Government uses Social Enterprise Mark criteria in contract 4

Finance | Vibeka Mair | 16 Feb 2012

A new government and European Union contract seeking to increase social enterprise involvement in a £275m programme uses the Social Enterprise Mark Company criteria to define what a social enterprise is.

The Ministry of Justice wants to improve the ability of social enteprises to participate in the delivery of the £275m National Offenders Management Service (NOMS) Co-Financing (CFO) programme, which is providing support to 110,000 offenders.

As part of the delivery requirement for the NOMS CFO programme, which has a prime and consortia contractor model, each prime provider must have a social enterprise element. However, the current CFO contracts, worth £89m in total, have 419 subcontractors/partners, of which only 36 (8.5 per cent) are currently identified as social enterprises by the Ministry of Justice.

In a bid to redress the balance, the MoJ has now launched the 'NOMS CFO Social Enterprise Programme' - a programme of work that aims to improve the ability of social enterprises to take part in delivery of the NOMS CFO programme.

The tender document for the programme says its objective is to create new social enterprise consortia models, and that potential consortia must be able to evidence that social enterprises involved meet the criteria required to achieve the Social Enterprise Mark, though having the Mark itself is not a requirement.

The Social Enterprise Mark’s criteria include the requirements that a company earns at least 50 per cent of its income from trading, and spends at least 50 per cent of its profits on socially-beneficial purposes.

The Social Enterprise Mark has recently been internationally registered as a Community Trade Mark in the European Union , while work to register the Mark is ongoing in the USA, Australia, India, Canada and South Africa.

The NOMS CFO Programme is supported by the European Union’s European Social Fund and the Ministry of Justice.

Place a comment

Geof Cox
17 Feb 2012

Anyone looking at actually subscribing to the Social Enterprise Mark as a result of this really should first take a look at the last Civil Society story on the Mark - and especially the comments that followed it - and especially perhaps Dr Rory Ridley-Duff's telling questions...
http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/11518/social_enterprise_mark_considers_libel_action_against_members_of_its_former_parent

[Reply]

Anne Mountjoy
Marketing and Communications Director
Social Enterprise Mark
17 Feb 2012

Hello Joan
Just to clarify, in order to be awarded the Mark, social enterprises have to prove they are genuine against a set of qualification criteria, which are overseen by an Independent Certification Panel for fairness and consistency.

The Mark's criteria provide the credibility that an organisation is in business to improve society and the environment - trading for people and planet.

[Reply]

Joan Haywood
Centre Manager
St Peter's Centre
16 Feb 2012

I was opened the link The Social Enterprise Mark’s criteria and received the following message:
Page Not Found

Sorry, the page you are looking for could not be found.

>> Return to the homepage

>> Search CivilSociety.co.uk

>> Contact us

From what I have read to date this process appears to be a self assessment criteria. Would I be correct therefore in assuming the the Mark can be purchased and will not carry the credit that one would expect from a quality Mark.

[Reply]

Vibeka Mair
16 Feb 2012
Response to [Joan Haywood]

Hi Joan,

Apologies. The link was broken. It has now been fixed. It will give you details on the Mark.

[Reply]

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