Why social enterprise matters to all of us

Guest blogger: Duncan Sloan, Head of Community Banking, NatWest

The social enterprise sector is playing an increasingly important part in the UK economy, and supporting it is an integral part of our strategy to support enterprises across the board – and of all shapes and sizes – and to help them get ahead for business.  

Over the past year, we at the Bank have been doing just that. We have provided around £100m of loans a day to UK SMEs, at a rate of 5,000 businesses every week; and have supported 100,000 start-up businesses during 2010, and a further 25,000 during Q1 2011 – an 11 per cent increase on 2009.  

We’ve also set up a Start-Up Hotline to give budding entrepreneurs help to begin trading. We support businesses through partnerships and community programmes, such as the recent boot camp initiative in London, which was launched in conjunction with Boris Johnson, the Lord Mayor, and we are the largest corporate supporter of both The Prince’s Trust and Prince’s Scottish Youth Business Trust business start-up programmes: together these programmes help to start over 2,500 new businesses across the UK each year by providing finance, advice and mentoring support to young entrepreneurs.   But supporting enterprise is not just about providing banking products and services. It is about taking a longer-term view of how we work with our customers and wider communities to understand their ambitions, deliver business expertise and help them become more sustainable.  

That’s why we’ve launched the second RBS SE100 Data Report.     

We support the RBS SE100 Index because, like any other part of the economy, it is important to gather as much market intelligence as possible.   This year, even more organisations have listed; with 409 social enterprises taking part to give us a fascinating insight into the sector. What is clear from the data is that the sector continues to show fast growth. The report shows that the top 100 social enterprises in the index grew on average by 91% in the year ending March 2011, (compared to 79% last year), illustrating impressive growth in the sector over the past year.  

And that’s not all, in turns of revenue, the top 100 enterprises on the index grew by 51% and the total revenue growth of all those who gave us figures was 14%. This compares well with revenue growth of the FTSE 100 in 2010, which was around 5%.    

The RBS SE100 Index also shows how this growing social enterprise sector has an impressive level of women in senior management positions compared to business as a whole.  Of the 2,080 people on the leadership teams of social enterprises on the index, 940 were women i.e. 45% against a FTSE100 average of 13% in 2010.  

At RBS, we also recognised that a similar trend in business. That is why in 2007 we launched our Women in Business initiative specifically designed to provide support and guidance for this growing sector. Since then, our Women in Business Ambassadors have increased from an initial 12 to over 200 based in local areas across the UK today and over 110,000 female-led businesses have chosen to join our banking group.  

I would also like to take this opportunity to flag another exciting initiative from RBS. Launched on 25 July, CommunityForce is a national initiative delivered across 158 local markets within the UK. Through CommunityForce, the Bank has made available £3million of cash awards as well as actively working in partnership with local communities to facilitate and support projects with a social return.  We'll bring about real change by not only providing financial support, but also time and expertise.    Members of the public, local charities, organisations and groups will be able to visit the CommunityForce website to nominate, vote, request local support and get involved.   

Please do look out for further announcements in your local area and get involved. And in the meantime, if you’ve got a view on social enterprise – or on any aspect of this blog – don’t forget to tell us what you think.