Labour's manifesto came out today, as you may have noticed from the ubiquitous blanket coverage everywhere. So I won't linger on the subject. Suffice to say that the Coalition have done a good job of pulling out all the relevant detail for social enterprise + social entrepreneurs in the document. So that we don't have to ;0)
I'm most happy to see the "Promote the creation of more social enterprise hubs in every community", which was one of the five big calls in our Social Entrepreneurs Manifesto (authored with, by and for social entrepreneurs and other support agencies). I would add that I think it is crucial that these hubs or community anchors have people development and support built into them: as we all know, the most important assets in a community are the human ones, and the most important resources are human too. It might also be interesting to think about where these might be situated: where are the social enterprise shared spaces in smaller towns, rural areas, or deprived boroughs? (there's a session coming up at Shine about exactly this)
Otherwise, much as expected: Social Investment Bank, Social Impact Bonds (both of which I think we'll see from the Conservatives also, though they may be called something slightly different), more right to request, more asset transfer, and so on. Good to see community shares and community land trusts in there as well, along with some useful financial exclusion stuff: often overlooked but potentially massively important initiatives. A disappointing lack of numbers though; the only things with a number next to it are the Future Jobs Fund (to be continued to support 200,000 jobs) and the Social Investment Bank (£75m): that's to be expected, I guess, as the reality and detail that flow from the language become apparent over the next five years of whichever government wins.
