Cultural Shift - ESF Co-financed projects

Below are two documents which offer further information. Please click on the appropriate document below.

Advising new and established social enterprises is a challenging job, which requires a knowledge and understanding of business, community and long-term sustainability. In response to these demands, a new professional development programme is being developed, co-financed by the South East England Development Agency (SEEDA) and the European Social Fund (ESF).

Over the next two years the programme will train 40 social enterprise advisors from voluntary and community sector organisations across the South East region. New nationally recognised qualifications will be developed with the Institute of Leadership and Management (ILM), based on the SFEDI occupational standards in social enterprise business support.

The programme is being delivered by a partnership of three organisations: Social Enterprise London, Baker Brown Associates and Focus to Work CIC. Social Enterprise London is the lead partner and has overall responsibility for managing the programme. Baker Brown Associates specialise in social enterprise and lifelong learning. They are responsible for designing and delivering the programme. Focus to Work CIC runs employment and training projects throughout the South East. It is responsible for recruiting trainees and organising all the programme events.

For further information please contact: info@sel.org.uk

Go Public

GO Public, has been specifically designed to support Social Enterprises (SEs) and Voluntary Community Organisations (VCOs) in their efforts to win business through competitive tendering to the Public Sector.

Business Link Milton Keynes, Oxfordshire & Buckinghamshire, the project leader, working in partnership with the other five Business Links and eight Social Enterprise Networks in the South East initially engaged with the SEs and VCOs through a series of information events held across the South East.

The information events sought to inform potential participants in the programme of not only the opportunities that exist in the Public Sector but also the type of support available to them through the Go Public programme.

This included both Organisational and Individual Needs Analysis (ONA/INA), to assess their state of readiness to tender for Public Sector contracts, a series of training workshops looking at the practical issues related to Public Sector tendering, mentoring support and a Meet the Buyer event, where SEs and VCOs will have the opportunity to meet Public Sector procurers from across the South East.

The take up of places on the programme has been slower than expected; however, those organisations that have undergone their ONA/INA have derived real value from the process.

With recruitment to the programme still proceeding on a variety of fronts, the workshop programme is scheduled to start in early October and with the planned involvement of Public Sectors procurers in the workshops, the bonds between the buyers and the sellers should be developed at an earlier stage than first envisaged.

There is so much activity in the Third Sector and the area of public procurement, that potential beneficiaries have been a little overwhelmed by the number of initiatives available to them, but GO Public offers real tangible benefits to the organisations that chose to participate, by helping them to win new business from the Public Sector.

For further information, please e-mail: info@businesslinksolutions.co.uk

Bringing Public Procurement Success to Social Enterprises in the South East

SIMPLE: Social IMPact Measurement for Local Economies