We are looking for funding for a replacement Village Hall we would like to also consider adding a play area for young children. Should we be looking at being a Social Enterprise

I represent a private sector training provider delivering the government's skills and employment agenda. Our training centres are UK learning centres and based at the heart of the communities they serve. I am interested in setting up a not-for profit social enterprise arm to the company to enable us to get involved in delivering beneficial third sector projects at a local level which we are currently ineligible to apply for due to our private sector status. Could you advise me about how to go about setting this up? Many thanks.

My 2nd question today! I set up a small volunteer community advocacy self-help group about 3 years ago and we have always worked closely with our local authority. We are the only established charity registered BME-led community group. As such, the local authority seems to always want to use us for their involvement activities and then say they have consulted with BME communities. We thnik that's unfair as we don't have the capacity as a volunteer group to collate all the views of majority within this community. Also, the council have so far refused to fund us adequately enough as they have only given us less than 10% of the funding we requested in the last two years for a outreach development worker post (part-time). Would it be right to start charging the council (and the other service delivery agencies that want to access our clients/users) for our time spent in supporting them to acheive their own strategic aims and CPA (Comprehensive Performance Assessment) objectives? We feel they are using us on the cheap!

What are the benefits of becoming a social enterprise as opposed to a charity?

I've been asked to find out if there are any Social Enterprise Apprenticeship Programmes/Schemes available in the UK. Websearches have led to the East London & Nottingham programmes that ran in 2006 but there doesn't appear to be anything since? This may re-inforce the view that - unlike business skills - Entrepreneurial capacity is a matter of practical experience; but it would be good to know what is available out there?