Civil society minister Nick Hurd offered no indication this morning of when the social enterprise sector could expect the long-awaited mutuals support programme.
The proposed programme, which will provide £10m in support funds, was due to arrive this autumn.
When asked by a member of the audience at the Guardian's Social Enterprise Summit in London about support for social enterprise spin outs, Hurd failed to mention when this would come. "The mutuals support programme is coming to market to provide some of that support," he said.
In response to a question from Guardian editor, Patrick Butler, about the appetite for social enterprise from public sector commissioners, he said: "Do we have enough good [commissioners]? Probably not. This is what we're addressing," he said.
"We inherited a programme based around improving commissioning, but it didn't change much. There are huge numbers of people in commissioning. You see the difficulties they have inside their organisations and realise how difficult it is to change these things. We're on a journey," he added.
In response to a question about the government's flagship social enterprise spin out Central Surrey Health losing out on a large local contract to a private company, he said he was "personally sorry they didn't get it".
"Central Surrey Health is a great organisation with great people, but contracts are won and lost. There's no guarantee. I understand it was a transparent process ... But, if the problem is access to capital, we are trying to set up big society capital," he said.
When asked whether he thought it was a level playing field for spin outs, Hurd replied: "No not yet. It's our responsibility to identify things that will make a difference to the playing field, like access to capital. That's why the movement to grow social capital is the most exciting. There's a huge job to do to connect social enterprises to traditional capital."
Butler said that when he met Hurd 16 months ago, the minister had said that even with cuts, the overall slice of money that goes to civil society will grow. "Has that happened?" he asked.
"Not yet, no," said Hurd. "But a year is no time at all in this type of journey. What I was expressing was what I expect to happen if we and the sector work together to address some of the things that get in way."
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