Yesterday at the Bristol Growth Summit, part of the National Business Awards 2010, Dr Dominic Swords (off the radio) led the debate about how the budget would help or hinder Bristol small business as it strives to grow out of the recession.
Ably shepherded by John Stapleton (off the telly), a panel of business bigwigs including Martin Lyne (Orange), Will Clark (Santander) and Richard Alvin (Capital Business Media) dealt well with questions from about 200 small business managers and owners.
Alistair Darling had just sat down in London, and everyone in Bristol was trying to make sense of the budget… what does it mean for us?
People seemed happy that there was some help with business rates; but a planned increase to National Insurance Contributions was met with a groan.
To get a measured view on the budget, I asked George Derbyshire of the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies for his take:
“I was looking for measures to re-invigorate the small business economy, and I am feeling slightly underwhelmed. Some mildly useful measures on business rates, for example, and HMRC’s Time to Pay initiative, but on the other hand, no review of the increase in National Insurance Contributions which will have a damaging effect. The £300m ‘efficiency savings’ pledged by the department of Business Information and Skills will, I am sure, have a knock-on effect on the budgets of regional development agencies.”
Although the event was partly supported by Business Link, no one had told one of the panel (!), who characterised the national business support organisation as a useless bunch of pen-pushers run by an unaccountable quango.
Cue endless complaints from the floor about how terrible Business Link is. As an example, a previous business award-winning delegate told how he wanted help and advice on apprenticeships for his very successful firm, but was met by a wall of silence from every organisation he approached, including Business Link and the local regional development agency. But you can always guarantee that business support and red tape get businesspeople excitable at these type of events.
I’d like to redress the balance here a bit. There were three people on my table who had very positive stories to tell about Business Link. It was praised for sound advice and a real personal interest in the business. But these people didn’t speak up yesterday…
Enterprise agencies can work closely with Business Link in some regions, and I thought George Derbyshire’s (NFEA) comments on the service were balanced:
“Business Link is an easy target for criticism. We all know that the voice of criticism is always louder than the voice of praise. I think we are currently on the third or fourth Business Link model since the concept was first introduced, and this, combined with the lack of consistency that comes from having nine regional Business Links, rather than a true national service means that it is not easy to get across clearly what they can do – and what they can’t do. You can’t meet people’s expectations if the expectations are unrealistic, despite what I believe are the best efforts of the people involved.”
We don’t know who’s going to be in power come May, but one thing will never change: small businesses hate bureaucracy and are never satisfied with national business support programmes.
