Mar 17 2013

£4000 to Start a Social Enterprise – SSE comes to the West Midlands

The School for Social Enterprise (SSE) is launching in the West Midlands and only has two weeks to go!

SSE West Midlands are currently recruiting social entrepreneurs and also want to see organisations / support providers that are interested or want to find out more.

Here’s the detail from our friends at SSE

Things are moving fast now for the new school and we have decided to hold some taster sessions for potential students to find out a little more about the school and what we offer them during the upcoming Lloyds West Midlands SSE course (www.yourideastartshere.co.uk) in the West Midlands.

Come and meet us at the following venues:-

Wednesday the 20^th March — The Renewal Family Centre, Vulcan Road, Solihull, B91 2JY 17.30 – 19.30*
Monday the 25^th March — Room 201 UCB Building, Colmore Row, Birmingham, B3 2AP 14.30 – 16.30*
Wednesday the 27^th of March — Goldmine Centre, The Vine Trust, 33 Lower Hall Lane, Walsall WS1 1RR 17.30 – 19.30*

*As this is a new school to the region we have also booked the venues for a three hour session prior to the taster sessions to enable interested parties (eg. established social entrepreneurs, social enterprise and business advisers, local authorities, charities and third sector organisations etc) to just drop in and find out more about the school.

For further details please see the attached flyer

Nov 9 2012

Is Pro Bono a No No?

I’ve had a very interesting week and met many wonderful and inspiring people, young and old who are trying to achieve great things with social enterprise. I’m also about to go to a ‘dragons den’ style meeting where we’ve secured some business pro bono support for local social enterprise who are going to pitch for what they need, so this post may come as a bit of a side ball, but hey it’s time to reflect.

Although it’s been an interesting week It has also been a week that has made me question a few things, particularly what seems to be exploitation of young people. When I say exploitation I’m not talking about the extremes, but the fact that young people need experience in order to get on. This need has seen a pro bono group of students offering their services out to charities and social enterprises to help with their business development, all good you may say, and on the face of things I might agree, but not when you delve a little.

For example I met a young student this week who had been linked (by the wider student pro bono support group) with a social enterprise to help with their business and growth development plans. This is the same group that recently asked me to mentor a number of their students to support the pro bono work they are doing I.e. asking me to provide free support to enable their students to learn and provide free support to others.

Now I’m all for helping students (many of you will know of my past work supporting unemployed people gain paid work experience, which supported over 250 young people a year achieve) and we (development in social enterprise) offer an amount of free support to start up’s which is where we decide to invest our profit for social good, but his is something different.

The student I met was clearly struggling with the task that the social enterprise had asked them to get on with and needed some advice from me. All good you may say, but then (in order to help properly) I asked about the organisation and what it was trying to achieve and was told of the enormous task that the student had been given.

I then did a bit of checking into the organisation (which shall remain nameless) and found that it’s quite a well established social enterprise that quite frankly should be paying for business advice and guidance and at the very least should be offering students paid internship rather than trying to get high level work done for nothing.

Now this leads me to my point really. I understand the strains and pressures on charities and social enterprises now that the glory days of endless free business support programmes have all but gone. But those of you who were lucky recipients of that free business support should also realise that it’s those people providing that service (like ourselves and many others) who have struggled and worked to get that resource to provide you with the free support in the first place!

So now that we are in a position where we can’t find all that support resource for you, should you be trying to find free support from elsewhere or, should you be considering business support (when needed) as an essential element to your business growth?

When preparing our budgets for the next year or so, none of us think twice about putting in a few grand for our accountant and auditing fees, the health and safety consultant, HR consultant, solicitor etc… Is it not time we considered our business development needs for the year in this way too and make provision in our budgets, whether that’s to pay a student intern or a higher level business consultant, or appropriate training for our staff etc.

Now don’t get me wrong I’m all for maximising resources and getting what you can at a good price (after all that’s business) and will continue to work hard to secure resources to provide social enterprises with quality free (at point of use ) support. But if ‘we’ are a reasonably successful organisation and need support with our business development and growth, we shouldn’t expect it for nothing, should we?

Nov 5 2012

Free Business [#socent] Events #Solihull

I thought I’d just flag up some free business events for Solihull businesses, some of which are useful to social enterprise too.

Solihull for Success Business Workshops:

Open to business in Solihull, the following workshops will be held at Solihull College Conference Centre 8:00am – 10:00am

13^th November Digital Marketing, hot and getting warmer. Making the most of social marketing and digital media. Speaker : Gray Dudek, Planet 9 Digital Agency
27^th November Dealing with difficult employees, practical advice on a fair disciplinary process. Understand your role as an employer, making sure you get it right for the individual and right for the business. Speakers : Daniel Zakis & Steve Stewart, from Wallace Robinson & Morgan & Steps to Apprenticeships. Routes to your future workforce and how Solihull Council can support you.
4^th December New Markets, in and outside the EU. Top tips, advice and guidance, and support to taking your product to new markets overseas. Speakers: Robbie Beak and Mark Starkey UKTI
12^th December Fit to Supply (This workshop will be 8:00 – 11:30am). Training on public and contract procurement, not just to win contracts but to win sub contracting opportunities. Facilitator: Terry Wilson, from Business Enterprise Group

To register, e-mail your name, organisation, job title, address and any access requirements to: business@solihull.gov.uk or call Isobel, Jon or Clare on tel: 0121 704 6151.

Sustainable Solihull for Success

4^th December Jaguar Land Rover – Sustainability Business. Solihull businesses are invited to see first hand how Jaguar Land Rover are driving forward sustainability at their Lode Lane Plant on for a tour of the plant, following vehicle production from start to finish.

To register, e-mail your name, organisation, job title, address and any access requirements to: sustainabilityvisioning@solihull.gov.uk or call Alexander Heath on tel: 0121 704 6529.

Nov 2 2012

Charitable Incorporated Organisation – update

Just a quick post to update you all on the Charitable Incorporated Organisation (CIO) legal structure. Interestingly I was discussing this as an option with a client the other day, but advised him to ‘not hold his breath’, as it had been talked about for years and seemed to be at a standstill.

However, Anthony Collins Solicitors, have recently updated us and noted that two key pieces of legislation have been passed in October which suggest that the CIO structure may be accepting its first applications ‘by the end of this year’.

If you would like to find out a little more then Anthony Collins have an update here

Oct 31 2012

What we do and what we don’t know.

Just thought I’d share with you all some key points shared by Glynn Jones from the Bank of England at yesterday’s Solihull North Business Network, held at the Woodlands Campus in Smiths Wood.

Firstly I must qualify this post and say that I’m not a banker, I’m not an economist. I do however, run a social enterprise and try to help others who run theirs at the same time. So of course I was very interested in the presentation from a ‘what can we expect’ for the future point of view, but may have let it all go right over my head.

I know you probably shouldn’t say this at the start of a post, but I want to save you all time reading if you just want the summary here it is. Glynn took around 40 minutes enthusiastically showing us graphs and charts and to summarise the only conclusion (I could make) is we just don’t know. Why it took that long to say that I’m not really sure, but some of the facts and figures quoted are below if this is something you would like to know and you can see Glynn’s full presentation [graphs and all] here.

Global issues

40% of our trade is with Europe so there’s a bit of a worry about the economy there…
US is a big influence from a trade perspective and therefore there’s a bit of a worry there….
Our Government’s borrowing is pretty cheap at the moment, that’s a good thing….

Domestic

Our GDP is 15% lower than what we projected it to be now if everything had continued to be rosy
Our GDP is 4% below what it was before the recession
Business investment down
Government spending down
Consumer confidence – moderate
Food and oil is going up, but is expected to stabilise and not ‘persist’
Glynn thinks ‘inflation will start to fall’
Unemployment is Down.

There is a big question here which no one seems to know the answer to, that is our GDP is down, but employment up.

A few of my own thoughts here…

the changes in the way unemployment is measured and the effort to get people off unemployment benefits and onto something else
much more people doing part time work than they were before meaning less people unemployed, but more people not so well off
of course we are at the moment also relying on figures which had summer seasonal jobs, additional jobs for the Olympics and most likely Jubilee etc…

Anyway in summary, as I noted at the beginning of this post, I listened to a presentation for 40 minutes or so to be told we don’t really know….. Which is what I knew at the beginning anyway, so thanks for that insight.

What was slightly worse is the overrun on this presentation meant that we didn’t get to hear about – North Solihull Cycle Network or the Business development grants available through the ‘Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership’ which are the things on the agenda that made me get up in the first place.

Oct 13 2012

“Forget the Grants”

“Forget government grants” that was the message from the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd at the Social Finance Fair at the beginning of the week..

The fair was organised by Social Enterprise West Midlands (SEWM), the regional network for social enterprises, supporters and entrepreneurs in the midlands.

Over 200 people from across the sector attended to listen to the Key Note from Nick Hurd MP and to hear from social enterprises that had achieved success in social investment, including the midlands own My Time CIC, a social enterprise providing counselling and other support services for those with poor mental health.

Delegates were fed and watered by many of the midlands catering social enterprises who put on a fabulous variety of food that was simply delicious.

Other social enterprises including Development in Social Enterprise took part in a social enterprise exhibition demonstrating the wide ranging businesses and services that are provided by the social enterprise sector in the West Midlands there were:
Catering businesses
Business support
Textiles
Website development
Social media
Wifi and telecommunications providers
Bakers and Macaroon makers

So perhaps it is time to forget the grants and consider how your business (and by business I mean any not for personal profit organisation) can contract, attract investment, consider crowd source, or even loans to grow and sustain your enterprises. Whatever you do it’s sound advice to ensure you consider your funding mix, as one thing is for sure, the cuts are going to continue for a few more years yet, so even if you’ve managed to hold onto a grant for now, the chances of it going or being reduced in the near future is a “clear and present danger”

If you need help to review your business strategy call us 0121 667 6810 or visit us www.disecic.org

Jun 6 2012

HMRC Don’t Know Their A from Their E

This blog post has been stirring in me for a little while now and is a bit of a rant, but I hope useful for something.

As a SFEDI qualified business adviser I help start-up social enterprise and indeed those that are well established. I therefore look out for things that will help, as many need all the help they can get. When I saw the ‘Regional Employer NICs Holiday for New Businesses’ I thought yes and [as a start-up enterprise] applied myself. So what is this scheme you ask?

In a nutshell it is a scheme that enables new businesses [in their first year] who employ people in their first year to have an employers NIC holiday for those they employ [maximum that you can hold back for each employee is £5k and up to 10 employees]. You still pay the Tax, but [subject to application] are granted an Employer’s NIC holiday and therefore hold this back.

Great so far yes, but now for the problems I’m facing:

Despite sending off the forms with all the details of what I held back [which is less than £1k] etc.. I received a letter about 4 weeks ago saying I owed this exact amount and must pay it now! So on the phone [HMRC premium rate line] I went to speak with a nice guy who said ‘it’s probably our fault’ thought that was refreshing and it would be sorted, but no, that would be too efficeint and simple wouldn’t it?

A few days later came a message on my office phone from a uknown caller [I guessed it was the tax office] saying and I quote ‘you must call this number quoting reference xxxxxxx by a said date [two days]‘. No name, no anything else really, nice I thought, but duly called the office [premium rate number again]!

On answer, no one was able to deal with my call, ‘we’ll call you back!’ I’m going out to an appointment I said, Oh they said [like that was unusual], I’ll see if I can get someone to call back in 15 mins and someone did! But and it’s a big but, ‘we haven’t been told by the [other office that deals with NICs holiday] that you’ve sent your form in, perhaps you can call them, but rest assured we won’t be taking you to court’. Court I thought, I haven’t done anything for you to take me to court! anyway…

Now bear in mind I have now had three phone calls with the Tax office I receive another letter saying ‘previously, we treated your lack of response as an oversight. Now, if you do not pay or contact us, we will treat this as an active choice and we will start debt recovery action.’ I’m not exactly quaking in my boots, but I am now very anoyed!

So I’ve called [the office that deals with Nics holiday] this morning [premium rate number again] to be told ‘I can’t help you with that, you’ll need to speak to our ‘technical team’, they tried to put me through, no joy, tried again, no joy. ‘I’m sorry our technical team are very busy, can they call you back?’ Yes please call me back! ‘The turnaround time is 48 hours, they must be really busy then I say to myself and of course have a bit more of a whine to the person on the phone…

Whilst waiting for the technical team, I thought I’d better call the collections team to tell them again that I’m not ignoring their letter and put in a bit of a complaint and tell them I’m going to invoice for my time in sorting this out and any late payment will be treated as a ‘choice’ and interest will be added at a daily extortionate rate just like HMRC.

Now I feel a lot better having shared this with you and will now write my complaint letter. I’ll update you how I get on here, but if you’re experiencing problems with the NICs holiday then do let me know! Do also let me know if you applied and had no problems as we like to have a balanced approach with both sides of the story!

Mar 8 2012

Is it time to get behind the @SE_Mark ?

Flicking through Twitter I noticed that the CIC Association are continuing a debate about whether there should be another quality mark, that differentiates CIC’s which have a stricter criteria than the SE Mark currently has.

As a Founder and Managing Director of Development in Social Enterprise CIC and a proud holder of the Social Enterprise Mark I can understand the points made, but think it may be time to stop debating and get behind the Mark to promote the wider concept of social enterprise to the masses.

Now I understand that the Mark criteria [at the moment] is weaker than I [and perhaps the CIC Association] would like, as it only requires organisations to demonstrate that 50% of profits are re-invested in the social or environmental purpose.

The CIC structure has a much stronger ‘asset lock’ and dividends are capped meaning 70% of profit needs to be re-invested in the social or environmental purpose.

I would like personally to see social enterprises re-investing 100% of their profits, as Development in Social Enterprise does, but again recognise that not all will or indeed can.

However, with the current public and media scrutiny on businesses that waste public money [we wont mention any names here] and the introduction of the Social Value Bill and the confusion as to what social enterprise is

businesses that have a social or environmental purpose [mission] that primarily trade [rather than rely on grants] and re-invest their profits [or most of them] into their social or environmental purposes’ i.e. do ‘good business’

it may therefore be time to get behind the mark and strengthen it for the good of all social enterprises, because, let’s face it, there are many legal structures that social enterprises can adopt and the CIC is just that, a legal structure.

Many enterprises out there who are using the social enterprise term are not able to demonstrate that they are a social enterprise, at least the Mark creates a benchmark which can be easily communicated and encompasses any organisation trading for social good no matter what legal structure it is.

Now here’s a suggestion on a possible way forward.

Get behind the Mark and build on it for the benefit of ‘bona fide’ social enterprises
Consider strengthening the Mark to easily distinguish different strengths and trading models of social enterprises for example:
Bronze meet the basic mark criteria as is now
Silver meet the more stringent CIC criteria
Gold meet the CIC criteria, but demonstrate 100% of profit being re-invested and perhaps
Platinum 100% profit and social impact proved through SROI or something

Now I know some work would have to be done to sort this out, but to the wider world and general public such a move may help to clarify and build confidence whilst strengthening the social enterprise movement, rather than cause even more confusion and division?

One final point on cost. Now I don’t like paying for ‘badges’, but we need to recognise that organisations that are working to assess organisations can’t do it for nothing, all of us need to charge for what we do, or we wouldn’t eat and indeed we would have no profit to put to our social causes.

The Mark in comparison to say Investors In People [IIP] for example is tremendously good value and just think how much better this value would be if we get behind it and the mark holders’ increase to a significant number, because then it’ll gain some more clout and I say this noting that the National Offender Management Service and some private companies e.g. WATES find the mark a useful reference when considering contract and purchasing from social enterprises [respectively].

And let’s just imagine if the Mark gets enough people behind it perhaps – economies of scale come in and the mark company starts reducing costs [putting profits back in]! Now there’s a thought [or two]!

Com_Ent Blog

Supporting the development of community enterprise

Category Archives: Community Enterprise

HMRC Don’t Know Their A from Their E

Follow “Com_Ent Blog”