The prime minister has met with entrepreneurs and small business owners to discuss the development of the government’s new enterprise strategy.
Gordon Brown’s government has faced much criticism recently for failing to listen to the needs of small businesses, many of which feel their voice isn’t being heard.
In particular, business owner Sean Taggart recently resigned from its Small Business Forum, levying criticisms that the group did not meet frequently enough to give valuable input and was not independently chaired and therefore driven by the government’s agenda.
Taggart told Growing Business: ”T
he issue I have is that government has the Business Council for Britain representing big business, which has the highest level of access, yet [small firms] who drive the majority of companies and employment in this country have nothing.
“We have a forum that meets very infrequently at a junior ministerial level and for me you need something independent, properly resourced and with access at the highest level of government, in order to give the [small business] community a strong enough voice.”
“I think the small business employer representation organisations do a very good job, but in the end there’s nothing to beat hearing it from the horse’s mouth.”
Entrepreneurs such as Karen Mattison, founding member of ‘Women Like Us’, Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent Drinks and Peter Jones, founder of Phones International Group and Dragons’ Den panellist were invited to number 10 yesterday to discuss the government’s enterprise framework.
The PM said that, despite lagging behind the US in terms of its start-up rate, UK enterprise culture was changing and heading for exciting times ahead.
There was a "dynamism and confidence" about the future, he added.
The government’s new enterprise strategy is expected to be published in the spring.
© Crimson Business Ltd. 2008