Monday, 13th August '07
THE Small Business Service is to be renamed the Enterprise Directorate. This is to reflect a new focus by the government on encouraging the growth of existing small businesses rather than the creation of new ones, said Stephen Timms, the newly appointed minister for competitiveness, whose portfolio includes small businesses.
Timms, whose comes to the post from the Treasury, said the name was changed “to reflect the new focus I want to bring on business growth. That is well summed up by the word enterprise”.
He said the name Small Business Service was also no longer appropriate because the service element had all been outsourced to Business Link.
The Enterprise Directorate will be part of the newly created Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (Berr) which has absorbed the former Department of Trade and Industry. It will be staffed by a team of 50.
The name change comes as part of a renewal of the government’s small-business strategy that will culminate in the creation of a new three-year action plan for 2008-11. Timms hopes to have this in place by the time the spending review is unveiled, probably in October.
He said that while his department will continue to encourage people to start up businesses, the new focus will shift to encouraging the growth of existing small businesses.
“We have seen very good progress on start-ups over the past few years and we want to maintain that and build on it,” said Timms. “But I think it is time for a new focus on growing the size of these businesses. They need support, and more can be done to obtain the greatest benefit for the British economy from the growth in the number of small businesses we have seen in the past few years.”
He points out that only 25% of small-business owners have an ambition to grow their firms, leaving 75% who do not.
“There is more we can do to encourage people to be more ambitious, to set their sights higher and to see that there are opportunities to grow their businesses in a more rapid way than has been the case up to now. We want to raise people’s aspirations and provide encouragement. If there is particular help that hasn’t been available, we want to provide it if we can.”
Timms worked in a small business himself for eight years before going into politics, joining a start-up consultancy called Ovum in its second year, when it had a dozen staff, and staying until there were 100 employees. He feels that this experience will help in his present job.
Timms said encouraging the growth of small firms will have a positive impact on the economy.
“Growth in productivity in small businesses has been ahead of the average for a number of years now. But small firms can make an even greater contribution and I want to make sure that we capture this potential.”
He said small firms would benefit from the restructuring of the government department into its new form. “It is extremely helpful that we are the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform because it means we have the levers for addressing the concerns that small businesses have about regulation.
“We have ambitious goals to reduce the regulatory burden on business and I am determined to make sure that small businesses see their full share of the benefits. This is a bigger issue for small businesses than for large ones. So there is a particularly big prize here for small businesses if we get it right and I am determined that we should.”
Timms is keen to hear from small-business owners who wish to give their views on what the new Enterprise Directorate’s three-year plan should include. You can send your views to him – see panel on left.
He said: “I am all ears and keen to listen to proposals. We want to see more of today’s small businesses becoming large businesses by setting ambitious targets for growth and achieving them. And I think we can do more to help them achieve that.”
He pointed out that the achievements of the Small Business Service during its three-year plan from 2004-7 included the creation of Supply2gov.uk to improve the public-procurement opportunities for small firms; the introduction of two common commencement dates for new regulations; and the launch of the Enterprise Capital fund to fill the funding gap.
He said they had also included the introduction of enterprise education for all secondary school children, the launch of the National Council for Graduate Entrepreneurship and the task-force on women entrepreneurs.
WHAT SHOULD THE MINISTER DO?
Write to him at the Department of Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform, 1 Victoria Street, London SW1H 0ET or e-mail him direct at mpst.timms@berr.gsi.gov.uk.
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