Social Firms 'hoovered' by government for job creation initiatives

The government is calling on social firms to help it get hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people into work.

Sally Reynolds, CEO of Social Firms UK, an umbrella organisation for social enterprises employing those furthest from the job market, said the coalition was ‘desperate’ for job creation initiatives and had ‘hoovered’ the network for information.

Reynolds has been made a member of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) social inclusion advisory group along with leading charity bosses, including those from Oxfam, Age Concern and Homeless Link. While the only representative of the social enterprise sector, she said she would use her position to ‘push for acknowledgment that we need job creation, not job placement’, which was one of her criticisms of the last government’s Future Jobs Fund, now scrapped by the coalition.

‘The new ministers are really interested in finding out more about the social firms model,’ Reynolds said.

‘They recognise that job creation for disabled people has to be their remit. The meeting we have had so far was a refreshing change. It [DWP] gets the potential of the model.’

She added that it was early days and she could not predict where the talks could go, but said: ‘The door has never been as wide open as this before.’

One meeting has already taken place and another should be held soon.

Social Firms UK has lobbied ministers since the election, which has led to civil society minister Nick Hurd attending Clarity, a social firm providing employment for blind people, in one of his first ministerial outings and DWP secretary of state Iain Duncan Smith 'using the terminology of the sector' and talking about social enterprises and social firms.

Talks have so far been focused on the benefits of social return on investment and how social firms could play a part in the new work programme.

Despite the ‘positive’ relationship, Reynolds stressed that social firms needed to continue to run ‘irrespective of government’.

• The European Social Firms of the Year awards were revealed at the Social Firms conference last week. Best small social firm went to Brighter Future Workshop, featured in Social Enterprise last month and pictured on today's Livewire.

http://socialfirmsuk.co.uk