§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many businesses with more than(a) one employee and (b) 10 employees used the Business Link Service in each region in (i) the most recent available year and (ii) 1997–98. [123535]
§ Ms HewittAs part of the Management Information requirement, Business Links provide SBS with total usage data which is broken down to usage by number of employees.
The data requirement is to count all businesses using Business Link services for non-trivial activity. The table shows that activity for periods 1997–98 and 1999–2000. A business which receives advice twice within a quarter is only counted once, but a business which receives assistance in two separate quarters will be counted in each quarter. It is not possible, because of the risk of double counting, to give precise total usage of businesses being assisted each year.
§ Mr. Alan JohnsonThere are currently 22 centres of expertise within the Business Links Partnerships funded specifically for that purpose. The Business Links Partnerships and the 22 centres of expertise are set out in the following table. A number of these projects are not sector specific and are designed to support all businesses.
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Centres of expertise Government office Business Links Name of project Sector GO-E BL Bedfordshire Green Link Environment BL Hertfordshire Benchmarking for the SME Benchmarking GO-EM BL Leicestershire East Midlands Business Angels All BL Southern Derbyshire Exploitation of Major Investment Opportunities All BL Lincolnshire Foodnet Food GO-L BL London North West Ethnic Minority Business Ethnic Minority BL London North CE Mark Conformance — GO-NE BL Newcastle-upon-Tyne Energy Efficiency, Environmental Efficiency and Waste Management Environment BL Northumberland Export Services Export BL County Durham Business Improvement Micro Benchmarking Benchmarking GO-NW BL Chester and Ellesmere Port Business and Intelligence Service All GO-SE BL Hampshire Improving SME Access to DERA and CLRC Expertise Defence BL Kent Knowledge Management for SME's All GO-SW BL West Centre of Expertise for Aerospace/Defence Defence/Aerospace BL Swindon Automotive Centre of Expertise Automative BL West "Print Link" GO-WM Staffordshire TEC Ceramics Industry Ceramics Wolverhampton Chamber and Business Link West Midlands Overseas Trade Services Export BL Sandwell Centre for Management Excellence All GO-YH Barnsley and Doncaster TEC Management Development and Entrepreneurship All Rotherham Chamber and TEC Technology Transfer Technology Humberside TEC Centre of Expertise for Food Food
§ Mrs. Curtis-ThomasTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry how many businesses in each region have received expert advice on the use of information and communications technologies from Local Support Centres associated with Business Links. [123539]
§ Ms HewittAs part of the Management Information requirement, Business Links provide SBS with usage data for the Information Society Initiative Centres (formally known as Local Support Centres).
Businesses using Information Society Initiative Centres (1999–2000) Q1 April–June Q2 July–September Q3 October–December Q4 January–March Average England total 3,126 4,969 4,141 5,587 4,456 East 46 105 136 246 133 East Midlands 594 467 544 471 519 London 577 937 579 557 663 North West 639 755 617 1,015 757 North East 118 144 209 62 133 South East 303 554 384 1,111 588 South West 145 337 358 449 322 West Midlands 516 1,126 901 536 770 Yorkshire and Humberside 188 544 413 1,140 571