TUBtrap – how one social entrepreneur will sit in a bathtub for 3 days to support those trapped by addiction

Today's government announcement that public spending must back British jobs and skills in every postcode, set out in new Procurement Policy Note (PPN) 026, is another important step in Social Enterprise UK’s work to ensure public spending strengthens communities. We're especially pleased to see Andy Burnham's government putting social value at the heart of its agenda so early in his premiership.   Raising the minimum weighting for local social and economic benefit to 20% on contracts worth £5 million or more builds directly on the Public Services (Social Value) Act we proposed, helped pass in 2012, and have continued to champion and evolve since (and similarly with the Procurement Act that followed). We also welcome the stronger KPI reporting, including the new provision that poor performance against social value commitments can count against suppliers bidding for future contracts. For too long, social value has been a box to tick rather than a promise to keep, and government is right to say so. What’s changed?  Some of what’s been announced isn’t new. Procurement Policy Note 026 effectively supersedes PPN 002, which already covered fair work, skills for growth, employment for people facing barriers, and pipelines of opportunity for under-represented groups. What's genuinely new is narrower: jobs and skills are now the only route to meeting the weighting, whereas before, authorities could previously use climate, wellbeing or supply-chain outcomes instead. The weighting rises meaningfully at the top end; and the threshold rises to £1 million.   That £1 million threshold is our first concern. Raising it is framed as cutting red tape for small businesses, and easier routes for social enterprises bidding directly are welcome. But it also means social value requirements simply stop applying below that level - a tier where many social enterprises compete. A rule meant to open the door for small suppliers shouldn't quietly remove the lever that makes buyers choose them. It raises the prospect of a situation where a profit maximising private sector company with a large bid team outscores a social enterprise which focuses on job creation. We'd like a more proportionate approach below £1 million, rather than a blanket exemption.  It's also worth the government remembering who already delivers exactly these priorities. Our latest State of Social Enterprise research shows social enterprises employ an average of 72 people each across the UK's more than 100,000 social enterprises, with 43% specifically employing people from disadvantaged groups and 83% paying the Real Living Wage. Creating good jobs and routes into work for young people and those facing barriers isn't a new ask for social enterprises, it's what many were set up to do, and they should be direct beneficiaries of the new weighting, not just intermediaries helping larger contractors hit their targets.  Resilient supply chains  We’re also concerned about the loss of direction for commissioners that was in PPN 002: "Increase supply chain resilience". That rewarded suppliers for a diverse supply chain, including SMEs, VCSEs and mutuals: the closest thing the current model has to incentivising large contractors to buy from social enterprises.  PPN 026's Annex A contains only two outcomes, Good Jobs and Skills, and neither scores supply chain composition. The only remaining mention of VCSEs is a note about ensuring the criteria chosen are ones VCSEs can bid against, which gives accessibility for bidders, but doesn’t reward the larger organisations buying from them.  We know the alternative works. Amey, quoted in today's announcement, is a partner in our Buy Social Corporate Challenge, through which major businesses commit to spending on social enterprises rather than simply hiring directly. Amey's reported social value rose from £211 million to £248 million last year, plausibly reflecting the very outcome PPN 026 has now dropped.   If that route disappears, government risks removing the lever pulling large contractors towards social enterprises even as it raises the overall score; a contractor could hit the full 20% weighting through direct hiring alone, with no obligation to touch its supply chain. With this government’s focus on jobs, it’s pertinent that nearly 8,000 jobs have been created by corporates procuring from social enterprises through the Buy Social Corporate Challenge. That's our central ask for the autumn technical guidance: reinstate supply chain diversity, including VCSE participation, as a scored outcome, whether standalone or built into the Skills and Good Jobs criteria. We'd also like sub-contracting transparency, so buyers can see where social value spend actually lands, and independent verification of KPIs rather than self-reporting.  The opportunity ahead Public procurement is worth £90 billion a year. Getting this right could mean billions more reaching the organisations best placed to create good jobs and close skills gaps. Getting it wrong means large contractors meet the new weighting through direct hiring alone, while the route pulling spend towards social enterprises quietly closes.   We appreciate the new willingness of this government to engage with SEUK, which has led to meaningful dialogue with the Cabinet Office and No.10. We've spent over a decade proving what works, and we'd welcome the chance to bring that evidence into the guidance process before the rules take effect in January 2027. 5 August 2026

The Centre for Information Resilience (CIR) won the International Impact Award at the 2025 UK Social Enterprise Awards for work that includes geolocating war crimes in Palestine, Sudan and Myanmar. As tickets go on sale for this year's Awards, we look at how CIR co-founder Adam Rutland built a team of open-source investigators who turn phone footage and satellite images into courtroom-ready evidence. "There are a lot of bad people doing a lot of bad things around the world. Our mission is to say one thing to them: we're watching you." Not many award acceptance speeches sound like a defiant warning. Adam Rutland's, accepting the International Impact Award at the 2025 UK Social Enterprise Awards, was made all the more memorable because of it. The co-founder's speech was certainly different, something that could also be said of his organisation. Visit CIR's website, and you'll find reports of wrongdoing by what it calls ‘malign actors’. At the time of writing, this included investigations into whether Israeli displacement orders were sending Gazans to genuinely safe zones, how access to water (a basic human right) was being used as a weapon in Syria, and how far-right groups are spreading misinformation about London. Tracking a massacre from a phone video One case shows just how fascinating and painstaking that work is. CIR found a Rapid Support Forces (RSF) camp in Libya. The RSF is one of two factions fighting Sudan's civil war, which has raged since April 2023. CIR was able to prove that fighters from the camp were involved in an attack on the Zamzam refugee camp in North Darfur in Sudan; once home to 500,000 internally displaced people, it is now an RSF military base. A massacre took place there, and most of that number were forced to flee again. CIR traced the camp by studying phone footage RSF fighters had posted online and cross-referencing satellite images showing light sources from desert encampments at night. Investigators then built 3D models of vehicles from the footage, identifying them by markings such as words written in the dust on windscreens and existing damage. Famine took hold in Darfur as food supplies dried up, but the supply of military equipment to the RSF hadn't, and CIR traced where some of it was coming from. Much of CIR's work uses this kind of technology. Many of their published investigations include interactive maps, with dots marking specific incidents; click on one and you might find phone footage that's been verified through geolocation. "Our ability to harness technology, and the methodology that some of us learnt in government — and some of us learnt outside of government — has allowed us for the first time to really move from simply collecting information to collecting evidence that can be used for an impact on the ground," says Rutland. As well as raising public awareness of harms around the world, that evidence is used in national and international courts to prosecute war crimes and other abuses, helping deliver justice for victims, he explains. From diplomacy to digital investigation Rutland was drawn to this work after 15 years as a Foreign Office diplomat, posted to a variety of countries. "In all of those places there were obviously harms, sometimes by authoritarian regimes and sometimes by online actors. And when I came back to the UK, I was determined to do something about it," he says. Geographically at least, he's still close to government: CIR's office is housed in a 19th-century building near Whitehall. Centre for Information Resilience launched in 2020 and now employs 65 people, with a further 200 investigators and analysts working across 42 countries. Rutland describes CIR as a high-end research organisation. "We like to find really difficult, hard-to-find information and package it up for news organisations, for governments, for NGOs, primarily to help the fight against human rights abuses and online harm," he says, explaining the organisation's revenue model and who its clients are. Casting our lot Rutland admits the work CIR does is "quite dark sometimes", which is partly what led the organisation to enter last year's UK Social Enterprise Awards. "I thought it was a good idea for us to maybe just lift our head up a little bit, look at the other social enterprise organisations doing good in the world, and just cast our lot to see if people thought what we were doing was worthwhile." Rutland describes the win as "fantastic," and a tribute to the hundreds of people behind CIR's work. His acceptance speech wasn't planned. "I wanted people to know that they can't commit crimes in the dark, that there is a light shining on what they're doing. And ultimately, somewhere, at some time, justice will be served." info-res.org

By Jovan Owusu-Nepaul - Head of Public Affairs at Social Enterprise UK Today (Monday 20 June) Andy Burnham entered Downing Street. With an already warm slogan shaping his world view, 'good growth in every postcode and hope in every heart', he marries together heart and head in hopes of re-casting the direction of British politics. In it, forging a new path for how we arrange our social and economic life. Despite the fact that he will inherit an economy still on a quest for growth and increasingly squeezed by a ballooning welfare state, Burnham sets to inherit greater economic stability, and one where interest rates have climbed down to more manageable levels. Albeit not the 2.5% BoE target. However, all of this is completely irrelevant if communities still feel far too disconnected from economic prosperity. After six previous Prime Ministers, Burnham's government will rightly be judged on whether it can deliver growth that reaches every part of the country. This isn't just growth in GDP, but growth in opportunity and wellbeing in a more resilient economy. Social enterprises are ready to deliver on this mission. In Britain today, there are around 100,000 social enterprises in the UK, with a collective turnover of £60 billion and employing around 2.3 million people. They provide childcare, health and social care, housing, education, culture, environmental services and reignite the high street with purpose. Unlike conventional businesses, their profits are reinvested into the communities they serve. Andy Burnham has long recognised the value of business with purpose. As Mayor of Greater Manchester, he championed the role of social value in procurement and demonstrated how economic development can be aligned with community benefit. His commitment to ensuring public contracts properly account for social value is an important foundation. But there is an opportunity now to build. If a Burnham government wants to build an economy that works for everyone, social enterprise must be at the heart of this economic and reindustrial strategy. This includes as part of government's public service reform and devolution agenda. Here are five actions that could be taken within the first 100 days. 1. Give social enterprise a seat at the table Establishing the Office for the Impact Economy was a great step for social enterprises but they have too often fallen between government departments, considered as neither wholly business nor wholly civil society. That must change. Government needs to formally recognise social enterprise as part of the UK's business economy, with ministerial responsibility sitting within the Department for Business and Trade, working in tandem with social enterprises on the ground and experts who work collaboratively with the Office for the Impact Economy. 2. Launch a cross-government social enterprise strategy The contribution social enterprises make to economic growth is outsized. Consider employment, health, housing, education, net zero and local regeneration, to name a few.  Yet policy affecting the sector remains fragmented. Within its first 100 days, government should commission a cross-government Social Enterprise Strategy, coordinated from the centre of government (No10 and the Cabinet Office) with clear responsibilities between departments and measurable outcomes, and working together with social enterprises, sector leaders and civil servants. This would ensure social enterprise becomes a delivery partner for the government's agenda rather than an afterthought. 3. Put social value at the heart of public spending Government spends hundreds of billions of pounds each year buying goods and services. Burnham has already committed to strengthening social value in procurement. The next step is implementation: ensuring every department measures social value consistently and equitably, whilst increasing opportunities for social enterprises to compete fairly, and removing unnecessary barriers that favour large incumbents over innovative local providers. Public money should create social value. 4. Make growth more inclusive Labour has committed to creating a stronger economy and supporting more diverse business models. Social enterprises already demonstrate that commercial success and social impact can go hand in hand. We do not need to farm our services and domestic assets (housing, children's care) to overseas private equity. Government should ensure social enterprises are fully included in business support programmes, regional growth funds, export support and innovation initiatives. They should not need separate programmes, they should have equal access to mainstream economic policy. It is time to support the British social entrepreneur who leads in their community and creates localised community prosperity. 5. Back community wealth building Economic growth is strongest when wealth stays within local communities. Government should work with mayoral authorities and local councils to expand community wealth building, supporting local procurement, employee ownership, community businesses and social enterprises as anchors of local economies. Greater Manchester has already demonstrated what is possible; the challenge now is to make this a national model. A different way of doing business Burnham has often spoken about building an economy that works for working-class people and communities across the UK. Social enterprises represent that ambition daily. They generate revenue, create jobs, innovate in public services and reinvest profits to tackle the very challenges government is trying to solve. The first 100 days of any government sets the tone for the years that follow. By recognising social enterprise as a central part of Britain's economy, Burnham could unlock billions in economic activity while strengthening communities across the country. The sector is ready to help. What it needs now is a government prepared to put it at the heart of its economic strategy.