Social Enterprise publication

Marie has come up trumps again!
Here's a link to a publication which may be useful to people from 1 March 2007. http://www.dh.gov.uk/en/Publicationsandstatistics/Publications/PublicationsPolicyAndGuidance/DH_072928Essentially Social Enterprises are a special vehicle (organisation) designed with asset locks (the assets such as buildings and vehicles can't be sold to make a profit for individuals) and charitable aims, and enjoy special tax status with HM Revenue & Customs. This means that public sector services can be transferred into a Social Enterprise in their entirety, allowing the same people to continue to run them without the risk that the new "owners" will sell the lot and retire to Barbados. It also means that a private company can't buy the whole thing, break it up and sack everyone, then take out a fat profit. I'm chair of one down in London. This charitable aims and no profit thing means that venture capitalists aren't interested in helping which can make it difficult to raise funds, so the Government has set up special funds to help startups. Happy to talk about this if it is useful