§ Mr. SheermanTo ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what the percentage take up has been of each of her enterprise initiatives in the past three years.[71668]
§ Nigel GriffithsDTI promotes enterprise and assists enterprises in many ways. These are set out in "The Government's Expenditure Plans report for 2002–03 to 2003–04" (Cmnd 5416).
Business Link Operators (BLOs) assisted almost 245,000 separate businesses during 2001–02 this represents a penetration rate of almost 14 per cent. In addition, BLOs helped on average almost 21,000 pre-starts.
Since October 1999, around 8,500 pre and early start businesses have received support from BLOs to assist them to reach their high growth potential.
The Small Business Service supporting 96 Phoenix Development Fund projects in disadvantaged areas and amongst under-represented groups with a budget of £30 million. So far over 8,700 people have been assisted, enabling the start-up of over 400 new enterprises and creating or safeguarding more than 1,600 jobs.
SBS has supported over 800 (a record number) new Smart projects this year, worth over £34 million. The Scheme provides grants to help research and develop technologically innovative products and processes or buy external consultancy to improve their use and exploitation of technology. Smart now contributes half a billion pounds to the economy annually (source: Smart Evaluation published October 2001); and
Finally, The Small Firms Loan Guarantee Scheme, which offers guarantees on loans to small firms with viable business proposals that are unable to obtain conventional finance because they lack security to offer against a loan, passed the £3 billion lending mark earlier this year. Since the start of the Scheme in June 1981 over 81,000 loans have been guaranteed.
A quarterly Management Information Report is routinely copied to the Libraries of the House. This report includes the remit and usage of all SBS enterprise initiatives.