UK Government Invests in the Social Sector
The UK Government recently announced a commitment of £42.5 million to help volunteers, charities and social enterprise. Highlights include:
- Up to £10 million investment in volunteer brokerage scheme for unemployed people with create over 40,000 opportunities for people to learn new skills and give back to communities through volunteering.
- A £15.5 million Community Resilience Fund will provide grant funding to small and medium providers in our most deprived communities. This is in addition to the £130 million already committed to the Grassroots Grants programme meaning more small grants to more community groups.
- A £16.5 million modernisation fund to help with the cost of mergers, partnerships and moves to more efficient sharing of back office functions for at least 3000 third sector organisations.
- A £0.5 million investment in the School for Social Entrepreneurs to double the number of people it trains to become social entrepreneurs, particularly those working in deprived communities.
These initiatives display the importance of political leadership in funding a different kind of "stimulus package" than what we typically see in North America.
- David Cameron, the Conservative Party's leader, sees a social investment bank as a top priority for the third sector. According to remarks made at Voice09, a social enterprise conference in Birmingham, a social stock exchange and increasing the capacity and scope of social enterprises were also important elements.
- The Cabinet Office minister Liam Byrne, also speaking at Voice09, called for a wider "aggressive growth strategy" for the social enterprise sector. He unveiled a target that will aim to see 25,000 more people working in social businesses in health, education, and welfare services.
However, Charity Finance reports that this is well short of the £500m demanded by the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations last year and the £100m requested by the The National Council for Voluntary Organisations last month. Nevertheless, this is positive news that has been - and will hopefully continue to be - the catalyst for progressive thinking around alternative business models that seek to balance economic and social objectives.
