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What is a social enterprise?

Business solutions for ‘public good’

Social enterprises are businesses with primarily social objectives whose surpluses are principally reinvested for that purpose in the business or in the community, rather than being driven by the need to maximise profit for shareholders and owners.

Social enterprises tackle a wide range of social and environmental issues and operate in all parts of the economy. By using business solutions to achieve public good, government believes that social enterprises have a distinct and valuable role to play in helping create a strong, sustainable and socially inclusive economy.

Successful social enterprises can play an important role in helping deliver on many of government's key policy objectives by:

• helping to drive up productivity and competitiveness;
• contributing to socially inclusive wealth creation;
• enabling individuals and communities to work towards regenerating their local neighbourhoods;
• showing new ways to deliver public services; and
• helping to develop an inclusive society and active citizenship.

An independent review of the social enterprise sector was commissioned. Please find below the:

• Summary of the findings [PDF 70KB]
• Full report [PDF 853KB]