§ Mr. DewarTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many companies in Scotland applied for assistance under the Department of Trade and Industry's enterprise initiative between April 1988 and April 1989, and from April 1989 to date; and how many companies in Scotland were actually given assistance under the scheme during each of these periods.
§ Mr. Douglas HoggThe enterprise initiative is a comprehensive package of DTI services, including the consultancy initiatives, regional selective assistance (RSA), regional enterprise grants (REG), collaborative 115W research programmes, the small firms merit award for research and technology (SMART), the enterprise and education initiative, the managing into the '90s programme and the export initiative.
Applications for assistance are only made under project—based programmes. The information requested for Scotland under these programmes is as follows:
1 April 1988 to 31 March 1989 1 April 1989 to 31 March 1990 Consultancy initiatives:1 Applications 1,529 1,405 Projects approved 1,299 1,162 Regional selective assistance: Applications 255 313 Projects approved 221 242 Regional enterprise grants: Applications 482 673 Projects approved 226 432 Smart:2 Applications 74 196 Projects approved 9 20 1 The consultancy initiatives also provides assistance in the form of a business review which is provided to 98 per cent, of applicants. 2 SMART is a competition-based programme. Due to a change in the closing date for the 1990 competition, the 1989–90 statistics include the applications for the two years competitions, but only one year's winners, as the 1990 winners have yet to be announced.