Co-operatives UK comment on government's social enterprise strategy refresh

The government is refreshing its strategy for social enterprise. We have worked with the Social Enterprise Coalition to draw up our priorities for how government can support a stronger social enterprise sector. Key points include:

• looking beyond public services to building an enabling environment for social enterprises, only 40% of which deliver a public service;


• opening up new markets;


• increasing awareness and understanding, as only one-in-five people can name a co-operative and over two-fifths cannot think of any;


• incentives to start and invest in social enterprise, such as adjusting Community Investment Tax Relief, better promotion of Enterprise Investment Scheme and support for community investment;


• the need to build a consensus on approaches to measuring impact and better awareness amongst those we are measuring for; and,


• the importance of timely and appropriate business support.

Download the full submission below.