Non profit
UK: social enterprises
The first european country to pass and implement a law on social enterprise, the UK is now a model of entrepreneurial best practise..
di Staff
Social enterprises
Social enterprises are profit-making businesses set up to tackle a social or environmental need. Today there are more than 55,000 social enterprises in the UK with a combined turnover of £27bn. Social enterprises account for 5% of all businesses with employees and contribute £8.4billion per year to the UK economy.
Social enterprises can take a wide variety of legal forms. The most common are the limited liability company (either a company limited by shares or a company limited by guarantee), Industrial and Provident Society and Limited Liability Partnership.
The Government created the Community Interest Company (Cic) – the first new legal form of company for 100 years – for start-up social enterprises in 2005. Since then more there are 233 Cics with an income of £161million and 957 staff.
Social enterprise is primarily represented in the Government through the Office of the Third Sector, based in the Cabinet office, headed up by Ed Miliband. Social enterprise is represented in the Department of Health by the Social Enterprise Unit (Seu)
Well known examples of social enterprises are:
