Social Firms UK

What are social enterprises?

Some of the main issues facing the Social Firm sector at the moment include:

The following text explains why Social Firms UK expanded the definition of Social Firms in December 2006 from ‘creating employment for disabled people’ to ‘people severely disadvantaged in the labour market’.

The Social Firm movement in the UK is a relatively recent one. Inspiration was originally derived from developments in Germany and Italy where significant employment levels for disabled people had been achieved through the development and support of Social Firm businesses. Social Firms UK itself started as a European funded project, with partners in these two countries, and initially commenced raising awareness about the model in this country with the help of German and Italian partners in 1997.

A Social Firm is one type of social enterprise. Other types of social enterprise include development trusts, co-operatives, credit unions and community businesses. A social enterprise is a business that trades for a social purpose. The specific social purpose of a Social Firm is to provide employment for people disadvantaged in the labour market.

A 'Social Firm' is a market-led enterprise set up specifically to create good quality jobs for people disadvantaged in the labour market.  An 'emerging Social Firm' is an enterprise that is working towards becoming a Social Firm, usually in the early stages of trading and not yet in a position to employ numbers of people, but working to a business plan which illustrates how they're going to achieve their goal. The 'Social Firm sector' is the collective term used for emerging Social Firms and Social Firms.