§ Mr. RosindellTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures she has taken to support small businesses in Romford. [76394]
§ Nigel GriffithsBusiness Link for London, working with local partners including Havering Council, is the main conduit for the Government's support to Romford's 7,000 small businesses. The Business Link for London has helped over 850 of these in a wide variety of ways.
The BL services for small and medium sized businesses is available by phone,through the web, or through one of our 200 business advisors. These 778W Business advisers work directly with clients to offer pragmatic advice in support of new and existing businesses. They help solve problems, ease the growing pains of success, or help take a business to the next level of its development.
Expert advice and support is provided in IT, Finance, Sales and Marketing, Human Resources, Design, International Trade, e-business. Supply Chain, Innovation,Franchising, Creative Industries, Manufacturing and more recently, Sustainable Business and Social Enterprise.
Within the London Borough of Havering, Romford's small businesses benefit from the Borough-wide distribution by the BLfL of regularly undated information oncurrent issues such as legislation changes, funded schemes and the availability of sector specific support.
ELSBC in conjunction with Havering Council and Natwest Bank has formed an alliance to run a programme of business support within the borough. This support consists of providing business counselling for people considering starting up new businesses in Havering, the provision of a 4-Day business training course and post-start counselling and mentoring. For the business counselling sessions, the counsellor will meet clients at two Havering locations—Romford and Harold Hill—with Harold Hill being subject to additional SRB funding.
§ Brian CotterTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what action she will take to ensure that small businesses are aware of their employees' rights; and if she will make a statement on recent related research by her Department. [76830]
§ Nigel GriffithsIn May 2002, the DTI published the report of its recent research into small businesses' awareness of employment rights, "Small Firms' Awareness of Employment Rights" in the Employment Relations Research Series (Report No. 14). This was placed in the Libraries of the House.
The research was conducted by the Small Business Research Centre at Kingston University. Overall this research showed that confidence levels of small employers about their knowledge of individual rights were low even though awareness of those rights was generally high.
The Department is acting to raise levels of awareness among small business. We have set up an Employment Information Advice and Guidance project in partnership with ACAS, and the Small Business Service. Starting with the changes introduced in the Employment Act 2002 the project will improve the ways that the information advice and guidance on employment rights is provided to employers and employees with a particular emphasis on the needs of small businesses. The work of the project benefits from the advice of a user group of representatives of employers and employees including representatives of the Small Business Council, the Federation of Small Business and the private business forum and representatives of the main advisory networks.
779WInformation on these changes and on existing rights is also available on the DTI website www.dti.gov.uk/er. Small firms and other employers can also register with businesslink.org to receive e-mail updates on changes to employment law.