Social Firms UK
Social Firms UK is the national support structure for a model of social enterprise
that has seen rapid growth in the last 3 years. In a climate where there is
a national emphasis on small businesses, social enterprise and social inclusion,
the concept of small businesses with a market orientation and a social mission
has flourished. Social Firms are created to offer economic empowerment to people
with disabilities and this has been welcomed as an alternative to care and
welfare based systems which often increase exclusion and dis-empower the users
of these services.
Since the formation of Social Firms UK in 1999 there has been
a significant increase in the number of social firms and in the
number of disabled people employed in them. From a base of six
firms employing 30 people with disabilities the business support
programme introduced by social firms UK (with support from the
Phoenix Development Fund of the Small Business Service) has contributed
to an expansion which today sees;
| Social Firms UK |
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An increase in the number of businesses in the social firm sector from 6 to 164, including 45 social firms and 119 under development. These firms employ over 1250 people, of which 690 are employees with disabilities; |
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Businesses are in a wide range of sectors including recycling, information and communication technology, travel and tourism with very little emphasis on the traditional sectors of furniture restoration or craft manufacture that were the norm for people with disabilities until recently.
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The social firm sector has expanded despite
a range of barriers and structural problems such as the fact
that people engaged
in disability services are usually not entrepreneurs and not
well placed to identify business opportunities and many groups
in care/training services lack the capacity to run a business.
The social security benefits system is usually cited as the biggest
barrier to progressing from welfare to employment as wages need
to be high enough to replace complex benefits and part-time work
is often impossible as benefits lost will usually be greater
than income earned. Currently there is much to be taken on board
about the National Minimum Wage and its impact on the operation
of social firms, not for paid employees, but for those attending
as volunteers, trainees doing non-accredited training and others
who wouldn’t be on a paid employment contract.
The evidence that there is a place for social firms in the spectrum
of employment-related services on offer to people with disabilities
in our society is significant. Without setting out to replace
or supersede existing models of provision, social firms are adding
to the range of opportunity available to people with disabilities.
Social Firms UK offers support to its 370 members through the
activities of its regional social firm networks as well as through
its central operation. It operates a business support programme
in most regions to help members develop their firms, has a social
firm resource centre for materials about social firms and runs
annual conferences and summer school for social firm managers,
among many other membership services.
