The 3^rd UK Conference for Social Enterprise organised by the Social Enterprise Coalition was held at the Manchester International Convention Centre.

• Steve Broomhead (North West Development Agency)
  The NWDA wants to ‘encourage and support the growth of dynamic social businesses’ which it sees as making a unique contribution to sustainable growth. Nationally, social enterprises have a turnover of £27 billion and should be regarded as mainstream not marginal. The Agency has invested £2 million in social enterprise over the last few years and is apparently planning to invest a further £6 million.
  
• Ed Milliband (Minister for the Third Sector)
  Who said he was inspired by the ‘can do’ spirit in social enterprises. The government wants to involve SEs more in the delivery of public services and has developed an Action Plan for social enterprise with £18 million of funding attached. He recognised that the support offered through Business Links was not yet good enough and that they would have to work with specialist advisers and agencies. Social enterprises need to start demonstrating and proving their social and economic impacts more.
  
• Tim Smit of the Eden Project in Cornwall
  Who was more inspiring and acknowledged that he had probably been invited along as the resident maverick. He was tired of the platitudes spoken about social enterprise and sick of the clichés and buzz words and felt that social enterprises need to be more ‘bullish’ and adventurous….why shouldn’t big corporations be run on social enterprise lines? They need to be daring and entrepreneurial. The Eden Project was ‘built out of innocence’ and cost £130 million…………however it has since put over £800 million back into the Cornish economy.

In a ‘dragon’s den’ session, 4 new prospective social enterprises were then allowed to make a ‘pitch’ to the audience describing their ideas. These included i-citizen, Primus Personnel, if-food and the Puppet Ship. The audience ‘voted’ for the best by making ‘investments’ (of imitation £5 notes issued earlier) throughout the day. I voted for Primus Personnel www.primus-personnel.co.ukwhich provides an employment and advice service for migrant workers in the UK…which went on to win.

I attended two workshops during the day:

• Putting Communities in Control

Particularly inspiring during this one was a presentation by Maggie Broadley and Elizabeth McLardy of Craft Town Scotland, West Kilbride; see their website for more information www.westkilbride.org.uk. This project is about 10 years old and was set up to reverse deprivation and decline in the town and immediate area through the creation of a ‘craft and design town’ by West Kilbride Community Initiative Ltd, a community owned and led organisation.

To date the project has created six craft studios, one shop, one gallery, and attracted 14 new businesses to the town.This has led to 22 new direct jobs for West Kilbride, with other jobs created indirectly in tourism services in the surrounding area.
Other activities include the Green Centre, a recycling centre, the public hall user group, where dance and drama is available, the Scarecrow Festival and, for the last six years, the town has been a finalist in Scotland in Bloom

A redundant church has been bought and has become a useful asset which can help lever in finance and serves as a venue, gallery and premises for a second hand furniture business which brings in useful trading income for the project to supplement grant funding, sponsorship and other income.

• Plugging into new Forms of Finance

This looked at the growth of social enterprise and how it can be hindered by the lack of available loan/risk finance and the reluctance of people running social enterprises, particularly the smaller ones, to borrow money or give up some control to private investors/venture capital. The need to get away from grant funding and create more trading income was stressed, though it was also pointed out that this may not be possible for many social enterprises as they are not really operating in the right markets.

New ways need to be found to encourage investment in social enterprise and government needs to work to remove barriers and create opportunities.