Department of Trade and Industry given thumbs down by businesses

The survey, released by think tank Tenon Forum, shows that small businesses are happy to give the Department for Trade and Industry (DTI) the thumbs down, with only 25 per cent believing that central government involvement was best for the development of UK business.

The results also reveal that it is smaller businesses that are most fed up with the department. As little as 22 per cent of firms with between five and nine employees want business support to be handled by central government. This is compared with 35 per cent of firms with between 400 and 500 staff.

Furthermore, figure also indicate that the recent announcement by the Conservative Party that it would cut 4,000 jobs at the DTI if it got to power, would be widely welcomed by the UK’s entrepreneurial community.

39 per cent of respondents said they would like support for industry to be organised through local government, perhaps reflecting their greater reliance on local markets for smaller firms. 25 per cent said that government should not be involved at all.

Geographically, support for local government intervention was strongest in the most devolved areas, with 45 per cent of firms in Scotland backing this option and 40 per cent in Wales and the South West.

Jolyon Stonehouse, chairman of Tenon Forum, said: “There is much that government can do to help enterprise, from supporting start-ups to assisting exports. The shame is that many small business feel so bound up in regulation that they would rather government wasn’t involved at all.”

The survey will not make good reading for Trade and Industry Minister Patricia Hewitt in the run-up to next year’s general election, in which the future of the DTI will be an issue of much contention between the parties.