Blears and Brennan announce community shares plan

Communities and local government secretary Hazel Blears and third sector minister Kevin Brennan made the announcement at Blazing a Trail for Social Enterprise, the lunchtime Social Enterprise Day bash held yesterday at Admiralty House in central London.

The plan is one of four collaborations announced between the Office of the Third Sector (OTS) at the Cabinet Office and other government departments, to research the potential of social enterprise in their areas.

All departments were asked to submit their social enterprise ideas to the Cabinet Office, and four were chosen to go forward.

Brennan announced that the Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform department (BERR) would explore ways to make community development finance institutions more sustainable.

Ways in which social enterprise can help reduce reoffending will be researched by the National Offender Management Service.

And the Department of Health is to look at social return on investment (SROI) of social enterprises operating in mainstream healthcare.

The OTS also announced that the contract to create a standard methodology around SROI has been awarded to national network SROI UK.

One audience member described SROI as ‘a way to express social value in a way the bankers understand'.

Blears told the gathering of young entrepreneurs and social enterprise bigwigs, who had just feasted on antipasti and elderflower cordial provided by Jamie Oliver's Fifteen, that social enterprise was ‘not just a different way of doing business' but ‘about courage as well'.

This meant having the courage to look at novel ideas of community ownership - for example, being given a share issue in a local leisure centre or community building when you move into the area.

Blears described it as ‘the chance to get a share in the assets of your own community', and cited an initiative in the troubled LS11 postcode of Leeds called Tiger 11, where she said local people were being given shares in a community-owned building for around £5.

‘It's quite challenging but I think it's going to be really, really exciting,' Blears said.

The announcement was applauded by Fifteen's new CEO, Penny Newman, who pioneered consumer and community ownership at fair trade drinks flagship Cafédirect, where she was previously CEO.

Newman was joined by social enterprise trailblazers Sam Coniff, founder of media organisation Livity, Matt Kepple, founder of online social enterprise Wahblo and Gradulicious, and Karen Mattison, founder of Women Like Us, which recruits at the school gates to place skilled mums in part-time. The group shared insights and answered questions at the event from a group of young journalists from Livity's Live magazine and media training academy Catch 22.

Mattison was asked how social enterprises might weather the difficult economic climate.

She said it might not be terrible news for her network because businesses might look to cut costs by using talented people who could work part-time. ‘But we don't know what's ahead and it's scary times for everyone,' she said.

She added that socially driven businesses could help one another bear the pressures of the downturn. ‘We should be doing more business with each other,' she said.