Socio-economic diversity in social investment

Our Buy Social Corporate Challenge is now entering its ninth year of supporting big businesses to bring social enterprises into their supply chains. Since launching at Downing Street in 2016, £477 million has been spent with social enterprises by 30 major corporate partners across all business sectors. The premise of the Challenge is simple: working with corporates to use their core business spend to create positive social and environmental impact. Our latest annual report shows the Challenge had the most successful year ever, as partners spent £123 million with social enterprise suppliers. Read on to find out more about the transformative impact of social procurement.

Based on a quarterly survey of our members, the latest Insight Paper on our Social Enterprise Knowledge Centre gives us a snapshot of sector conditions and expectations. This new research focused on social enterprises’ ability to increase turnover and generate profit during ongoing economic turmoil but also explored property status, trading with local government and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies in the sector.

This latest report, published at the Social Value Leaders’ Summit in March 2024, analyses public sector engagement with social value. Based on Freedom of Information requests to all local authorities in England and Wales, it builds on a 2016 research exercise to form the most comprehensive dataset on social value implementation in the country. Results paint a mixed picture, with engagement increasing over the years but progress limited by a lack of clarity and consistency. While the percentage of councils with a social value policy or strategy has more than doubled since 2016, these efforts are often not effectively communicated or measured - a missed opportunity for local government to realise the full potential of this transformative approach.