Voluntary and Community Sector
2.54 Voluntary and community sector organisations, including social enterprises, are part of the economy and represent a growing business sector. Just like private businesses, these organisations contribute to the local and regional economy by generating income, attracting investment, maintaining and creating jobs and spending money on goods and services. This sector includes, but is broader than, charities, housing associations and social enterprises.
2.55 Charities and Housing Associations - In 2005, there were over 17,100 general charities in the South West, with a paid labour force of 59,000 people and a combined income of £1.94 billion. In addition, the 200 SW housing associations, which are not included in the definition of general charities, had a combined annual turnover of around £650 million and employed over 9,000 people. Nationally, earned income from public sector contracts and sales of goods and services accounts for half of all charity income, and it is likely that SW charities follow the national pattern.
2.56 Social Enterprise - DTI commissioned research identified about 1,800 social enterprises in the region registered as companies limited by guarantee or industrial and provident societies, generating at least 25% of their income from trading. On this basis, the South West contained 12% of all social enterprises in the United Kingdom (compared to 9% of all businesses) and ranked third after London and the South East. However, as acknowledged in the DTI survey, the data represented only a subset of the whole social enterprise population. Research for Regional Infrastructure for Social Enterprise (RISE), based on a review of sub-regional and other studies, estimated that there are about 5,500 social enterprises in the South West. This is consistent with the Government's estimate that, nationally, some 5% of all businesses with employees are social enterprises.
2.57 A further indicator of social enterprise in the region comes from the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (GEM Consortium, London Business School). A measure of social entrepreneurship activity (SEA) has been developed, based on the proportion of the population engaged in some form of activity that has community or social goals at its heart, either as a start up venture or as owner-manager of that venture. In 2006, South West England had the most established social enterprises at 3.1% of the population, over twice the UK average.