community consultancy, Innervision, as well as leading community engagement policy work in the Crown Prosecution Service. She is also the founder of BlaST, a Black social traders network set up in 2021 as part of her work with the Kindred social enterprise community across the Liverpool City Region. Joanne brings nearly three decades of experience as an equality, diversity and inclusion practitioner to Social Enterprise UK, as well as a great passion for businesses that consider their social and environmental impact. Her new role will see Joanne helping us make the ambitious vision behind our Social Value Roadmap a reality, working to embed this pioneering approach to procurement across the public sector and in the UK’s largest companies. As well as driving forward the research and lobbying work of our Social Value 2032 programme, Joanne will host our next Social Value Leaders Summit in March 2024 for key cross-sector stakeholders to explore how this growing business movement can shape markets and organisational behaviour. Commenting on joining the Social Enterprise UK team, Joanne said: “This is going to show the nerd in me – I was completely excited and delighted to read the Roadmap! Every frustration I had around social value was labelled nicely in a report with a roadmap of what to do about it. Between my unique social enterprise and local government perspective, I’ve seen that there's just not enough understanding around social value. “Social value means ‘extra’; If you're a business that does something ‘extra', that has a positive impact on people, that's social value. You’re going to have an impact as a business and you can decide whether it's good or bad. Having a positive social impact on the communities and people around you are what makes the difference. “What's important is to get some standards around how we measure impact. I couldn't have been given a better Christmas present, really, than to get stuck in to try and lobby the next government about the real opportunities in using the Social Value Act - tackling our social problems at a local level and creating community wealth building. As a bit of a purist, I think all businesses can be good businesses. That's my vision, my utopia.” Find out more about our Social Value 2032 programme at socialenterprise.org.uk/evidence-policy/social-value-2032-shaping-the-future-of-social-value.

Our latest State of Social Enterprise report shows a growing sector that is not only profitable and productive but truly pioneering in its impact for people and planet. This year’s report titled ‘Mission Critical’ estimates that there are 131,000 social enterprises across the country, representing almost one in 42 of all UK businesses. Overall, the research shows a movement creating huge impact, despite complex challenges restricting its potential. Not only are social enterprises doing right by society and the environment, they are performing well in economic terms, with a collective turnover of approximately £78 billion or around 3.4% of GDP. Only 17% reported a decrease in turnover, compared with 30% of businesses as a whole. In the last financial year, social enterprises made £1.2 billion in profit, re-investing £1 billion to drive progress on their vital social and environmental missions. By comparison, FTSE 100 companies were on track to spend a record amount on share buy-backs, alongside nearly half of their expected net-profit of £170 billion going to paying dividends. Social enterprises are also major employers, creating jobs for around 2.3 million people, with 84% paying the real Living Wage. They are continuing to break down employment barriers around gender, race and class through workforce diversity; 22% of social enterprises operate in the most deprived areas of the UK, compared to 14% of wider businesses, while 58% have leadership teams that are at least half female and 43% have at least one leader from Black, Asian or Minority Ethnic backgrounds. As well as tackling social inequalities, social enterprises are actively addressing environmental issues, with almost a fifth fighting climate change as their core mission and 65% having a plan in place to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions. Given the growing crises in our natural world, we need to harness the power of social enterprise now more than ever. However, the report also showed that social enterprises are increasingly under strain, with complex economic barriers meaning that the full potential of this pioneering business model is not being realised. Beyond the general economic instability and uncertainty facing all businesses, many social enterprises struggle to access sufficient or suitable finance, and often report lacking the skills to obtain much-needed investment.   Commenting on the research findings, our chair Lord Victor Adebowale CBE said: “While social enterprises continue to start up and grow, despite the obstacles, the scale of our ambition should not be to keep things going. We cannot take for granted the sector’s ongoing contributions to our economy, our environment and wider society. Social enterprises are surviving but they should be thriving. “Given the sector’s impact despite present challenges, its potential in a more supportive ecosystem could be transformative.  ‘Business as usual’ isn’t working and this mission-led model must become the new normal. As we look ahead to a general election year, social enterprise solutions must be front and centre of a British economy that drives fair growth for all.” The State of Social Enterprise report, published every two years, is the most comprehensive piece of research looking at the key trends and issues affecting our movement. It will form the basis of our continued research and policy work, and is a key resource in raising the profile of our sector amongst decision makers. You can read the full report on our Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre, which houses all our research evidence: socialenterprise.org.uk/social-enterprise-knowledge-centre/the-state-of-social-enterprise If you’d like to contribute to future Social Enterprise UK research, please register to be part of the Social Enterprise Advisory Panel by emailing research@socialenterprise.org.uk