A year after communities secretary Hazel Blears announced social enterprise would be ‘woven into the DNA of her department' it appears there is no dedicated budget to make this happen.
What's more, the details of what the Communities and Local Government (CLG) social enterprise team does remain opaque and its role has been combined with that of a third sector team.
Social Enterprise was told by CLG that a ‘third sector and social enterprise team' had been operating ‘since the summer' and was involved in the announcement on Social Enterprise Day last year regarding the piloting of social bonds.
Director of research and policy at the Social Enterprise Coalition George Leahy said: ‘It is a pity that only a single unit has been set up for the third sector and social enterprise, rather than a distinct team for social enterprise.'
But Leahy was more positive about the future and added that CLG had spent the past year ‘getting up to speed with the basics' and that he was confident ‘CLG understands social enterprise'.
‘We hope to work closely with CLG over the next few years to implement their social enterprise programme,' he said.
However, spokespeople for CLG were unable to tell Social Enterprise what budget the team has, instead referring to various funding pots available to support social enterprises themselves.
When asked about the team's budget a spokesperson said: ‘There is a range of government funding available' before going on to list the £7.5m empowerment fund, the £130m Grassroots Grants Programme and the £215m Futurebuilders Programme.
When it was pointed out that this money was for social enterprises themselves and not attached to any specific team, the spokesperson did not come back with a response.
The spokesperson was unable to confirm how many people worked in the team and gave the CLG's general enquiry number as the point of contact.
The spokesperson was also unable to give details of upcoming projects but said projects so far included managing the advisory group on the community bonds/shares consultation and involvement in a ‘meet the buyer' event for SMEs, social enterprises and diverse supplier organisations looking to tender to the CLG.
Social Enterprise was told that the head of the team is Jackie Westlake and the minister responsible for the unit is Blears.
The initial announcement about the CLG's social enterprise team was made by Blears at the Voice social enterprise conference in February 2008.
