Assisting local authorities in developing their support for social enterprise

The Young Foundation has been commissioned by the Department for Communities and Local Government to understand how local authorities can develop specific activities that allow social enterprises to thrive, and to establish an understanding of barriers that prevent this from taking place.

Local authorities have a significant role to play in fostering a culture where social enterprise can thrive. This culture should be mutually beneficial and can operate across a number of important areas such as:

• Improved service delivery - Social enterprises often work with the citizens who local authorities find most difficult to help. They can help local authorities ensure their commissioning and service design procedures are fully informed by everyone within a community and can help ensure that everyone, particularly those people who may be in most need, have fair access to public goods and services.
• Added value for taxpayers - Social enterprises can provide added value for the tax payer by providing a wide range of additional social and environmental benefits such as increased community cohesion, the development of new skills, increased local employment and the development of community wealth, as well as the service itself.
• Encouraging democratic engagement - By engaging local people directly in positive community activity, social enterprises can help to create a culture of civic engagement, a wider understanding of local needs and a sense of pride which can reinvigorate a passion for community affairs.

The project has three phases:

• Phase 1 - consists of working with five local authorities (Brighton and Hove City Council, Gateshead Council, London Borough of Havering, Leeds City Council and Suffolk County Council) that have demonstrated interest and activity in supporting social enterprise, to draw together what has happened to date, what has been learnt and to begin to tease out lessons for the broader application.
• Phase 2 - the Young Foundation will work with five different local authorities (Cheshire West and Chester Council, Devon County Council, Ealing Council, Northumberland County Council and Wigan Council) where there is a keen interest in developing their approach to supporting social enterprise. This will involve intensive work to help the local authorities to develop specific policies, programmes and activities to enhance their support of social enterprises.
• Phase 3 - the final phase of the project will consolidate learning and report findings.

We are now beginning phase two having produced a draft toolkit, draft case studies from each of the five local authorities involved, and a literature review. On 21 June we held a seminar with experts from national and local government and the social enterprise sector to check that our initial findings chime with their experiences of the social enterprise sector's interaction with local government.

In phase 2 we will be testing our draft toolkit and helping the local authorities to develop their social enterprise policies and activities. This will be done through a series of three action learning sets in each area, with 10 days flexible support provided by the Young Foundation. In addition, an online network will allow phase 2 local authorities to discuss their progress with each other and interact with those from phase 1, to assist in their learning and development.

We will be producing final reports ith the aim of supporting local authorities to develop their strategies and approaches; local authorities and social enterprises to formulate more successful working relationships; and allowing CLG and other Government Departments a sound evidence base on which to make future policy decisions in this area.

The reports will include learning from the individual case study areas, using examples to inspire action, as well as discussing common themes. A final version of the toolkit will be produced, potentially web-based, to allow other local authorities to develop their social enterprise sector.