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Over the past few decades the policy environment in the UK has gradually sought to encourage public sector workers to 'spin-out' their services into social enterprises. This paper reports the common experiences and barriers experienced by four local authorities in the UK that 'spun-out' a public service into a social enterprise. The analysis is underpinned by Takahashi and Smutny's (2002) theoretical model of partnerships and uses this to present a new model of the spin-out process. In doing so, the research identifies the complex partnership arrangements used in a spin-out involving collaborations with staff, services users and public/private/third sector organisations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The 'social investment market' in the United Kingdom is a growth area due to the governments' focus upon building up the supply-side element of the market over the last decade, often through the direct financing of 'Social and Investment Finance Intermediaries' (SIFIs). However, this ignores problems that can occur on the demand-side of the social investment market, such as a lack of 'investment readiness' amongst social enterprises seeking investment. Indeed, whilst there is now a significant body of policy-based and practitioner research exploring the social investment market, there remains a paucity of empirical academic research. The research reported in this paper sought to explore SIFI perceptions of what constituted investment readiness in the social investment market. Semi-structured interviews were held with the fund managers (or relevant personnel) at 15 SIFIs in order to explore what they believed constituted investment readiness and how they assessed this. The results indicate that the conception of investment readiness in the social investment market is similar to that held in mainstream financial markets. The results are discussed in relation to the prior literature and theories of the social investment market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]