£2M FUND OPENS TO BUDDING SOCIAL ENTREPRENEURS ACROSS NORTH WEST

A ground-breaking £2m incubator fund is offering 0% interest loans to social entrepreneurs across the North of England.  The second round of Social Incubator North will see the best business ideas receive up to £25k interest free loan investment with up to 80 hours of tailored one to one business support, peer learning, networking and access to business premises.

Social Incubator North is led by Sheffield-based Key Fund in collaboration with the 4 Northern Social Enterprise Partnerships and Locality.   All ideas must come with a social backbone, such as offering employment or training to vulnerable members of the community or delivering a service with green credentials.

Sam Tarff, CEO of Key Fund, said:- "A Social Business is one with enterprise and social impact at its heart, meeting social need and establishing a platform for ethical business, whether it's a private or social enterprise."

The 1st round of the Social Incubator North; which is co-funded by the Cabinet Office as part of the Big Lottery's' Social Incubator Fund; launched in May 2013. It received 170 enquiries, with 114 applications. Of those, 33 went on to receive a place on the programme with participants from the North East, North West, East Midlands and Yorkshire and Humber. The scheme, aims to create 60 new investment ready businesses across all sectors. Deadline for applications for Round Two is Friday, 28 February 2014. Key Fund has significant experience of successful investment, consortium management and business development for the social enterprise sector.

Mr. Tarff added:- "It's an incredibly exciting concept as anyone with a competitive and brilliant idea can apply, it doesn't have to be perfectly formed to start with. Unlike other funds, it's geared up to deliver that practical, hands-on support to take ideas step by step into reality, so these new businesses have solid foundations from which to fly."

Applicants are invited to visit:- socialincubatornorth.org.uk, to find out more about how to apply.

Got a business?  Have you got adequate insurance?

THIS week a Project and Building Consultancy have been warning about the importance of "maintaining adequate insurance for commercial property" since the latest flooding misery of resent weeks. In a statement property expert Kevin Cramer, Director, Project and Building Consultancy, DTZ in Manchester said:- "With the UK being battered by extreme winds and torrential downpours which have caused chaos in recent weeks, leaving hundreds of home owners and businesses devastated and with bills for reinstatement works running into thousands of pounds, the importance of appropriate building insurance and property protection has never been so pertinent. Landlords and tenants alike need to ensure and maintain adequate insurance for the cost of building reinstatement in the event of a major incident. Recent estimates from insurance groups estimate that 77% of buildings are undervalued for insurance purposes and the result is that landlords and owners may not fully recoup the full cost of a building's reinstatement, leaving them exposed and facing a funding gap. Businesses should also consider whether their contents and stock is also adequately insured. Ensuring that your business incident plan is reviewed and implemented may not only protect your property, but may also limit disruption to your businesses activities during and after the main event. The proximity to watercourses, railway lines, adjacent buildings and their uses, together with location and any site constraints, can all have significant cost implications if not included within the reinstatement assessment, and therefore affecting the type and level of insurance required. Whilst there is a need for landlords to drive down 'unnecessary' expenditure in terms of the cost of assessments and associated insurance premium increases, the sheer scale of fire and flooding highlights the importance of regular insurance assessments in line with RICS recommendations. These regular assessments are driven by the volatility of the construction market coupled with wider macro and micro-economic influences, and present significant regional variations. The factors combine and impact upon local build costs, making construction pricing difficult. As a result, there is a need to undertake regular reassessments using appropriately qualified personnel rather than simply uplifting existing figures by rough percentages. Indeed, it is generally accepted best practice to undertake a full scale remeasure or survey every three years, together with annual desktop reviews. With most commercial leases allowing the landlord to recover the costs of a surveyor's fees in the provision of Building Reinstatement Cost Assessments (BRCAs) the above advice; if followed; forms part of the good and effective management of a property portfolio."