PRIME Initiative

The next step in the drastic simplification of government-funded business support in the UK was today announced by Peter Mandelson, who is Secretary of State for Business. The aim is not to reduce total spending on government assistance to business, but to slash the number of different programmes so they are easier for people to find.

The intention now is to make Business Link the single point of contact for most government-funded support programmes for business. The process won’t be completed till March 2009 at the earliest, but Mandelson announced 30 programmes that should be available by then from Business Link - and five that should be available immediately.

“Publicly funded business support - advice, loans and grants, can help individuals realise their entrepreneurial potential, businesses start and succeed, and communities prosper and flourish”, Mandelson said. The problem has been people haven’t been able to find it. A plethora of over 3,000 different schemes around the country has meant that tracking down what is on offer is a major task.

There are more details of the simplified Business Link offering in this new “Solutions for business” leaflet.

However, if you look at the details, all is not what it seems. The promisingly named “Intensive start-up support”, available from December 2008, will only be available to you if you belong to one of the groups that the local Regional Development Agency has decided to assist. So it is not yet clear who will be eligible.

Similarly it is not yet clear how “Small loans for business” - up to £50,000 scheduled to be available from January 2009, will be rationed. The announcement says they will be targeted at “entrepreneurs who might otherwise struggle to raise finance from mainstream lenders” - but this could be almost anyone in the current economic climate.

The intention behind this whole simplification effort may be admirable, but has not been achieved - and probably never can be. Even after March 2009 many other government agencies will still be in the business support game, so all taxpayer-funded programmes will not be centralised under Business Link’s new “Solutions for business - supported by government” brand.

For a start Jobcentre Plus is rolling out its “Flexible New Deal” at the moment, which will offer a variety of schemes for people currently claiming benefits seeking to enter employment and self-employment - in other words setting up their own businesses.

And many local authorities have their own business creation schemes, some of them funded by Local Enterise Growth Initiative money from central government. HMRC, Defra, and the Ministry of Justice are among central government departments that will continue to run their own schemes to achieve their own objectives. So Business Link is never going to have a monopoly on business support.

However, it is now a better place to start. You can find Business Link in your area here.