The community interest company offers a neat solution for some UK social enterprises – but can cause headaches for those wanting to scale up through equity investment. Look before you leap into choosing a CIC, advises a legal expert.
People either love or hate the UK's community interest company structure. But, asks Adrian Ashton, is the real issue that this country's social enterprise systems are overly driven by outsiders?
New figures from UK's CIC Regulator also show overall number of community interest companies grew at record slow pace in 2021-2022 financial year, following unusual spike during Covid-19 lockdowns.
Latest figures from the UK's CIC Regulator show almost 5,000 more CICs on the register in 2021, bringing total to nearly 24,000 and surpassing growth rate reported by Companies House – but dependency on grant funding remains unclear.
One in seven existing community interest companies was founded since March 2020. But their financial sustainability remains unclear, as does the true extent of pandemic-forced permanent closures – and some fear the worst is yet to come.
