Partnering for good

Our belief that strong financial management and a social value ethos can work together to empower local economies and create employment opportunities has resulted in us working with Supply Change to increase our relationships and spend with social enterprises. We now work with over 10 social enterprises, spending in excess of £1.6 million per annum and are actively looking to increase the percentage of our spend with social enterprise partners.

We have also launched an innovative open access procurement platform in conjunction with Supply Change, to connect suppliers - such as social enterprises, charities and sheltered workshops - with public and private sector buyers, to encourage more organisations in their delivery of social or environmental value.

Through our involvement in partnerships such as South East Local Enterprise Partnership (SELEP), a partnership of organisations to support the social economy in South East LEP region, and the New Anglia Social Investment Partnership (NASIP), a partnership of organisations in Norfolk and Suffolk, we aim to support social enterprises to grow and thrive by accessing business support and finance to increase their impact in the community. This has resulted in us investing loan finance into social enterprises within our communities and delivering support programmes to build the necessary infrastructure for the sector.