Social Enterprise in Scotland Census 2017
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Social Enterprise in Scotland Census 2017 Technical Report CONTENTS 1. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................................ 4 2. IDENTIFICATION OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES ....................................................... 6 Defining Social Enterprise.......................................................................................... 6 Basis for the Assessment ............................................................................................ 6 Limitations ................................................................................................................. 11 3. DATA CLASSIFICATIONS ....................................................................................... 14 Classification of Regions .......................................................................................... 14 Classification of Urban-Rural Areas ........................................................................ 14 Classification of Areas of Multiple Deprivation ....................................................... 15 Classification of Economic Sectors .......................................................................... 15 4. INCLUSIONS AND EXCLUSIONS FROM THE STUDY ........................................ 17 Arts and Creative Industries..................................................................................... 17 Community Centres and Halls ................................................................................. 17 Early Learning and Childcare ................................................................................... 17 Education, Training and Employment ..................................................................... 18 Environment and Recycling ..................................................................................... 18 Financial Services ..................................................................................................... 18 Food, Catering and Hospitality ................................................................................ 18 Health and Social Care ............................................................................................. 19 Housing ..................................................................................................................... 19 Information, Consultancy and Support Services ..................................................... 19 Property, Energy, Utilities and Land Management ................................................. 19 Retailing .................................................................................................................... 20 Sport and Leisure ..................................................................................................... 20 Tourism, Heritage and Festivals .............................................................................. 20 Transport .................................................................................................................. 20 Other ......................................................................................................................... 21 5. COLLATING FINANANCIAL DATA ........................................................................ 22 Types of Financial Data ............................................................................................ 22 Sources of Data ......................................................................................................... 22 Data Extracted .......................................................................................................... 23 Allocating Income and Expenditure Between Categories........................................ 23 Financial Year Ends .................................................................................................. 24 Financial Ratios ........................................................................................................ 25 6. SURVEY DESIGN AND ADMINISTRATION ......................................................... 26 2 Survey Method and Fieldwork ................................................................................. 26 Questionnaire Design ............................................................................................... 26 Maximising response rates ....................................................................................... 27 Survey Response and Representation ...................................................................... 28 Item Non-Response .................................................................................................. 29 7. CONVERTING RAW DATA INTO PUBLISHED ESTIMATES ............................... 31 Imputation of Financial Data ................................................................................... 31 Calculation of Gross Value Added (GVA) and Employment ................................... 33 Final Quality Assurance of Estimates ...................................................................... 34 Annex A: Organisations Examined in the Study ......................................................... 35 Annex B: Survey Questionnaire ................................................................................... 36 3 1. INTRODUCTION The Social Enterprise in Scotland Census 2017 is a collective endeavour; a project brought forward in 2015 by those agencies with a shared interest in supporting social enterprise and growing its impact. Building on the 2015 pilot study, the 2017 Social Enterprise Census is intended to provide a robust baseline position and subsequently track the changing scale, characteristics and contribution of the sector over the next decade. This will provide a snapshot of activity and progress every two years, aligned to the cycle of planning, implementation and review of the long-term national strategy. The study provides a detailed profile of social enterprise activity in Scotland. It focuses on the scale, reach and contribution of this activity and the characteristics, health, prospects and needs of those organisations that are delivering it. By ‘social enterprise’ the study refers to organisations that are undertaking social enterprise activity and operating in a way that appears to be consistent with the Voluntary Code of Practice for Social Enterprise in Scotland1. This offers a broad but widely agreed set of criteria by which social enterprises can be identified and recognise each other. The research that forms the basis for this report was carried out between March and August 2017. It included four main and interrelated elements: 1. Identification of the population of social enterprises currently active in Scotland, based on the definitional criteria of the Voluntary Code. This built on the dataset of social enterprises compiled in 2015, but involved a re-screening of over 15,000 third sector organisations and enterprises previously excluded that did not fully meet the criteria during the initial assessment. 2. A full and objective financial assessment of the population of social enterprises was carried out. The publicly available financial accounts of more than 9,500 organisations were initially reviewed and a fuller assessment carried out in 6,200 cases. In the end, financial data was extracted from various sources and compiled for 4,439 of the 5,600 confirmed social enterprises (79% of all), although full data was not available for each. 3. A large-scale Census survey of potential social enterprises was conducted. This was carried out to verify and extend upon the data already gathered. Administered largely online this obtained 1,650 responses, which after purging for duplicate and ineligible responses left unique responses from 1,351 of the population of 5,600 social enterprises. Segmentation and active targeting of respondents ensured that the achieved sample achieved adequate representation by geography (urban/rural) and economic sector. 1 http://www.se-code.net/ 4 4. An extensive financial and economic analysis of the available data was conducted. Data from the various sources was combined and cleaned for further analysis. Financial data, where available, were aggregated, analysed and benchmarked using various financial ratios associated with financial performance, strength and sustainability. Income, employment and GVA (Gross Value Added) estimates were also produced. This Technical Note provides further details about the methodology, the basis for identifying social enterprises and producing the findings outlined in the main report, and the availability and use of data compiled as part of the study. 5 2. IDENTIFICATION OF SOCIAL ENTERPRISES There is no legal definition of a ‘social enterprise’ in Scotland, and different stakeholder groups have their own views about what the characteristics of a social enterprise are or should be. A clear, workable and widely agreed definition has therefore been essential to the study. Defining Social Enterprise The Social Enterprise in Scotland Census adopts a working definition for the purposes of the research based on the Voluntary Code of Practice for Social Enterprise in Scotland2 and agreed by the Census Steering Group3. This Voluntary Code is widely accepted as the basis for a diverse, self-regulating community of organisations that includes well established community and co- operative enterprise activity, the trading activity of community and voluntary organisations, and the work of social entrepreneurs. The Census report uses the term