Social Enterprise Scotland is an independent, membership-led organisation. As the representative body for social enterprises in Scotland, we are growing a collaborative movement so that all social enterprises have a stronger collective voice. We champion the transformative potential of social enterprise, enabling our movement to overcome barriers and grow its impact to empower people and protect our plant.
The cost of living crisis has different operational impacts on social enterprises, from utility costs to transport, food, the payment of the real living wage, buildings, facilities and insurance costs, recruitment and more.
We must also take into consideration the real impact on the mental health of social entrepreneurs as a direct result of the cost of living crisis.
In addition, those working in social enterprises are seeing the impact on the people they serve in our local communities. Social enterprises help improve the lives the most excluded groups in society and it’s clear that the most excluded individuals are being hit disproportionately by this.
This is alongside the ongoing and long-term financial impacts of the lockdown period that is still affecting the planning and the sustainability of many social enterprises.
Social Enterprise Scotland has been working on a range of support interventions and has examined and analysed what’s currently happening at the front line within the social enterprise community.
We began by creating a resources page of support on our website.
We then hosted an online session, open to all social enterprises, with around 50 organisations in attendance. We heard directly from social enterprises about how the cost of living is impacting them and their service users.
Since then, we’ve conducted a survey that was again open to all Scottish social enterprises, to ask directly how key aspects of the crisis was affecting them.
Our most recent work was organising a Cross-Party Group on Social Enterprise, meeting in The Scottish Parliament on a cost of living theme. We’re currently in conversation with The Scottish Government about what additional support might be provided to our business community.
Some of the feedback we’ve received is about a lack of clarity and information regarding where to turn to for help. Our website support page includes The Scottish Government dedicated online resource that anyone can access.
Find out more – https://socialenterprise.scot/
