About Social Enterprise London

Social Enterprise London is the regional agency tasked with the job of promoting social enterprise in the capital and increasing the scale of the social economy. Social Enterprise London is an Investor in People.

http://www.sel.org.uk

Social Enterprise London's Project

SEL’s EQUIPE project was testing out whether bringing playgroups and children’s clubs together in a consortium could increase their sustainability. Their main objective was:

• to explore the potential of the childcare consortium model for ensuring the financial sustainability in playgroups and out of school provision

additional aims were:

• To provide expertise in facilitating childcare social enterprise consortium models to the EQUIPE partnership.
• To relay lessons from SEL’s consortium model work with Sure-Start aged children to the EQUIPE partners who are working predominantly with school aged children and settings.
• To enable EQUIPE partners to absorb expertise and lessons learnt by SEL and apply them in their own specific contexts.

Project Outputs

• Small pilot was run to assist one provider set up as a consortium.
• Paper documenting and analysing the pilot experience - defining the characteristics of the consortium model and offering tips and ideas to help develop similar experiences.
• Seminars for the project partners and other interested parties to disseminate the consortium model and the results of the pilots.
• SEL’s involvement in EQUIPE roadshow events - to encourage other groups into doing work with the consortium model.

To find out more about the consortium model that SEL have developed click here to visit their website.