At Inspire2Enterprise our mission is to share research and business expertise with social enterprises to increase and demonstrate their social value and improve economic, social and cultural life. If you’re a third sector organisation looking to set up or grow a social enterprise, we can help set you on the right path.

Diverse knowledge and support

Within the third sector, we provide consultancy and guidance in the areas of health, social care, employment, social justice, the arts and environmental services.

The changing market

The third sector landscape is changing. Changes in funding and legislation are impacting the way third sector organisations secure contracts, attract investment and deliver services.

With the days of blanket grants coming to an end, there are new ways of commissioning services that are swiftly moving towards outcome-based contracting. Investors, councils and other funding bodies want more for their money, and social enterprises need to deliver, particularly in such cash-constrained times.  From this comes a need for enterprises to be much more flexible and agile in their approach to service delivery. A clear focus on the end user is needed; one that fits with long-term investment rather than block contracts.

How can we help?

It is no longer enough for social enterprises to be doing good in the community. They need to demonstrate that they understand social impact measurement and can use results to create strong propositions when pitching for investment. We can help you put together compelling pitches for investment funding and ensure your social enterprise is as attractive as possible to potential investors.

Meeting key legislative changes

It’s not just funding that’s changing, so too is key legislation. Inspire2Enterprise supports third sector organisations to address a range of new legislative changes:

Personalisation

Personalisation sees personal budgets allocated to individuals assessed as needing non-emergency care from their local authority. It allows individuals to choose, with appropriate support, how to spend their budget to best suit their life situation.

Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 

According to gov.uk, ‘local authority procurement must now consider how they can improve the social impact of their public service contracts before they start the procurement process.’  The focus here is on driving the most efficient and effective services in the long term.

Localism Act 2011

This shifts power back to local communities and authorities from the previous centralised approach, and includes:

• Community rights to challenge: Allows voluntary and community groups, parish councils or two or more members of local authority staff to express an interest in running a service currently commissioned or delivered by a local authority. Where the expressions of interest are accepted, the local authority must run a competitive procurement process.
• Community right to bid: Allows communities to nominate buildings and land they consider to be of value to the community, to be included on a local authority maintained list. If any of the assets on the register are put up for sale, the community is given a window of opportunity to express an interest in purchasing the asset, and another window of opportunity to bid.

Personal health budgets

A personal health budget is an amount of money to support a person's identified health and wellbeing needs, planned and agreed between the person and their local NHS team. The government’s vision for personal health budgets is to enable people with long-term conditions and disabilities to have greater choice, flexibility and control over the health care and support they receive.

Get in touch to see how we can help ensure you’re meeting the challenges and maximising opportunities presented by these and other legislative changes.