Social Enterprise in Construction

22 September 2011

The Government has drawn attention to social enterprises in the debate and policy concerning public service delivery, claiming that they can be the engine for innovation and economic growth.  However, the concept of social enterprise means different things to different people.  The main consensus is that social enterprises are organisations that are not driven wholly by profit maximisation but try to commit resources and adapt their processes to meet wider goals, while making enough of a surplus to remain viable.

Social enterprise is seen as one way to deliver wider social and economic benefits through public sector procurement.  Some construction firms have made a strategic commitment to adopting and working with systems such as the Social Enterprise Mark, using procurement and work packages to create smaller contracts for social enterprises, and specifically identifying supply chain gaps and opportunities for local social enterprises to fill.  These moves are sometimes stimulated by their own Corporate Responsibilty Strategies, and by public sector procurement processes.

There have been previous examples of organisations which were thought to be a social enterprise, but where events have proved otherwise.  For example in health care, some services were out-sourced to a cooperative of health-care professionals but the co-op as a whole was later sold for a profit to the partners of a larger private sector provider.

Therefore with the potential increase in use of social enterprises to deliver “contracted out” or out-sourced public services, Social Enterprise UK has defined the values and principles that should underpin social enterprises involved in public service delivery.  Social enterprises must be:

• Driven by a social and environmental mission and a commitment to service quality;

• Operated for social and environmental benefit and must have an asset lock so their provisions, assets and profits are permanently retained and used for public or community benefit;

• Co-operative and participative and work for mutual benefit;

• Accountable both to their own staff and service users, as well as to the wider community;

• Autonomous, independent organizations, to allow them the freedom to innovate, to be forward-thinking and to be agile;

• Transparent in their decisions and provide value for public money.