UK Minister with taste for SROI

John Elkington

January 11, 2009

Kevin Brennan, the UK Minister for the Third Sector, illustrates the trend for politicians to pay more attention to social enterprise. The UK is estimated to have 55,000 social enterprises, employing 650,000 people and contributing £8.4 billion to the economy annually. In an interview with The Times yesterday, he spoke of the need for “lift-off finance” as the gap in the market for the funding of social enterprise and discussed his enthusiasm for Social Return on Investment (SROI). He also mentioned the Unclaimed Assets Bill, which could help bridge the gap. The idea here is that banks would release unclaimed assets to fund social projects, while protecting the owner’s rights.