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The term 'social enterprise' is relatively new and was coined in the mid 1990's.  The concept itself, however, has been around for around 150 years with the work of Robert Owen and the Rochdale Pioneers and earlier still through David Dale and the New Lanark Mills.

Both men were businessmen, philanthropists and social reformers that considered a system of organisation, work and communities for mutual benefit. 

In the 1840s, in Rochdale, a workers' co-operative was set up by 28 working men who scraped together £28 to open their own shop to provide high quality affordable food, in response to exploitative factory owners and shopkeepers who charged extortionate prices.  This early co-operative movement has paved the way for a myriad of co-operative structures, including worker-owned, consumer, retail, housing and agricultural co-ops providing a range of products and services. 

In the UK, a resurgence of social enterprise started in the late 1990s with the coming together of different traditions, including co-operatives, community enterprises, enterprising voluntary organisations and other forms of social business.

Today, social enterprises provide a range of products and services from shops to providing training programmes for the long-term unemployed, creating employment opportunities for ex-offenders to delivering public services like transport and health care.  The sector is growing significantly - Government data estimates that:

• there are 62,000 social enterprises which represents 5% of all businesses
• Social enterprises combined turnover is £27 billion in turnover.
• Social enterprises contribute £8.4 billion per year to the UK economy - almost 1% of GDP.
  

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