For The Compliance People, the relationship between commercial success and social purpose is built into its operating model. Its entry for The SHE Show Inspiring Change Awards describes how income from compliance services helps fund community work, while the business develops its own approach to environmental responsibility and employee wellbeing.

The 32-person consultancy is part of the Newground CIC social enterprise. Its profits are gift-aided to Newground Together, a charity supporting communities in the north of England through work including employment and skills, youth services and outdoor activities. Sustaining a useful commercial service therefore helps create a continuing source of support for that charitable activity.

The model developed as traditional grant funding became less dependable. The business built services that organisations would pay for, including its Legislation Update Service. What began with paper registers and later CDs became an online service developed in-house. At the time of the application, it supported 1,493 live subscribers across 2,047 sites, providing a recurring customer base for the business.

That service connects the organisation’s expertise to an ongoing customer need: understanding relevant legal requirements and managing compliance. Consultancy, free newsletters and twice-yearly legal update webinars complement the subscription offer. Maintaining service quality and customer confidence is important to the social model because the charitable contribution depends on a commercially sustainable business.

For 2025/26, the submission reports that Newground Business Services, which includes both The Compliance People and FloodHub, gift-aided £1,156,947 to Newground Together. More than £1 million came from The Compliance People’s products and services. Keeping those organisational boundaries clear helps explain the entrant’s contribution within the wider group.

The charity’s work illustrates the range of needs that funding supports. Over the 12 months described in the application, Newground Together engaged 5,805 people and provided energy advice to 1,414 homes. Those are outcomes of the charity’s wider work, rather than results attributable solely to The Compliance People’s contribution, but they show the community activity to which its trading model contributes.

Within the business, the sustainability approach also includes employment practices. Home-based contracts and a flexible nine-day fortnight support the way colleagues organise their work. Employees have access to three paid volunteering days, creating opportunities to contribute time as well as the funds generated by the organisation. Continuing professional development helps maintain the expertise on which its services depend.

Environmental objectives are developed with department heads and reviewed through quarterly senior management and Board discussions. Procurement preferences include suppliers with environmental management systems. These arrangements give environmental considerations a place in routine management, alongside the commercial decisions needed to sustain the social enterprise.

The submission also reports greenhouse-gas measurement. Newground Business Services recorded 28.16 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in Scope 3 emissions for 2025/26. This figure covers the wider business unit, including FloodHub, rather than The Compliance People alone. It provides a defined reporting boundary from which the group can consider its impacts and improvement opportunities.

The organisation’s experience offers an example of how specialist expertise can support a wider social purpose through regular trading. The connection relies on continued attention to customers, employees and the operation’s own environmental responsibilities. For The Compliance People, the contribution to community work is linked to the daily task of running a service that customers continue to value.

The Compliance People entered The SHE Show Inspiring Change Awards 2026. This article draws on its application; financial, environmental and community figures are reported in the submission.