Winning hearts and minds for the business revolution

"Social enterprise is the pathway to the future!"
"The road to success is paved with social entrepreneurs!"
"We have seen the future and it is non-profit distributing!"

These are the messages that I keep hearing from various government departments (although I may be paraphrasing their words somewhat).

They say that social care can be better delivered by the third sector. They say that waste services will be more sustainable if social enterprise takes care of them. They're telling local authorities they want to see more services delivered by us. I hear this from Department for Food and Rural Affairs, from the Department of Work and Pensions and I hear it from the Cabinet Office. And it's great. I get so excited. At last we've won the hearts and minds of those who count. We're going to be successful and important. We're going to make a difference. We're going to be rich! (oh sorry, that one just slipped out).

I celebrate – shamelessly and without restraint.

But when I awake from my celebrations, in the post-elation, hungover dawning of reality, I hear the voice of other government departments – apparently more important ones. And these are saying to local authorities make your contracts bigger, combine with neighbouring authorities and let huge, joint contracts, get better value by lumping different services together. In other words, make sure that your contracts are too big for social enterprises to ever win them.

We have a real battle on our hands. We need to use what influence we can. We need to bend every ear which is prepared to listen. We must defeat this latter voice if the promised land is ever going to become more than the hazy mirage it is at the moment.

It's no use the government telling us we can be sub-contractors, or that we can enter into partnerships with bigger, traditional service providers. The government can't have their cake and eat it. If they want the benefits of dealing with social enterprise they can't get those benefits filtered through conventional business. It just won't work.

But according to government figures, there are 55,000 social enterprises in the UK that contribute £8.4bn per year to the UK economy. That is not insignificant.

And we also know the the public are already on our side: a YouGov poll conducted this month showed that people want more social enterprises in the UK. When asked what we need more of to ensure a sustainable economy for the future, 42% of respondents chose social enterprises, ahead of government institutions, charities funded by donations, and traditional business.

There has been some progress. A recent experiment in Devon where the local authorities developed a procurement tool in discussion with social enterprises, seems dramatically mould-breaking.

Devon's councils have worked with my Exeter based social enterprise, Mid Devon Community Recycling (MDCR), for many years and together we recently developed a new tender evaluation tool which will be rolled out this month. Designed by a working group of council officers and social entrepreneurs it recognises the added value social enterprises can bring to a contract.

Social entrepreneurs must remeber that the time is ripe for a business revolution. Social enterprise is about using business to find practical and sustainable solutions to some of the toughest challenges facing the world today, and social enterprises are going to be essential in today's economy.

Ken Orchard is CEO of Mid-Devon Community Recycling and one of England's Social Enterprise Ambassadors. The ambassadors are inspiring social entrepreneurs who work to raise awareness of social enterprise. The programme is funded by the Cabinet Office and led by the Social Enterprise Coalition.