High Level Summary of Statistics Trend Last update: Tuesday, May 06, 2008
Social Economy
The social economy captures the economic activity of the third sector, which embraces voluntary and community organisations, charities, social enterprises, mutuals and co-operatives. The Scottish Government has established a national target to increase the turnover of the social economy in Scotland. This is intended to measure the sustainable growth of the social economy as a provider of more and better opportunities for individuals and as a provider of innovative, customer-focused public services. There is increased interest in the use of official data to measure the third sector, both within the Scottish Government and UK government departments.
In order to monitor the national target, a proxy measure of the turnover of the social economy in Scotland has been developed. In 2007, the social economy turnover in Scotland stood at £2,821 million. This represents a 2% increase (in real terms) since 2004.
Sources: Scottish Government, IDBR (ONS), Scottish Register of Social Landlords
Further Information