Picture the scene. It's a bright sunny day in August and Saira is walking down her local high street thinking about how she can go about setting up her own company. Walking past a community centre she spots a sign for a talk on starting a business. Perfect. She walks in and takes a seat in the front row. She is excited to discover she is entitled to loads of free support and within days she has her own business coach to advise her on writing a business plan. After a few months, the coach has secured her some grants and within a few years her company is turning over £1m.
Where is this brave new world of easy-to-access business support? The UK in two years time that's where if you believe the government.
Included in the "supplementary" documents released alongside Wednesday's budget was the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's (BERR) glossy new enterprise strategy, a "renewed vision to make the UK the most enterprising economy in the world and the best place to start and grow a business".
There's some good stuff in it: consultation on radical measures to introduce a limit of the amount of regulation Whitehall can introduce, extra funding to boost the number of female entrepreneurs and an independent review led by successful entrepreneur Sarah Anderson on giving small businesses greater certainty on how to comply with legislation. Hard to criticise I'm sure you'll agree.
However, overall the report doesn't impress me.
The government admits that the current system of criss-crossing business schemes currently in place just confuses entrepreneurs looking for guidance. As a result, Business Link, the much criticised flagship service, will become the first point of call for all things enterprise support in 2009, the government says, with no more than 100 "products" on offer provided by fully trained Business Link advisors.
If all that happens then great. But in a report which recognises there are too many schemes available, it introduces new ones: a new enterprise academy, new 'Women's Centres', new 'Children's Centres' to name just three. Surely we don't need even more schemes?!
Reading through the report, much of it is style over substance. Headline grabbing measures such as Dragons' Den millionaire Peter Jones taking on the role of training the nation's teenagers in how to be an entrepreneurs and partnerships with Premier League football teams to encourage kids into business.
What small businesses want is practical, useful support from advisers who understand their business and point them in the right direction for experts.
"By 2009, Business Link will the single information, diagnostic and brokerage service to address employers' needs," the government says. This is good but only if advisers drop the focus that is too often currently placed on box-ticking and a 'computer says no' attitude.
The story I related about wannabe entrepreneur Saira at the start of this blog is adapted from an obscure document provided to me by BERR. 'The business experience in 2010' talks of a time when Business Link is "recognised more than ever before as the first point of call for information" and all publicly funded products "are part of one portfolio that is managed, marketed and monitored in a coherent, coordinated, consistent way".
I'll believe it when I see it.
Where is this brave new world of easy-to-access business support? The UK in two years time that's where if you believe the government.
Included in the "supplementary" documents released alongside Wednesday's budget was the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's (BERR) glossy new enterprise strategy, a "renewed vision to make the UK the most enterprising economy in the world and the best place to start and grow a business".
There's some good stuff in it: consultation on radical measures to introduce a limit of the amount of regulation Whitehall can introduce, extra funding to boost the number of female entrepreneurs and an independent review led by successful entrepreneur Sarah Anderson on giving small businesses greater certainty on how to comply with legislation. Hard to criticise I'm sure you'll agree.
However, overall the report doesn't impress me.
The government admits that the current system of criss-crossing business schemes currently in place just confuses entrepreneurs looking for guidance. As a result, Business Link, the much criticised flagship service, will become the first point of call for all things enterprise support in 2009, the government says, with no more than 100 "products" on offer provided by fully trained Business Link advisors.
If all that happens then great. But in a report which recognises there are too many schemes available, it introduces new ones: a new enterprise academy, new 'Women's Centres', new 'Children's Centres' to name just three. Surely we don't need even more schemes?!
Reading through the report, much of it is style over substance. Headline grabbing measures such as Dragons' Den millionaire Peter Jones taking on the role of training the nation's teenagers in how to be an entrepreneurs and partnerships with Premier League football teams to encourage kids into business.
What small businesses want is practical, useful support from advisers who understand their business and point them in the right direction for experts.
"By 2009, Business Link will the single information, diagnostic and brokerage service to address employers' needs," the government says. This is good but only if advisers drop the focus that is too often currently placed on box-ticking and a 'computer says no' attitude.
The story I related about wannabe entrepreneur Saira at the start of this blog is adapted from an obscure document provided to me by BERR. 'The business experience in 2010' talks of a time when Business Link is "recognised more than ever before as the first point of call for information" and all publicly funded products "are part of one portfolio that is managed, marketed and monitored in a coherent, coordinated, consistent way".
I'll believe it when I see it.
