Groups get together to foster community firms
Jun 6 2008 by Iain Laing, The Journal
AN agency which has helped launch multi-million-pound businesses on Wearside has completed a merger to become one of the UK’s biggest social enterprise businesses.
Sunderland’s SES has joined forces with South Tyneside group Social Enterprise Europe with the aim of helping more people set up ventures which trade for social and community benefit. They are part of the not-for-profit sector, which means profits generated are reinvested in the business to expand services or fulfil local community or social need rather than distributed for personal gain.
There are about 55,000 in the UK and they contribute £8.4bn to the economy.
SES says it is now more able to increase its contribution to the growth and expansion of social enterprise across the North East.
The number of social enterprises in the region has doubled to about 600 in the past five years, with 12 of these seeing annual revenues of more than £1m and employing 1,000 people among them.
SES operations director Kevin Marquis said: “Bringing expertise together is helping us to deliver social enterprise services across a wider area.
“We believe we now have one of the most experienced teams in this sector, giving us the scope to target larger projects with bigger growth potential.”
Former Social Enterprise Europe directors Linda Rutter and Bob Webb have joined the senior management team at SES.
The name Social Enterprise Europe has been dropped and the new organisation will operate under the recently revamped SES brand.
Ms Rutter said: “Bringing the two organisations together made perfect sense as we were providing social enterprise services next door to each other.
“Now we have pooled the knowledge together, there is so much scope to boost enterprise across the region.”
SES has launched successful businesses since it was launched in 1983.
Sunderland Home Care Associates is now a multi-million-pound company which is being replicated nationally, Sunderland North Community Business Centre is a multi- million company providing Job Linkage services across the city and Compass Community Transport continues to grow.
Social Enterprise Europe worked nationally and internationally and helped set up Social Enterprise Poland.
Now we have pooled knowledge, there is so much scope to boost enterprise across the region.
