Social enterprise - Driving a Wellbeing Economy for Scotland: action plan 2024-2026

Introduction

The latest social enterprise census^[2] confirms that the number of social enterprises in Scotland is growing and operating in sectors right across our economy. Social enterprises are contributing to fair, green growth with purpose: to create good jobs and promote fair work, to eradicate child poverty and improve living standards, and to boost tax revenues and sustain high-quality public services.

Social enterprises, together with other Inclusive Democratic Business Models and Social Ventures, have an essential role to play in supporting the delivery of the outcomes in our National Performance Framework^[3]. Social enterprises contribute to delivering the First Minister’s four priorities of Eradicating Child Poverty, Growing Scotland’s Economy, Tackling the Climate Emergency and Improving Scotland’s Public Services, set out when he took office in May 2024^[4]. A strong social enterprise ecosystem is important if we are to achieve our vision for a Wellbeing Economy, captured in the Business Purpose Commission report^[5] as one where we achieve economic growth in a way that substantially improves the wellbeing of our people and planet.

In Scotland we are growing our social economy from a position of strength. We have a commitment to Community Wealth Building and a social enterprise ecosystem that is envied across the globe. Our 10-year National Social Enterprise Strategy^[6] described a clear path to stimulating social enterprise activity, developing stronger organisations and realising market opportunity.

One of many strong examples of this can be seen with the Scottish Government-funded ‘Just Enterprise’ programme, providing over £1.4m of free business support at the point of access to social enterprises annually.

Scottish Government continue to be ambitious for our social enterprises. I am pleased that throughout this Action Plan we can see examples of that continued ambition; from our ongoing recognition of the importance of community enterprises, demonstrated by our £500,000 investment in the ‘Accelerate’ programme for 2024/25 helping to increase their sustainability and impact within the communities they serve, to projects like ‘The Ventures Lab’, providing wrap-around support for innovative Scottish social entrepreneurs to start and grow social ventures at pace and scale.

I am grateful to all those who have collaborated in the production of this important publication. This includes Social Enterprise Scotland who held wide ranging consultation events and co-drafted this Action Plan, ensuring the report has been truly co-produced with the voice of the social enterprise sector embedded strongly within.

Tom Arthur

Minister for Employment and Investment November 2024