As part of Open Data Day on Saturday SEUK and the Cabinet Office launched an online dashboard showing public sector funding to SEUK members over the past three financial years. Kirsty Weakley looks at what this tells us.
Over the last three years £567m has been spent by public sector bodies with around 800 SEUK members. While it's difficult to say whether the amount itself should be considered good or bad, we can certainly draw a few conclusions from it.
Most notably, most government funding goes to only a very few organisations, and little money flows from central government to social enterprise.
Compared to grant funding this is still reasonably small scale. Last week David Ainsworth analysed central government grant data which showed that £147bn was distributed in the form of grants although independent charities received around a third of this, £480m.
The total amount spent by local and central government with Social Enterprise UK members for the 2013/14 financial year was £197m, with local authority spending accounting for 95 per cent spending.
This is a drop of 6.5 per cent on the previous year when total public sector spend with SEUK members amounted to £214m. In 2011/12 the public sector contracts were worth £156m to SEUK members.
Both the proportion and total spending from central government has fallen over the three-year period. In 2011/12 central government funding accounted for 10 per cent of total funding, awarding £16m to SEUK members. In 2012/13 this fell to 7 per cent with £15m and by 2013/14 central government accounted for 5 per cent of public sector spending with £9m for SEUK members.
Local government spending with SEUK members was £140m in 2011/12, rising to £199m in 2012/13 and dropping to £188m in 2013/14. Spending in London and the South East accounts for between 46 per cent and 49 per cent, but whether this reflects spending by local authorities or the make-up of SEUK’s membership is unclear.
Top suppliers
More than half of the funding for 2013/14 was concentrated in the top ten suppliers, who between them earned £131m. Social care charity, Turning Point earned the largest amount from the public sector: £23m.
The rest of the top ten suppliers for 2013/14 are: Crime Reduction Initiatives (£22m), Greenwich Leisure Ltd (£21m), Five Rivers Child Care Ltd (£15m), The Avenues Trust Group (£11m), East Thames Group (£11m), Realise Futures CIC (£11m), Age UK (£6m), Fusion Lifestyle (£6m) and Sirona Care & Health CIC (£5m).
Funding was still lower than last year. In 2012/13 the combined figure for the top ten was £149m. Turning Point received £2m less than the previous year, Greenwich Leisure 31m less and Sirona Healthcare’s funding plummeted from £19m to £5m.
Over the three-year period Turning Point earned the largest amount from the public sector: £67m altogether.
Top buyers
In 2013/14 Kent County Council and Suffolk County Council were the joint top buyers, each spending £13m with SEUK members. Essex County Council was third, spending £11m.
The Department for Communities and Local Government was the only central government department in the top ten. It came eighth and spent £4m.
The data is available online and was released in partnership with the Cabinet Office as part of International Open Data Day on Saturday.
Spend with Community Interest Companies
The website also includes data for public sector spending with Community Interest Companies based on those registered with the CIC regulator, however it appears to be missing nine months in 2013/14, and some of these will be could also be signed up to SEUK.
In 2012/13 total public sector spend with CICs was £101m, with 95 per cent from local authorities. London and the South East accounted for 22 per cent.
The biggest supplier was RGF Project Vehicle CIC, which earned £30m from the public sector. DCLG was the largest commissioner, spending £30m, followed by Bath North East Somerset Council, which commissioned £19m from CICs.
What this means
The data certainly makes for fascinating reading, and do have a look at the dashboard, but the drop in funding between 2012/13 and 2013/14, combined with what appears to be an ever diminishing contribution from central government, could be early warning bells for those in social enterprises expecting to deliver public sector contracts.
There are also still many questions that need answering to put the data into context, such as how the figures from local authorities fit into their overall budgets.
What the sector needs next is more detailed analyis of the overall funding from local authorities and how much of it is distributed to charities and social enterprises, both in the form of grants and contracts. When Civil Society News attempted to do this a couple of years ago councils were less than forthcoming but hopefully the drive towards open data will change this.
