Social enterprise as a driver of rural sustainable prosperity?

Other key findings on the contributions of rural SEs and their performance as community businesses include:

• Rural SEs, although variously defined and measured, comprise up to a third of the total UK social enterprise population and about one tenth of all SMEs found in rural areas.
• They mainly serve local markets and often address rural community needs where there are shortfalls in both public and private sector service provision.
• They tend to be very small, highly reliant on volunteers, and often women-led.
• Many perform well as micro/small enterprises, but key barriers relate to the operational costs of running a business and affordability of premise, and challenges of income generation particularly in smaller and more geographically remote communities.

A common theme from the interviews and focus group discussion was around the policy framework and supportive ecosystem for rural SE being patchy and fragmented across the UK, despite many individual components being in place and evidence of more ‘joined up’ support, pooling of resources and collaboration in some regions and localities. SEs are also less prevalent in deprived rural areas where they are most potentially needed. Support providers in England and Wales were particularly concerned at the insufficiency of the policy and support system and the negative impact of public sector austerity on the capacities of local authorities and on community health and other areas of social provision over more than a decade.

There is also uncertainty around central government policy to address regional disparities across the UK and the potential role of rural SE within its ’levelling up’ agenda. It is recognised, however, that Scotland has a stronger strategic framework for enabling SE which has also been much more attuned to, and to a large extent driven by, the needs of its more remote rural communities.