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Office of the Third Sector supports government departments to explore social enterprise ideas

19 November 2009

Today Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector, announced the second phase of the Office of the Third Sector’s £1.3m Social Enterprise Action Research Programme, which allows other departments to explore ways in which social enterprises offer solutions to policy problems.

The new projects include work with the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) into understanding the impact of social enterprises who farm, distribute and educate people about food, and with the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) to embed social enterprise into communities' efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.

The Social Enterprise Action Research Programme is designed to enable other government departments to explore the role social enterprise can play in meeting their policy objectives; from tackling climate change to managing the nation’s health. It uses small amounts of Cabinet Office funding to stimulate other department’s social enterprise policy and programme spend by supporting them to undertake research into social enterprise solutions to policy problems.

The second phase sees the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) working with two new departments - DEFRA and DECC. Two other projects: one with the Department for Business Innovation and Skills (BIS) and one with the Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) - build on the commitments made at the May 2009 Social Enterprise Summit to enhance existing promotion and support the offer for social enterprise. The projects are:

1. To enhance the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s £10m “Low Carbon Communities Challenge” by enabling communities to embed social enterprise in to their efforts to reduce their carbon footprint.

2. To help the Department of the Environment Food and Rural Affairs understand more about social enterprises who farm and distribute food as well as educate people about food. The project will examine the impact they have on issues such as food security, community cohesion and obesity.

3. To further build on the Department for Business Innovation and Skills’ knowledge of the contribution of social enterprise to the UK economy and their business support needs.

4. To enable the Department for Communities and Local Government to work with local authorities to help them understand how best to support social enterprises in their area. The project will match up local authorities who have developed best practice with those who want to trial new ways of working with social enterprises.

Angela Smith, Minister for the Third Sector said:

“The Social Enterprise Action Research Programme is exciting for two reasons. It’s helping government learn more about what social enterprise can do, and how to work with them. At the same time, social enterprises are benefiting directly from the programme. I’m delighted that the results of the first round of projects are starting to influence decision making, and look forward to the impact this second round will have.”

The first phase of the Programme, announced in November 2008, has been very successful. The departments involved are reporting a positive impact on their ability to make and shape policy.

A National Offender Management Service (NOMS) spokesman said:

“The Social Enterprise Action Research Programme has helped NOMS focus its plans working with social enterprise. The Programme has provided a great deal of learning on how we can work well with social enterprise and given us a clear guide for future developments.”

Jonathan Bland, Chief Executive of the Social Enterprises Coalition, said:

“The Social Enterprise Action Research Programme is one of the best things the Office of the Third Sector is doing to increase understanding across the public sector of the solutions social enterprise can offer and how to embed these into the policy framework."

For more information, please visit the social enterprise action research page.