Government under fire over small business support

09/01/08 14:30

Several of the government’s key enterprise advisers have applauded Sean Taggart’s resignation from the Small Business Forum and his questioning of its true value.

Businessman Taggart, who runs the Kent-based Albatross Travel Group, tendered his resignation from the forum, created by the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (DBERR), earlier this week, because he felt that small firms did not really have a voice in Whitehall.

Taggart said that the forum had become ‘merely a tick box for an SME engagement agenda’ with no real sway on policy or significant purpose.

Business enterprise and support standards body SFEDI has defended Taggart’s view that small businesses’ needs just aren’t being taken on board by the government.

Tony Robinson, founder of SFEDI and a member of the DBERR’s Ethnic Minority Business Task Force, said that the government’s pre-occupation with meeting ‘engagement targets’ led to prescribed solutions to support small firms that rarely solve any problems.

He added: “The SFEDI board of business owners shares Mr Taggart’s frustration.

“We give our recommendations in good faith based on what prospective and existing small business owners want.

“Yet when policy is turned into programmes, we end up with a couple of hundred thousand management-led organisations becoming awash with billions of pounds of government training and support budget, while 4.3 million self-employed and small business owner-led enterprises receive, comparatively, peanuts and higher costs for meeting regulation. It’s a form of discrimination.”