SASEN support and development role specification

Goals for social enterprise in South Ayrshire

Everyone involved in supporting social enterprises in South Ayrshire has broadly similar goals:

• More social enterprises
• A bigger sector, employing more people and with a bigger turnover
• More effective social enterprises, delivering additional social good
• A more sustainable sector with more social entrepreneurs of all ages

The keys to making this happen

In general the sector is weak in comparison with many other areas. But there are opportunities, with Government pressure growing on public bodies to contract with social enterprises, increasing focus by the Council on ‘Community Wealth Building’, and a growth of new types of social entrepreneurs in South Ayrshire using the CIC model. The key building bricks for growth are:

• More opportunities to bid for public sector contracts;
• More seed and growth funding – both equity and loan funding;
• More collaboration, joint bidding, intra-sector trading and joint purchasing;
• More support for traditional third sector organisations to trade; and
• More support for new and emerging social entrepreneurs and enterprises.

SASEN’s role and activities

Voluntary Action South Ayrshire (VASA) as the local TSI has a role in promoting and supporting social enterprise. The role for SASEN, as a network of social enterprises, is to enable social enterprises to work with each other to mutual benefit and to act together to be the voice of social enterprise, affecting policy and increasing resources. Key activities should therefore be to:

• Act as the voice for Social Enterprises, including backing VASA’s lobbying work.
• Lobby for and (where relevant secure) increased access to funding for setting up and growing social enterprises in South Ayrshire.
• Build links between social enterprises to allow them to bid jointly for work.
• Build links between social enterprises to maximise trading within the sector.
• Provide peer support mechanisms for existing and new social entrepreneurs.
• Link and build credibility with the wider local business sector and with local and national support organisations (VASA, SAC, SE, SIS, Senscot, SES, etc) so that local social enterprise will begin to feature in these agencies’ strategies, plans, events and PR.

SASEN has been effectively dormant for the last 3-4 years so there is an opportunity for a fresh start as local social enterprises emerge from the pandemic.

Development support role

SASEN now wish to appoint an appropriate individual to help relaunch the organization and grow it to become sustainable over the next two years. The key goals for the role will be to:

1. Work with the existing SASEN board to agree membership development and stakeholder influencing plans.
2. Identify social enterprises in South Ayrshire and build membership to include at least 60% of social enterprises in in the area.
3. Build a programme of activity in line with the priorities above that is of sufficient value for members to pay towards SASEN costs (so SASEN itself will be a social enterprise).
4. Raise the profile of and confidence in social enterprise among the public and private sectors so that social enterprise features regularly in these agencies events and PR.
5. Identify and help secure future funding (from - members fees and in grants, and, if possible, through other commercial activity).

The appointment in the first instance will be to develop the plan at 1 above – with a second phase appointment subject to the board being satisfied with the plan.

We are looking for someone with a combination of skills and knowledge including:

• Familiarity with the social enterprise sector – knowledge of South Ayrshire may be an advantage but is not a requirement;
• Strong strategic planning and project management skills;
• Ability to quickly gain the confidence of a wide range of stakeholders and others; and
• A focus on delivering results by responding to opportunities and challenges flexibly.

The current board – which comprises three trustees and two advisers – will expect to support the person appointed in practical ways. And SASEN has effective links with VASA that will also assist. We would expect members (as they are recruited) to contribute in practical ways too. But the person appointed will be the sole paid resource for the organization for the foreseeable future.

The total budget currently available for the post and any activity is £20,000 and we envisage around £15,000 of this being available in fees. However it may be possible to attract further funding and we would be happy to increase the workload and fees if this is the case.