To ask the Minister of Enterprise, Trade and Investment what steps are in place to encourage social entrepreneurship in the third sector.

DETI has a central role in developing social economy policy, with responsibility for the community and voluntary sector lying with the Department for Social Development.

Developing the social economy has long been a government priority and the Executive is well aware of the important contribution which this particular sector makes. This is why we have continually affirmed our commitment to the social economy and the broader Third Sector through measures to boost the strong entrepreneurial tradition which exists here, as seen in the NI Economic Strategy which seeks to promote the Social Economy and its contribution to economic growth.

In terms of current support for the social economy sector, my Department has been involved in a range of initiatives including:

DETI funding of Social Enterprise NI, to design, manage and deliver a three year Social Economy Work Programme (SEWP) with the objective of identifying and implementing a programme of initiatives to enable the continued growth of a sustainable social economy sector.

Invest Northern Ireland provides support to new and existing social enterprises through the following programmes:

Invest Northern Ireland’s Social Entrepreneurship Programme (SEP) which focuses on supporting new social economy businesses with the potential to grow, helping them to build the skills and capabilities to make an impact on the local economy. The programme offers support at both the business idea and business planning stage. In 2013/14 the SEP supported 55 new social enterprise start ups.

Invest Northern Ireland’s Jobs Fund was one of a range of measures that Invest NI put in place in response to the economic downturn. Jobs Fund includes two measures to support social enterprises, recognising the potential that the social economy has to develop employment opportunities, especially for those most remote from the labour market.

Social Enterprise Employment Grant – in 2013/14 109 new jobs were created with employment grant support;

The Social Enterprise Franchise Programme provided support to social enterprises interested in franchisor/franchisee business models.

The establishment of 11 Social Enterprise Hubs (SEHs) as one of the six signature projects being taken forward under OFMDFM’s Delivering Social Change initiative (DSC). This provides an operational hub in each of the Social Investment Fund areas to provide advice, help generate ideas and support the development of new social enterprise projects.