Acumen opens the way to expansion

Jan 18 2008 by Peter McCusker, The Journal

SOCIAL entrepreneur Kate Welch, OBE, has unveiled ambitious plans to increase her workforce to over 100 and expand outside the North-East for the first time.

Ms Welch established the Acumen Community Enterprise Development Trust Ltd in 2003 with the aim of encouraging an entrepreneurial spirit among people in disadvantaged areas.

Such has been the success of her social enterprise she now has 80 employees and Acumen’s services are in demand across the region, with talks now underway to take the service to Yorkshire and the North-West.

Ms Welch, who was awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours List, said: “Acumen works in areas of disadvantage in a bid to help people to start their own businesses or find a way back into work. We have now reached a turnover or £3.5m with 90% of this generated from contracts secured by Acumen.

“We started off, with the help of £750,000 over three years from the Northern Rock Foundation, in east Durham in 2003 and in that time we have spread across the region.

“Our goal has always been to encourage people to start their own business or to move back into the working environment. Our watchwords are learning, employment and enterprise. The business now works on both the supply and demand side.

“On the demand side we have established People Acumen which is in effect a recruitment agency for the type of people a normal recruitment agency may not be prepared to take on. On the supply side we help prepare people for a return to work through education and learning.”

The mother-of-two started Acumen, which is based in Peterlee, in 2003, after spending a number of years managing job creation projects across the region. In that time it has helped 5,000 people into work and, or, training and its efforts in Horden and Easington Colliery has prompted 150 people in these two former pit villages to start their own business.

She added: “People Acumen now has offices in Bishop Auckland, Chester-le-Street and a third will soon open in Stanley. We have been doing a great deal of work in Wansbeck and are in talks to take the service into Newcastle. We are also looking at expanding into Yorkshire and the North-West. This is all being done in a sensible and controlled fashion.” Ms Welch, who was formerly deputy managing director at her father’s business – the Lambton Park Garden Centre in Chester-le-Street – has received a number of awards for her work.

She was named the North-East Woman Social Entrepreneur for 2007 and was later recognised as one of the UK’s 20 most outstanding entrepreneurs in the 2007 Essence of the Entrepreneur competition run by BT Business.

This led to her having the “essence of her business” captured recently by celebrity photographer Perou.