Helping businesses find their feet

The Conservatives’ rather belligerently-named Small Business Taskforce has come up with the idea of simplifying the small business support system by taking information about every business support service in the country, putting it on a website, and giving it an ‘eBay-like’ customer feedback system. It’s such a simple idea, it’s almost surprising it took so long to suggest it.

According to ex-Dragon Doug Richard, who chaired the Taskforce, there are currently a staggering 3,000 small business support schemes operated by the government. Total public expenditure on the various schemes is estimated to be a little over the £12bn mark, with £2.6bn going on regional business support schemes.

Given that: a) a third of the aforementioned £2.6bn goes on administration; b) lots of businesses go through an inordinate amount of drama just to find a suitable source of funding; and c) just one half of one percent of businesses who use government-run support schemes say they are satisfied with the service they received, Doug’s idea of a ‘customer-led’ approach to business funding – a ratings system, where businesses can provide comments and critiques of their chosen scheme – could turn out to be very effective.

Three years ago, Gordon Brown said he was going to cut the number of business support schemes from 3,000 to just 100 – a target which the report says cannot be seen as ‘anything other than arbitrary and knee-jerk, based on little or no evidence’.

If the proposals are accepted, it will be another example of private sector ideas leading the way for the public sector: those schemes with low ratings will wind to a close, and those with positive customer feedback will flourish.

It's difficult to avoid the tired cliché that the simplest ideas are the best, and this one is a glaring example: avoid the expense of creating a government review into which schemes are most effective and let businesses decide for themselves, and the issue will sort itself out.

Now, which Dragon shall we nominate to sort out the 10p tax fiasco? Answers on a postcard, please…