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By Andrew O'Brien - Director of External Affairs at Social Enterprise UK After several years of consultation and new legislation meandering its way through Parliament, HM Government has launched a public consultation on proposals to distribute nearly £800m from reclaimed dormant assets in England. The last round of dormant assets helped to create Big Society Capital and lay the platform for the social investment market. We can debate the pros and cons of the approaches taken over the past decade but what is undeniable is that targeting investment at social enterprises was the right thing to do. The consultation lasts until 9th October and Social Enterprise UK will be responding on behalf of the social enterprise sector. Delivering the vision of the Adebowale Commission on Social Investment One of the questions in the consultation is whether social investment should remain as one of the causes eligible for dormant assets. Social Enterprise UK’s view is categorically yes, that social investment should be at the core of the next tranche of dormant assets. However, it must be used to reform and improve the social investment market. Readers may be aware that earlier this year our Chair, Lord Victor Adebowale, concluded a two-year independent commission into the future of social investment. The Commission found that whilst social investment had helped some social enterprises, it had not fulfilled its potential due to a lack of flexible capital which could be deployed to provide “enterprise-centric” finance. It also found geographical and racial inequalities in the distribution of social investment. The Commission made several recommendations to address these challenges including the creation of a £50m black-led social investment fund to tackle inequalities faced by black-led social enterprises, putting more investment into place-led infrastructure and creating a “Frontiers Fund” to provide capital to give flexible finance into social enterprises. If we get things right, the Commission estimated that we could help thousands of social enterprises and generate hundreds of thousands of jobs across the country, particularly in the poorest areas. The report has received widespread support from social enterprises, social investors and experts. A Community Enterprise Growth Plan has been developed by SEUK and other partners which builds on the Adebowale Commission proposals and outlines how dormant assets could be used to make social investment work better. We will be using the consultation to call on the government to invest in that plan and deliver the recommendations of the Adebowale Commission.   Levelling up our communities Alongside backing social enterprises as businesses, we also need to ensure that we revitalise our communities and high streets so that they are vibrant places for social enterprises to grow. One of the proposals in the consultation is the creation of a “Community Wealth Fund”. This fund would distribute locally administered pots of money which would be used to provide patient funding for social infrastructure – the community spaces and organisations that we depend upon and bring us together. This proposal is being championed by the Community Wealth Fund Alliance which includes Social Enterprise UK. Increasingly, this social infrastructure is run by social enterprises. There are great examples across the country from Social Adventures in Salford which runs a community centre, garden centre and other important services to the Onion Collective in Watchet, Somerset which has built a new cultural centre to revitalise the area. Social enterprises are finding ways to maintain and develop local infrastructure through a combination of community engagement and trade. Community Wealth Funds would provide a way to support the development of new and existing community-based social enterprises. Get involved As Matt Leach of Local Trust and Seb Elsworth of Access Foundation have written, the Community Enterprise Growth Plan and Community Wealth Funds are complimentary policies. Both these ideas would help to grow and support social enterprise. Social Enterprise UK will be putting together a template response that members can send to the consultation themselves on these proposals, but if you’d like to find out more, you can email me (andrew.obrien@socialenterprise.org.uk) for more information or to share your views. You can also get in touch with your local MP to give them your views and ask them to support these policies.

26 July 2022 Social Enterprise UK celebrated its 20th anniversary at a special event held at the House of Lords terrace in the Palace of Westminster last Monday, on one of the hottest days of the year. It was a chance to look back and celebrate what SEUK and its members have achieved together over the last two decades and an opportunity to look forward to the future. Since being formed as the Social Enterprise Coalition, 20 years ago, SEUK has been a strong voice and champion for social enterprise in the UK, raising awareness of social enterprise and lobbying for change. SEUK was instrumental in the passing of the Social Value Act, the establishment of the Community Interest Community as a legal structure; and making social investment more accessible to social enterprises through the creation of Big Society Capital and, more recently, the Access Foundation. Over the years our ‘Buy Social’ work has grown from a campaign encouraging social enterprises to buy from each other - to one which is helping shape the supply chains of some of the UK’s biggest businesses through the Buy Social Corporate Challenge – an initiative which now has 30 corporate partners, and which has directed millions of pounds worth of spend towards social enterprises. SEUK's public-facing Buy Social campaigns have raised awareness of social enterprise and spread the word about buying from social enterprises to consumers.  As well as marking some of SEUK’s achievements over the last 20 years SEUK’s two former chairs, Baroness Glenys Thornton and Claire Dove CBE, shared their reflections of their time at the organisation and how it, and social enterprise, has grown and developed. Our current chair, Lord Victor Adebowale CBE set out the critical role social enterprise needs to play in the future of the economy and how SEUK, as the champion for the social enterprise movement, needs to ensure that those who either do not know what a social enterprise is or who do not care understand the that the social enterprise movement is a real catalyst for positive change. Lord Adebowale commented: “We’ve got to make them understand that if they’re interested in the future of the country, in fact the future of the planet, it’s social enterprise that they need to be interested in. They’re looking for solutions and we’re it” The need for social enterprises to be part of the climate change solution was apparent to everyone gathered in the room, as the outside temperature hit just under 40 degrees. As well as hearing from our Chair, former Chairs and Chief Executive SEUK members present voted on a resolution that enables SEUK to continue to invest in political activity. This resolution was passed unanimously by a quorate number of SEUK members. This will help us continue to champion and push for policy change that benefits social enterprise and position social enterprises as a fundamental part of an inclusive and sustainable economy. We know that the extreme temperatures made it impossible for many people to attend but we would like to thank everyone who was able to join us in Westminster and celebrate the last 20 years. We’d also like to extend our thanks to all our members, partners and supporters who have been instrumental in supporting our work over the years. Social Enterprise UK is nothing without its members and none of our achievements would have been possible without you. We look forward to working with you as we move forward and continue to make the case as to why social enterprise represents business at its best.

By Andrew O'Brien - Director of External Affairs at Social Enterprise UK Given all the uncertainty in Westminster these days, social enterprises would be forgiven for missing the Procurement Bill which is currently making its way through the House of Lords. The Procurement Bill seeks to create a new legal framework for procurement in the UK following our exit from the European Union. The Bill is long and complex, but at its core is the idea of creating greater flexibility for the UK in how it spends public money. Welcome changes For social enterprises, the Bill has several important changes. Firstly, the procurement system is going to move away from “Most Economically Advantageous Tender” to “Most Advantageous Tender”. At a basic level, this means that procurement decisions can be based on more than just price. This is a positive move in the right direction. Ultimately, the goal of any public sector procurement is to make society and our planet better. Price is a factor, but not the only factor. The shift away from narrow consideration on price towards a broader range of factors is a vindication for the years of campaigning by the social enterprise sector and other organisations which have pointed out the flaws in the previous system. There is also a requirement for public sector organisations to consider breaking out contracts into lots. We hear regularly from smaller social enterprises that they struggle to bid for contracts because they are too big. One of the lessons learnt from the collapse of Carillion was the need to spread risk more evenly throughout the system rather than contracts being dominated by one or two large providers. Cuts to procurement teams mean that this provision may still struggle to be used but encouraging breaking up contracts into smaller chunks should help increase the diversity of suppliers, including social enterprises. The Bill will also make market engagement before a contract is put out to tender easier by clarifying that this engagement is legal and specifying the process. Again, this is a welcome move as most social enterprises want to work in partnership, and we know that the best services are designed in collaboration with experts and service users. Where is social value? The biggest area of concern in this Bill is the absence of any reference to social value. Despite central government creating its own Social Value Model and championing social value across the public sector over the past few years, there are no references to social value in the Bill itself. Ministers have said that the duty to “maximise public benefit” covers social value and the National Procurement Policy Statement (guidance which lays out the government’s approach to procurement) does include references to social value, but this is far from ideal. Public benefit itself is not a term used regularly in procurement, it is something from charity law. Social value, by contrast, is clearly defined in law and is far better understood by public bodies given the ten years that have elapsed since the Social Value Act was passed by Parliament. Importantly, we need to give certainty and clarity to public sector bodies about what it is expected of them. A hokey-cokey where social value is in one minute and then out the next is not conducive to long term planning and engagement. Our Social Value 2032 programme, in partnership with Jacobs, PwC, Siemens, Shaw Trust and Suez recycling and recovery UK has found that there are huge opportunities to maximise the impact of public spending through social value. There is a £56bn “social value gap” that we need to close and this Bill will not help to address this. We have been working with members of the House of Lords from across all parties to table amendments to put social value into the Bill and these have received widespread support. Unfortunately, Minister’s are not budging. We will keep campaigning to set this right and hopefully fresh leadership will provide a renewed focus on how we maximise public money through greater use of social value. Next steps Social value is not the only area that we are working on, and we have worked with peers to put down amendments to encourage “open book accounting”, so that there is greater transparency on profits and surpluses in public sector contracting, as well as putting a duty on public bodies to consider the impact of their decisions on the social enterprise sector and SMEs so that we have a range of suppliers in the future. We will keep pushing for a procurement system which maximises social, economic and environmental impact and enables social enterprises to win contracts given the excellent track record of our sector. The Bill will be coming back to the House of Lords in September after the summer recess for further discussion of amendments and SEUK will keep working with peers to improve the Bill. Once it has passed through the House of Lords it will turn to the House of Commons and we can expect the Bill to be passed into law some time in early 2023. We’ll keep social enterprises updated about the passage of the Bill as it makes it way through Parliament.   If you have any question or would like to find out more about the Bill, feel free to email me at andrew.obrien@socialenterprise.org.uk.

7 July 2022 Statement from Peter Holbrook CBE, Chief Executive Officer, Social Enterprise UK “The Prime Minister has resigned and we will now see a contest to replace him.” “The country faces significant challenges from the cost-of-living crisis to the climate emergency. We need the next Prime Minister to be someone who understands that we cannot go on with business as usual. We need bold leadership if we are going to get Britain back on track.” “The present situation has shown the importance of integrity and why all our institutions, not just our politics, need to be governed with a sense of social responsibility. Government and business must put people and planet first.” “Social enterprises have a huge role to play in our future. There is no route to levelling up and bringing prosperity to all parts of our country that does not involve growing the social enterprise sector.” “SEUK will work with all Conservative leadership candidates to help them to understand the potential of our sector and we look forward to working with the next Prime Minister.”

By Jennifer Clair Robson - Content Director at Climate Action North The shift toward net zero will bring economy-wide transformation on an unprecedented scale. The transition will impact many industries, jobs, and communities. A Just Transition concerns the fair treatment of workers and communities affected by these changes. It involves investment in new skills and infrastructure while protecting and creating high-quality jobs and employment for a green economy. Approximately 6.3 million jobs in the UK, equating to around one in five, are likely to be affected by the transition to a green economy, according to the Just Transition Jobs Tracker. A Just Transition applies not only to large multinational corporations and governments; it is also critical that small and medium businesses, who play a crucial role in creating employment and are often at the heart of communities, are involved. Yet, while the importance of a Just Transition is a priority for the global climate agenda, it has been noted that many people don’t fully understand what it means. Here we demystify the Just Transition and consider: what is the Just Transition, why should I care, and what can my social enterprise do? What is the Just Transition? The Just Transition movement is a rising concern calling for the fair treatment of workers and communities who will be most affected by the shift to clean energy and the phasing out of fossil fuels. Greenpeace is campaigning to ensure that this move doesn’t leave anyone behind; they want to see workers, especially those in the oil and gas sector, retrained to keep green energy powering the world. The COP26 summit saw a 190-strong coalition of countries and organisations commit to phase out coal power and agree to: End investment in new coal power generation domestically and internationally Phase out coal power in economies in the 2030s for major economies Rapidly scale up the deployment of clean power generation Make a just transition away from coal power in a way that benefits workers and communities The push for clean and renewable energy is important because coal is responsible for nearly half of carbon dioxide emissions worldwide. A report issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in August 2021 was described as “code red” for humanity; it warned that without immediate deep cuts to carbon, including the phase-out of coal, the 1.5°C goal of the Paris Agreement will be unreachable.  Why should I care about the Just Transition? Without a Just Transition, many workers, particularly those in the oil and gas sector, will lose their livelihoods creating unnecessary hardship for them and their communities. Many will have spent a significant proportion of their life employed in their area of expertise and will not have the abilities to work in evolving professions. New jobs may not be available in the same locations that jobs are lost, and they may not be available at the time when people become unemployed. This is a pattern that has been repeated around the world, closer to home it happened when coal miners across the North of England lost their jobs in the 1980s. Sunderland City Council Deputy Leader Claire Rowntree told Climate Action North: “it’s vital that we do all we can to ensure the communities and jobs most affected by the inevitable switch from fossil fuels to renewable energy receive the levels of support required as we plan for a cleaner, greener future.” Fossil fuels is an obvious example, but the impacts will affect other industries such as automotive production, agriculture, construction and housing, manufacturing, and scientific and technical services. All affected industries will need to upskill their workforce or hire new employees. It is often forgotten that the Just Transition applies not only to large multinational corporations and governments. It is also relevant for small and medium businesses and social enterprises who may struggle to adjust without support, advice, and incentives. Yet the International Organisation of Employees (IOE) has stated that it believes that not enough focus is placed on small businesses in the Just Transition. It is essential social enterprises are engaged. They add a huge amount of value to communities and are connected through employees and their families. Any changes made in a social enterprise will spread out through the community via its workforce. Businesses that fail to act will face mounting pressure from investors, customers, staff and potential recruits, and legislation. In a nutshell, embracing a Just Transition to net zero and a green economy can help ensure the sustainability not only of the planet, but also of your enterprise. What can my social enterprise do? The most important step you can take is to commit to act. Simply making a Just Transition priority by including it in your goals will ensure it gets the attention it needs. Look at your social enterprise and find the smallest, easiest ways you can begin to make a difference. Start with your own impact and what you’re able to do. Get a holistic picture of risks climate change pose to your enterprise and operations with the Climate Action North business toolkit. Scrutinise your resilience against climate risks, identify areas of improvement, and put in place an action plan to reach net zero. It is important that those in the supply chain take account of their social impact when on the net zero journey. As well as working to strengthen local supply chains, you must consider regulations, apply due diligence for your workforce’s best interests, and ensure all environmental impacts are considered. This will make it easier to secure funds and contracts and enjoy the wider local economic and community benefits this brings. A Just Transition may bring challenges, but it will also present opportunities such as the upskilling and professional development of you and your workforce, and the creation of new jobs. These benefits need to be accessible to everyone so engage with your workforce to make sure they’re heard and are actively involved with all issues and opportunities. Climate Action North hosts events that focus on achieving a Just Transition in the North of England. They focus on strategies to create green jobs along with retraining opportunities for small businesses to help them be ‘skills-ready’ for the Just Transition to a cleaner, greener future. Sign up to our newsletter for details on events as they are released. Follow Climate Action North projects and get in touch to support our work and get involved. Our actions now will make a difference to tomorrow.

9 June 2022 Social enterprise, charity representative bodies and social investors have joined forces to call on Government to get behind a new plan to back enterprises in underserved places and communities in the forthcoming consultation on Dormant Assets. A 12-week consultation on the future use of dormant assets in England is expected to be launched this summer. The expanded scheme could release more than £880m additional funds for charities and social enterprises. A new ‘Community Enterprise Growth Plan’ focuses on the untapped potential for growing enterprises with a social purpose across the country, particularly in places and communities that have been deprived of investment in the past. This includes areas identified by the index of multiple deprivation and those led by or serving protected groups such as people from ethnic minority backgrounds, those with an impairment or facing gender bias.  The plan centres on providing increased access to capital, dedicated funding to encourage the growth of trading activity, and tailored business support. The coalition giving their backing to the plan includes SEUK, Navca, Power to Change and UnLtd, among others. It looks to leverage both private and philanthropic capital, alongside Dormant Assets – doubling the amount available to communities and ensuring the finite resources available through the scheme are used to maximum effect. The plan builds on a strong track record of utilising Dormant Assets over 10 years to invest in social enterprises, community businesses and trading charities, and complements other proposed uses of dormant assets. It would see Dormant Assets applied to a range of tried and tested interventions to support enterprise and trading activities by VCSEs including: Helping smaller charities and social enterprises to access suitable and affordable finance through blending grants and loans in the places and communities most in need of investment.Start-up funding for a £50m Black-led social investment fund as recommended by the recent Adebowale Commission on Social Investment to tackle the current inequity in social investment.Supporting a vibrant network of non-profit lenders (Community Development Financial Institutions or CDFIs) that can offer affordable finance to community businesses and small enterprises in areas unable to access mainstream lending.Providing tailored business support and incentives for purpose-driven enterprises to grow through trading in the form of match trading initiatives coupled with learning. Peter Holbrook CBE, Chief Executive, Social Enterprise UK said: “This consultation marks a once-in-a-decade opportunity to decide how we use hundreds of millions of pounds to help communities. We must use this precious resource wisely. Ultimately, we know that trading is the only route to lasting transformational change. The Community Enterprise Growth Plan is a smart way to deploy limited funds to support social enterprises in places that need them. I hope that the Government listens to the social enterprise sector and experts in backing this proposal.”  Notes The existing Dormant Assets Scheme enables banks and building societies to channel funds from dormant bank and building society accounts towards good causes. The Scheme is led by industry and backed by the government with the aim of reuniting people with their financial assets. Where this is not possible, this money goes towards social and environmental initiatives across the UK. The scheme is set to be expanded later this year – including assets from the insurance and pensions, investment and wealth management, and securities sectors for the first time – following a consultation on the causes that should benefit from the scheme in England. The Community Enterprise Growth Plan has been developed and supported by a range of organisations including: Access – the Foundation for Social InvestmentBig Society CapitalImpact Investing InstituteNavcaPower to ChangeSchool for Social EntrepreneursSocial Enterprise UKSocial Investment Business UnLtdMore detail can be found here including further expressions of support for the plan. 

30 May 2022 The All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Social Enterprise has announced that Jo Gideon MP has been elected as its new Chair, following the decision by Alex Sobel MP to stand down after five years in the role. Gideon, the Member of Parliament for Stoke-on-Trent Central, was elected to Parliament in 2019 and has brought her experience as a social entrepreneur and small business owner to the Commons. The APPG for Social Enterprise is a cross-party group of MPs and Peers that seeks to raise awareness of social enterprise within Westminster. Earlier this year, the APPG published a report into the impact of COVID-19 on the social enterprise sector. The APPG holds regular meetings throughout the year to connect Parliamentarians and social enterprises together. Commenting on her election to Chair of the APPG, Jo Gideon MP said: “It is a privilege to have been elected as the Chair of the APPG on Social Enterprise. I have been an active champion for social enterprise throughout my life as they play a hugely valuable role within our economy and our communities through their vital work to improve the lives of those they support. Over the years I have both set up and advised a wide range of social enterprises and am keen to ensure a wider awareness of supporting the sector.” Peter Holbrook CBE, Chief Executive of Social Enterprise UK which provides the Secretariat to the APPG said: “The APPG for Social Enterprise plays an important role in championing social enterprise and I am pleased that Jo has been elected as the new Chair. She comes to the role at an important time for our sector as we look to find ways for social enterprise to contribute towards levelling up the country and achieving Net Zero. Social Enterprise UK will continue to provide support to the APPG so that we build the best possible environment for social enterprise to flourish.” “I would also like to put on record the sector’s thanks to Alex Sobel for his chairing of the APPG over the past five years. He has been a dedicated Chair and advocate for social enterprise, and I am sure that we will continue to work together in the future.”

Like most households and businesses, social enterprises are concerned about rising costs and inflation. Their level of concern has increased significantly over the last quarter, with over two-thirds of social enterprises worried about the impact on their businesses. Yet when thinking about solutions, social enterprises are focused on longer-term impact and structural reform – they are not reacting to this pressure by requesting subsidy or seeking to cut costs. When asked what support they needed, less than half of respondents said that fiscal or grant-based support was what they required. As the lack of government measures to address inflation and rising costs impacts the whole economy, we are collecting data through the Social Enterprise Advisory Panel to understand how social enterprises are being affected. In our January Social Enterprise Advisory Panel[1], we saw that 34% of social enterprises expected cost of living to be a significant concern over the following 3-6 months. This was alongside ongoing COVID uncertainty and reduced income/revenue associated with both the pandemic and inflation. In March that figure had risen to 68%. Over a fifth are very concerned, and just 7% think that there will be no negative impact on their business. Don’t anticipate a negative impact on business7%No impact yet/not sure what the impact will be23%Somewhat concerned46%Very concerned – already seeing significant impact22% Level of concern about the impact of the rising cost of living In addition to concern about rising costs, we asked whether operating costs have changed in the last quarter compared to the previous quarter. 55% of social enterprises have seen operating costs increase, with 10% of these saying costs have increased significantly. Don’t know or prefer not to say4%Operating costs have significantly increased10%Significantly decreased3%Slightly decreased8%Slightly increased45%Stayed the same30% Operating costs changes in the last 3 months, compared to the 3 months before When asked about support required to mitigate the impacts of rising costs, we presented the options of tax relief and emergency grants. Just under a half of respondents indicated that these would be useful to them – meaning that over half didn’t see these as key solutions. What was more interesting from results was that social enterprises are thinking about longer-term solutions and wider, more structural reform. Alongside suggestions for temporary government support to address escalating property and energy prices and to reverse the proposed national insurance contribution increase, social enterprises are proposing solutions that are less focused on the immediate needs of individual businesses and address structural reforms needed to deliver strong and growing social enterprise activity over the medium and longer-term. For example, whereas social enterprises said that energy price caps would help them mitigate price rises, there is equal interest to address overall energy efficiency in the medium and longer-term as part of the solution to current high energy costs. “Help to reduce overheads by providing capital expenditure for more energy efficient heating & lighting“ Similarly, social enterprises want measures to address consumer discretionary spend – rather than providing support directly to social enterprises. Because many social enterprises work in and for communities in areas of high deprivation that were already stretched by the financial and wider consequences of the pandemic, cuts in discretionary spending are likely to have a more immediate impact than for many other businesses. But unlike direct financial support to businesses, fiscal support to impoverished people offers the double benefit of relieving those most in need – and, indirectly, ensuring that social enterprises which offer them support can continue to do so. “Government intervention to ensure that discretionary spend is still available for people to buy services like ours.” “Supporting community against the rising cost of living especially food and fuel costs.” Rising costs are not being mirrored by changes to contract fees and the need to address this procurement issue is becoming more acute for many social enterprises. “All our work is with statutory bodies, umbrella bodies and housing associations, these are contracts where fees have remained static for more than 10 years.” Also on a wider level, albeit not directly related to the rising costs, there is growing concern about a gap between the UK Shared Prosperity Fund and past EU funding and the implications this will have on poorer communities in particular, and therefore on social enterprise activity in these areas. What is the ask from social enterprise? Energy price caps in the short term and more support towards energy efficiency in the medium term. Procurement pricing changes to account for significant supplier and input cost increases. More support to mitigate costs for the poorest individuals and households in the short term and wider and deeper fiscal reform in the medium term.