Social Enterprise Shorts

Senscot ask for opinins on SE Mark

Scottish social enterprise network Senscot has set up an online poll to gather opinions on the national Social Enterprise Mark.

The poll asks if there should be a separate mark for Scotland, whether Senscot should pass the Mark onto another Scottish partner or whether the Mark should continue without a Scottish partner.

The results will be released in next week's Senscot newsletter.

Take part in the Senscot poll here.

Only Brown remains to sign social enterprise charter

Liberal Democrat Nick Clegg today (12 March) became the latest party leader to add his name to the Social Enterprise Charter - which means, of the major party leaders, only prime minister Gordon Brown is still to sign.

The Social Enterprise Charter was  drawn up by the Social Enterprise Coalition and calls for MPs and parliamentary candidates to demonstrate their support for social enterprise by signing the document.

Conservative leader David Cameron has previously signed the charter as has Caroline Lucas leader of the Green Party. The highest profile Labour MP to sign the charter is Liam Byrne, chief secretary to the treasury.

Read more in Your News.

New study to drive further improvements in health care for the most vulnerable

A government study in social exclusion has found that people with complex needs need 'flexible' services.

The study from the Department of Health and Cabinet Office's social exclusion task force, called Inclusion Health, aims to address this need and has led to the setting up of a National Inclusion Health Board.

The board will publish commissioning guidance, promote models of prevention and promotion for socially excluded groups and enhance existing processes and incentives to encourage service innovations and improvements for socially excluded groups.

The study's report can be found here.

Factual Facebook for community-owned village shops

An online forum for community owned village shops will be launched on Friday by the Plunkett Foundation.

www.plunkett.uk.net will be a place for people looking to set up a community-owned village shop, or those already running one, to talk to like-minded people and get advice. There will be legal and financial factual information available on the site and a dedicated advisor answering queries for post-office related questions.

New pilot launched to help people with learning disabilities into work

A pilot scheme was launched across England this week to help people with learning disabilities find employment.

First Jobs will run for 12 months in seven local authorities, including Essex, Newham in London and North Tyneside. Each pilot site will develop its own model for providing extra support to people with learning disabilities.

It's one of the projects set out in Valuing Employment Now, the  cross-government strategy to increase the number of people with learning disabilities in work by 2025.

£38m in government grants provide much needed help in communities

More than £38m in grants have been given out in almost 15,500 grant awards to social enterprises, charities and voluntary organisations through the government's Grassroots Grants scheme, new statistics from the Cabinet Office reveal.

The three year programme, launched in September 2008, comprises a small grants fund and an endowment investment programme and is aimed at helping small voluntary and community organisations reach out to the most vulnerable people.

Grants have been spent on a range of community activity from lunch clubs for older people to leisure activities in deprived areas. Small and local community groups with annual incomes below £30,000 can apply for the grants of between £250 and £5,000.

Grassroots Grants also includes a match fund where donations by business and individuals are matched by government. Nationwide over 11,000 donations from businesses and individuals have raised over £17m.

New blogs added to the Social Enterprise Live directory

Since its launch last week, seven new blogs have been added to the Social Enterprise Live blog directory.

These include blogs by Ed Mayo, CEO of Co-operativesUK, Plunkett Perspective written by Plunkett CEO Peter Couchman and impact innovation expert Ben Metz, formally of Ashoka.

To nominate a blog for the directory, email us at news@socialenterprise.com and to check out the blogs already listed, visit Your Blogs.

Environmental enterprise gets venture funding

The developer of a new type biogas technology, based in a deprived area of Dorset, has received funding for its project from Bridges Ventures and the Carbon Trust Investments

AeroThermal Group, whose management team has previously worked in Formula 1 Technology and in the aerospace industry, will use the money to build an AeroThermal Advanced Anaerobic Digestion system which provides significantly increased biogas yields from waste including municipal solid waste otherwise destined for landfills.

Bridges Ventures CEO Phillip Newborough said the environment sector was a 'core target sector' for its investment.