The role of government in supporting the implementation of satellite accounts for the third sector and social economy - The perspective of Slovenia
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The Slovenian government has undertaken a strategic project to develop the social economy sector to levels comparable with other EU countries. Key activities include integrating social economy into development documents, allocating grants and financial instruments, modifying laws on social entrepreneurship and public procurement to support social enterprises, and preparing a national social economy development strategy and system for measuring social impact. Challenges remain in providing further political and financial support, promoting visibility and knowledge, and establishing satellite accounts to measure the sector.
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The role of government in supporting the implementation of satellite accounts for the third sector and social economy - The perspective of Slovenia
- 1. The role of government in supporting the implementation of satellite accounts for the third sector and social economy - The perspective of Slovenia Towards Satellite Accounts for Third Sector and Social Economy: challenges and opportunities Paris, 16.10.2017
- 2. Policy support on social economy Strategic project of the Government of the Republic of Slovenia: Development of social enterprises, cooperatives and economic democracy The main objective of the Strategic project is to develop the SOCIAL ECONOMY sector in Slovenia to the comparable level of EU countries.
- 3. Policy support on social economy – main activities • Integration of social economy into all key documents concerning the development of enterpreneurship • Integration of social economy into programming documents of European cohesion policy in period 2014 – 2020 (assigned grants, finacial instruments) • Modification of the Law on social enterpreneurship – in progress • Preparation of the national Strategy of development of social economy 2018-2028 – in progress • Modification of the Law on Public procurement – retained public procurement for social enterprises • Preparation of the new Law on workers buy-outs – in progress • „Buy social“ campaign • Preparing national system for Social impact measurement
- 4. Modification of the Law on social entrepreneurship • social economy - social entrepreneurship - social enterprise • types A and B social enterprise • legal forms: sheltered companies and employment centers • activities beyond work integration and social services of general interest • limited distribution of profits • social impact measurement regulation • strategy for social economy development • simplified reporting • volunteer work not mandatory but possible
- 5. Challenges • Further political support • Promotion, visibility, knowledge and capacity building • Financial means and capacity building to establish Satellite Accounts
- 6. Thank you for your attention. Mojca Štepic mojca.stepic@gov.si Prime Ministers’ office Ministry of Economic Development and Tehcnhology
- 7. Thank you for your attention. Mojca Štepic mojca.stepic@gov.si Prime Ministers’ office Ministry of Economic Development and Tehcnhology
Editor's Notes
- Within the coalition agreement of the current government 1 of 10 strategic governmental projects was identified as the one that can help give answers to the growing need of job creation, localization of certain types of services and demands the development of new forms of value-add. The project entitled „Development of social enterprises, cooperatives and economic democracy“ started in 2015 – the same time as the sector of social entrepreneurship was transfered from the Ministry of Labour, Family, Social Affairs and Equal Opportunities to the Ministry of economic development and technology. With this transfer a lot of emphasis was made on the fact that social entrepreneurship must be primarily understood as entrepreneurship, which, in addition to economic effects, also brings different social and environmental effects. At the begining of the project social economy in Slovenia contributed to 0,7% jobs and 1% GDP. The long term objective of this project (until 2023) is to develop the SOCIAL ECONOMY sector in Slovenia to the comparable level of EU countries. Today in Slovenia we have 253 social enterprises with the formal status of social enterprise in the registry – the number is yet not very big but since the beginning of the strategic project the number increased by more than 350%. This achievement is putting social economy high on the list of priorities of the current government.
- Here we have listed just few activities of the strategic project that I believe are most important to boost social economy sector in our country.
- Social entrepreneurship is placed in the broader concept of the social economy. By introducing this concept into the amendment to the law, we want to follow the practice of the European Commission, which began to combine individual organizational forms as subjects of the social economy. Types A and B that are now separating social enterprises according to whether they acquired their status due to their business activity that was defined by law as an activity that provides positive social effects and social enterprises type B, which acquired their status from the employment of a certain proportion of vounerable target groups. This division has in practice brought more negative than positive consequences, from additional reporting requirements to the prevailing general public opinion that social enterprises are mainly companies employing vulnerable target groups and as such need help from the state. With the amendment of the law, we want to encourage public opinion and operations of social enterprises in the direction of ensuring their entrepreneurial base and market sustainability. As do many European social enterprises also we advocate a wider range of activities of social enterprises that go beyond the integration of vulnerable target groups and social services of general interest. With the amendment of the law we therefore enable the implementation of social entrepreneurship in all areas of economic and non-economic activities, which have impact on stimulating innovation, providing additional supply of products and services in the public interest, developing new employment opportunities, providing additional jobs, social inclusion and vocational integration and reintegration of vulnerable groups into the labor market. We strive for a complete restriction of profit distribution as some other european countries do, for example, Italy and in Poland. In doing so, we want to emphasize the principle of non-profitability and determine that the status of a social enterprise is really chosen by those non-profit legal entities that pursue the social dimension of social entrepreneurship, where the creation and payment of profits are not the main guiding principle as is the achievement of social effects. We will also be implementing a Regulation, which will define in more details the qualitative and quantitative standards for monitoring the social effects of social enterprises. The regulation introduces the reporting of social enterprises on the provision of social effects, which will serve as the basis for verifying entitlement to the status of a social enterprise. The purpose of introducing the monitoring of social effects is to show the distinction between social and for-profit enterprises, to prove the rationality and importance of social enterprises and to increase their visibility. We are changing the strategy for the development of social entrepreneurship to the strategy for the development of social economy that is becoming a 10-year strategy. The period extends from four to ten years, because of the estimation that social economy is still in the initial development phase and the movements are taking place more slowly, so a longer time for change in this area is needed. The strategic document is therefore planned for a longer period, while a more concrete program of measures will be prepared for shorter periods of 2 years. Other changes are also being made for example simplifying yearly reports for social enterprises, elimination of the upper limit of wages for people working in social enterprises, volunteer work that is not mandatory anymore but still possible, and some other.
- The future challenges we are facing in Slovenia in the field of social enonomy are, firstly, to further provide a strong political support to develop the sector with the elections approaching in mid 2018, secondly to successfully implement the initiatives, actions and measures to increase the visibility of social eneterprises, to increase knowledge and capacity building of different stakeholders on the rationalle of social economy – where the implementation of Satellite Accounts would be of great importance to show the contribution of the social economy to the development of a sustainable and inclusive growth. I believe that visibility and relevance of social economy can be very much increased with the existance of national statistics that can show the contribution of social economy to the major economic indicators. Therefore we support the conclusions of the European Council, Luxemburg and Madrid declarations that call uppon the implementation of satellite accouns in EU countries and following commonly accepted international models by doing that. Since the UNs Handbook „Satellite accounts on nonprofit and related institutions and volunteer work „ that has been worked out over three years, has been subjected to multiple international reviews, is comprehensive and fully aligned with the System of National Accounts, we believe that it is important to start discussing implementation, timeframe and budget of satellite accounts as soon as possible.