South West Regional Skills Enterprise and Employment Analysis 2007/2008

Final Report

5.3 Stimulating enterprise

5.3.2 Delivering support to enterprise

Encouraging business start ups and successful trading thereafter is an important priority for the region, and the simplification of business support is intended to assist this. Recent developments, such as devolution of business support delivery and the business support simplification agenda, should allow for an enhanced ‘offer’ to the region’s businesses.

Business Link currently focuses support on:

• People who have already decided to start their own businesses; and
• A very limited amount of work on entrepreneurship in schools.

A New Model: Introducing a new model for business support services in the South West(90), points to a wealth of research and anecdotal evidence about business support in South West England and points to how those services could be better delivered. In particular, research has shown that:

• There is a need for better co-ordination amongst providers of business support;
  
• Services should be better targeted to maximise the impact of funding;
• Monitoring and evaluation should be improved and be continuous;
• The business community needs to be made more aware of the support available;
• There is too much duplication in the type of support available.

A major effort is underway to improve the Business Link service further and to reinforce its position as the primary source of business advice. The South West RDA (SWRDA) is working with other providers of business support on a regional model that has the following aims:

• To develop an integrated business support structure and strategy across the region;
• To establish Business Link as the primary gateway and broker for general and specialist business advice;
• To ensure that business support is demand led and meets the needs of the region’s businesses;
• To channel public sector resources towards support services which add the greatest value;
• To reduce duplication, minimise waste and focus a greater proportion of spend on frontline services.

The SWRDA currently has responsibility for contracting Business Link services in the region. Business Link structures are currently being re-organised within the region into two zones with a range of integrated services. The Business Link brand will remain the gateway to business support but will focus on three core areas: Information, Diagnosis and Brokerage IDB):

• Information and Diagnosis: Business Link will continue to offer a wide range of business information and advice through the online channels and telephone gateway;
• A diagnostics service will help businesses identify problems and solutions, delivered online, over the telephone or through face-to-face contact as required;
• Brokerage: Business Link will act as ‘honest broker’, referring businesses which need specific support to suitable public and private sector service providers.

The South West CSR submission also calls for on-going dialogue with government departments, and national and regional agencies to ensure that future business support initiatives complement the simplification agenda.

In contracting for Business Link services in the region, the recently launched Business Link Prospectus asks the successful organisation(s) to deliver more than the core IDB model. The Prospectus also requires a Business Link service that is responsive to regional priorities and meets the needs of the sub-regional economy and businesses. Proposed services should, “seek to maximise GVA through support to businesses with potential for growth”. Bidding organisations should also set out how they would encourage additional access to core IDB services by hard-to-reach customers and under-represented groups such as women entrepreneurs, black and minority ethnics, social enterprises, deprived communities and rural businesses. A focus on strategic issues such as sustainability and resource efficiency is also required. It is anticipated that this will enable business support activities to be accessed by disadvantaged groups and communities.

Finally, the inability to access a sufficiently high speed broadband connection is still a significant problem for some remote rural areas in the region. This has a bearing on rural businesses being able to exploit ICT to its full potential and being able to access web-based tools and training effectively. According to analysis carried out on the national Annual Small Business Survey 2004. One-in-twenty small businesses in rural villages and dispersed dwellings cited “lack of broadband access as an obstacle to success”. However, the same study also shows evidence of ICT being used to overcome the obstacle of remoteness, with a clear increase in ICT use with decreasing settlement size. In dispersed dwellings, businesses are more likely than in all other types of area to use ICT.

(90) A New Model: Introducing a new model for business support services in the South West, 2006, RDA