Evidence Submission: Social Enterprise Pathfinder Programme

Social enterprises are at the heart of the coalition government’s Big Society agenda. Introduced by the previous Labour government, social enterprise organisations are seen to be more innovative and responsive than traditional NHS and other public service organisations.

The Social Enterprise Pathfinder Programme was introduced in 2006 by the Labour government. At the same time, the Department of Health commissioned an evaluation of the pathfinder programme. The evaluation gave assurance to the Department of Health that social enterprises are successful and a suitable organisation model for developing further provider services.

However, this report, written by the ‘Making the Most of Evaluation’ research group challenges these conclusions. It criticises the evaluation for having unclear objectives, weak methods, insufficient data presented to support the conclusions, and an absence of a definition of success or performance.

The research group also highlight concerns about the objectivity of the organisation conducting the evaluation, given that it had provided consultancy services to PCTs to develop social enterprises.

Click here to read the full report and you can read the summary report of all the reviews here.