workers and 270 handicapped people. Of these 270, 100 worked under sheltered workshop conditions. Approximately one-third of shops are run by sheltered workshops, and two-thirds are social firms trading on the market. Some associations run several shops. The attraction for disablement organisations running sheltered workshops is that opening a CAP Market enables them to create jobs for their users in the ‘real world’. These allow disabled people to have near-normal working life and to be a fully integrated part of the local community. Many of the jobs that sheltered workshops undertake, such as assembly or logistics, are carried out away from the public gaze. Retailing, on the other hand, brings users into direct contact with the public, and so has a greater therapeutic effect. Success factors Political support The concept has three attractions for policy-makers: (a) labour market policy: the Land of Baden-Württemberg, where the CAP Märket started, wishes to ensure equal opportunities for its disabled citizens. Its labour market policy is therefore to encourage the creation of integration enterprises, and its target is to reach a total of 2,000 jobs for disabled people by 2010. It has a successful programme including financial incentives for employers and career support services which has succeeded in reducing unemployment among disabled people by 20%. (b) regeneration policy – the quality of life in towns falls when retailers close down, so there is support from residents for the empty sites to be reused. The properties are available at affordable prices. c) sustainable development policy: the shops are close to customers, and can be reached on foot, which is particularly valuable for people without cars. To capitalise on this advantage, the shops offer a delivery service. A generous financial framework Germany's social security law provides that firms must employ a certain quota of "severely disabled" people. Those that do not are obliged to pay into a ‘compensation fund’ instead. This fund is used to pay a wage subsidy to integration enterprises (Integrationsbetriebe) that do employ disabled people. This allows higher staffing levels to be maintained, which both compensates for the lower productivity of some workers, and allows an atmosphere to be created in which people have time for each other. This makes the jobs sustainable for disabled people. The investment required to open a shop is reduced by the fact that a sum of between €10,000 and €15,000 per job created for a disabled person