Social Enterprise Scotland will be funded instead

Senscot is facing closure after it lost out in a bid for £400,000 Scottish Government funding.

In a controversial move, social justice secretary Shona Robison said Social Enterprise Scotland will be the only representative body to get core funding.

The Scottish government said when it published its latest Social Enterprise Action Plan in March 2021 that it would fund just one of the two intermediary organisations in future.

Robison said that the government decided to open a competitive grants process after the two organisations had been unable to reach agreement. 

It comes as a bitter blow for Senscot, a pioneering body setup by Laurence Demarco, Rodney Stares and Aidan Pia in at a time when the cause of social enterprise was resisted, both in government and from within the sector.

Senscot is currently led by an all women staff team with Pauline Gordon its director.

In a statement the board of Senscot said: “We note that the removal of government funding is likely to close the doors at SENScot, with a loss to the sector of some of our most experienced and passionate people.”

It added: “SENScot…is also deeply concerned about the future of support for grassroots social enterprises, especially rural groups, social firms and community-led work in deprived urban communities.”

This story first appeared in Pioneers Post

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