Enterprise award for the council

North Lanarkshire Council has scooped the title ‘Social Enterprise Market Builder’ of the year at the prestigious Social Enterprise Scotland Awards, in a first for any Scottish local authority.

The award was given to the local authority for supporting businesses with a social mission, working with them to improve and regenerate local areas.

The council say these businesses work hard across North Lanarkshire’s communities, with every penny of profit they make going back into their social mission.

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Judges described the council as having a ‘strong and clear focus on developing and supporting social enterprise, through a variety of policies and services’.

Councillor David Fagan, convener of regeneration and infrastructure at NLC, said: “Securing this award is a fantastic achievement for the council and the area it serves, and reaffirms our commitment to a vibrant and sustainable social economy sector. Our new social enterprise framework sets out our ambition for the sector and outlines how we’ll deliver sustainable services and jobs over the coming years. We recognise the challenges faced by many local social economy organisations in these days of austerity and public sector cutbacks. That is why it is more important than ever to continue to work in partnership to support and grow our social economy sector.”

The award was presented at the Scottish Enterprise Scotland Awards, held at Scottish Parliament building, Edinburgh.

Finance secretary John Swinney added: “I am delighted to hear that NLC is launching a new and refreshed social enterprise framework which sets out a strategy for growing the sector over the next five years. “This aligns well with the Scottish Government’s ambitions for the social enterprise sector and recognises the importance of social enterprise to local service delivery, regeneration and job creation.”