The Adebowale Commission Wants £794 Million for Social Investment — I've Got a Simpler Request

The Reclaiming the Future Commission on Social Investment, chaired by Lord Victor Adebowale, published its interim report this year. The headline recommendation was £794 million in new funding for the social investment market — a £400 million Frontiers Fund, a Social Enterprise Loan Guarantee Scheme, a £50 million Black-led social investment fund, and a package of other measures designed to reform the market that the commission concluded was “fundamentally the same in 2019 as it was in 2011.”

I know Lord Adebowale. He’s one of the most thoughtful and credible voices in the social sector. His commission has done important work in exposing the gaps and failures in the social investment market. The conclusion that the market hasn’t fundamentally changed in nearly a decade is uncomfortable but accurate.

But £794 million is a big number. In the current fiscal environment — with pandemic debt to repay, public services to rebuild, and a government that’s ideologically opposed to large spending commitments — I don’t think it’s realistic. The Treasury will look at £794 million and say no.

My request is simpler, and cheaper. Fix the CIC share structure so it actually works. Extend the community shares exemption to CICs. Create a simple, low-cost due diligence process for small CIC investments. Give the CIC Regulator the resources to enforce the framework properly.

Those changes wouldn’t cost £794 million. They’d cost next to nothing in direct government expenditure. But they’d unlock more capital for CICs than any new fund could, because they’d remove the structural barriers that prevent capital from flowing in the first place.

The Adebowale Commission is right that the social investment market needs reform. But I’d rather see a thousand small fixes that work than one big fund that doesn’t address the underlying problems. The CIC movement needs better plumbing, not a bigger fountain.

The commission’s final report is due next year. I hope it includes some smaller, cheaper, quicker recommendations alongside the big-ticket items. Because those are the ones that might actually get implemented.