The consultation is aimed at business and their representatives (including social enterprises); local authorities and other public sector organisations; private, public and third sector organisations that are contracted to provide publicly funded support to business.
Successful businesses are the lifeblood of our economy. Across government about £2.5 billion a year is spent supporting businesses and entrepreneurs – helping them meet the challenges they face.
Businesses have given feedback to the DTI that they are confused by the vast array of business support schemes available and they don’t always know where to go for the help they need. At the same time, the number of schemes makes it difficult for government, at all levels, to measure the impact of support and ensure that duplication is not taking place.
Government wants to simplify business support in England from around 3000 schemes to no more than 100 by 2010.
The DTI aims to make sure business support funded by Government is simple for business to access, has a real impact on public policy goals and represents value for money.
The DTI have produced a consultation document ‘Simplifying Business Support: A Consultation’ published on 22 June 2007, and are now seeking views on the business support government might fund in the future. The document sets out the role of Business Link as the primary route to publicly-funded business support and seeks views on how Business Link can be developed to play this role. Finally, it seeks views on how to avoid business support schemes proliferating again once they have been simplified.
Please read the document at http://www.dti.gov.uk/consultations/page40113.html
Reply with your views by email to SimplifyingBusinessSupport@dti.gov.uk by Friday 14th September 2007.
