Hi Ben and all, 

Thanks to the Wellcome Trust, I undertook a course a couple of years ago with the School for Social Entrepreneurs (SSE) as part of Wellcome looking at how they could support grant holders to move from a grant model to a trading model for their business. 

As far as SSE were concerned, a social enterprise is a business driven by a social or environmental purpose and that any profits are reinvested  towards achieving that purpose. Their definition of a social entrepreneur is broader as it is anyone working in an entrepreneurial manner for public or social benefit. These "may work in ethical businesses in the private sector, governmental or public bodies, or in the non-profit or community sectors" http://www.the-sse.org/what-is-social-enterprise-

There are some very big examples of organisations that are social enterprises including Welsh Water (this provides water and sewage services across mid and south Wales and has a turnover of £600M+) which is wholly owned by Glas Cymru, a company limited by guarantee, and any financial surpluses are retained within the company.  There is also the Canals and Rivers Trust which was formed by a movement of British Waterways from the public sector to the third sector. The trust looks after 2000 miles of waterways, has the UK's third largest collection of listed buildings and structures, 63 SSSIs and over 1,000 conservation areas. 

I also think that, under this definition, universities are social enterprises.

The important thing about the broader definition of social enterprises is that is requires a cultural shift in accepting standard business aims like making surplus as a key behaviour, rather than trying to break even, in order to make sure that your organisation can achieve the aims that it has set out to achieve. 

Bruce

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