How is social enterprise doing in Northern Ireland?
The growth of social enterprise in Northern Ireland has a lot to do with its flourishing relationship with government. This is the view of Colin Jess, director of Social Enterprise Northern Ireland (SENI).
Only last week the procurement board of the Northern Irish Assembly’s finance department announced that it is keen to move forward with legislation for the country to have a social value act.
It’s great timing for Jess, given the Social Value Conference is happening in Belfast this week: “It says: this is coming down the track. Get a head start, get yourselves here to hear all about it.”
SENI has been working with a political lobbying organisation group called Stratagem which opened doors for SENI at Stormont, the home of the Northern Irish government.
That led to the convening of the All Party Group for Social Enterprise and the consequent backing of the finance department for legislating for a social value act.
The political ties have also meant invites to party conferences, where Jess is further able to spread the word about social enterprise.
There will be an election in Northern Ireland in March and SENI is already planning which politicians to talk to about supporting the social value act legislation when it eventually comes to be debated.
Although considering social value when commissioning is not yet law, Jess says he is encouraged by moves in that direction already. When the public housing executive invited tenders for end of tenancy cleaners recently, for example, it stipulated that those organisations eventually commissioned would be required to set up social enterprises.
From banking to social enterprise
Before he started work at SENI, Jess was in banking for 28 years and towards the end of that career he was responsible for developing banking services for third sector organisations, who were invited in to talk to the bank. One of the organisations was SENI.
When a position became vacant there, it immediately attracted him. “What I liked was that social enterprise needs to be considered as a business in its own right,” he says. “We don’t want to be thought of as a community group or a charity group, we’re an enterprise, we’re a business. The only difference is we put the profits back into local communities.”
Jess admits that the term ‘social enterprise’ is still not well understood in this country of 1.8m and that makes it difficult to give an accurate picture of the size of the sector.
The last report about the size of the sector Survey of Northern Ireland’s Third Sector and its Potential to Become More Enterprise Driven was produced in 2013. It found that, of nearly 4,000 third sector organisations, 473 (12%) identified as social enterprises.
About a third of those (32%) social enterprises had turnovers of between £100,000 and £499,999 and only 2% of social enterprises turned over more than £10 million. The three main areas social enterprises focused on were: enhancing communities, getting people into employment and improving the environment.
Under his stewardship, SENI has recently joined the local chamber of commerce: “to raise awareness of SENI and the business model and to put the organisation to the fore of private sector thinking and decision making,” in Jess’s words.
His aim is for social enterprise in Northern Ireland to have the same profile as any other commonly recognised business network within the country, such as the Federation of Small Businesses or the Northern Ireland Independent Retail Association.
Jess is working on ensuring business people know about social enterprise: “Over the next couple of weeks we have invites to several significant public sector events and we’re the only third sector organisation there.”
With the recent support of the Northern Ireland assembly and around 200 people already registered for this week’s conference, it seems momentum around social enterprise in Northern Ireland is building.
For more information about Social Enterprise Northern Ireland’s Social Value Conference, please click here. Pioneers Post is pleased to be a media partner for the event, so keep an eye on the website for further coverage.
Photo credit: Amanda Slater. The photo shows 'Titanica' a sculpture at the Titanic exhibition in Belfast.
