HC Deb 02 March 1983 vol 38 cc155-6W
Mr. Hawksley

asked the Secretary of State for Industry what plans the Government have to publicise schemes of assistance available to small firms.

Mr. MacGregor

Evidence has shown that the many schemes available from Government to help small firms are still insufficiently known, not only among managers and owners of small firms, but also among bankers and accountants to whom the business man often turns for advice. Despite all the effort that has gone into marketing these schemes in recent years, research has confirmed a continuing need to increase knowledge of them among both business men and the professions. A working party under my chairmanship was accordingly set up last August. The working party including advisers from the private sector as well as a number of Ministerial colleagues.

We decided to mount a £2.5 million campaign, employing advertising on television and in the national press. The object is to promote the 86 schemes of assistance, introduced by successive Governments, which are available to small firms. These do not include the specific actions to improve the climate for the sector which help compose the list of 98 measures taken in the lifetime of this Parliament. The advertising agency Wight, Collins, Rutherford, Scott, a new entrepreneurial agency, and itself a small firm, was engaged to create the advertising to put the message across to small business managers and to bankers and accountants. The campaign will start on 18 March and will continue until June.

Associated with the main advertising will be a series about 100 regional seminars organised by Deloitte Haskins and Sells which are aimed at adding to the knowledge of bankers and accountants about these various schemes. An attractive guide to these schemes and the sources of advice will be available from 25 March.

This campaign has been welcomed by the banking and accountancy institutes as well as by the CBI, chambers of commerce and other organisations. We believe that it will prove an effective way of communicating knowledge about the many forms of help available to small firms, which we see as a vital part of the economy.