Tuesday, October 19, 2010

The Small Business Policy Writer - After the Spending Review

If you think the senior civil servants that drafted George Osborne's Spending Review speech had a hard time, please spare a thought for the senior civil servant, in BIS, tonight who is writing some exciting new policies for small business to show that the government 'really, really' cares about them.  All of the new policies will need to be put together within a total cost of a £fiver .

Now, you might think a fiver isn't a lot to allocate to small business support, including start ups, but in fact it's not far off what small businesses have received for many years from government. The budgeting is modelled on a Treasury variation of Pareto, it's called the Fat-cat-o rule. It states that  95% of all government skills and support funding, including bale out money, must go to 'substantial employers' (code for fat cats) and civil service infrastructure to quality assure it (code for jobs for the boys), and up to 5% or a fiver (whichever is less) can go to 4.3 million other businesses in the UK.

So think of it that, theoretically,  £5.3 billion cuts in BIS will affect 30,000 bigger businesses. But only a little bit because they've already taken the money and run. It will still leave the fiver, that there was before, to help start ups and small business owners to survive and thrive. 

It does mean that the civil servant who is drafted in to write the new small business support policies won't fit with your picture of a drab, grey, middle aged man on £150,000 a year awaiting his millionaire's pension, yacht and retirement mansion, often but not always in  that order. No, this civil servant will be a creative sort - a fantasist. Ever since the election, and the inexorable rise of the dream party coalition, this person will have been locked up in a room in Ivory Tower or the dungeons at 1 Victoria Street, as far away as possible from the influence of real small business owners, until they come up with the goods. Their only two companions will be the complete works of JK Rowling and an inspiring photograph of a new, yet ridiculously rich, small business owner - usually Tony Blair.

Now you may say that you've heard government announcements from time to time like '£60 million invested into small firms training' . Ah, but in fact by the time they've set up the infrastructure, including quality assurance, and then brought in the contractors to deliver the training there's usually only - good, you're catching on - a fiver - left for the small business owner.

We asked our expert civil servant small business policy writer watcher what they thought we might expect in terms of small business support policy following the Spending Review  'Three things' said our anonymous expert 'and maybe a couple of others as padding which will never see the light of day. I expect the new initiatives to support small businesses to be derived from what are known in the policy writing trade as ESB, OAHBS and TURDV.


'Let me explain,' our anonymous expert continued, ' ESB – the Entrepreneurial Smart Box’, OAHBS (pronounced Oh, Ah, Bees) – the Open All Hours Business School and the TURDV (the V is silent) – Training U-like Response Discount Vouchers’.

The Minister will be able to announce that he is ‘delighted that these three 'joined up' initiatives can be delivered with a light touch but represent a step change in additionality.These initiatives are truly original and bear no relationship to what has worked in helping start ups and growing businesses in the past.'

'In fact,' he will continue, 'the ESB, Entrepreneurial Smart Box, was ‘trail-blazed’ in five regions with twelve entrepreneurs per region locked away in a top hotel/leisure resort for eight weeks. There the entrepreneurs could mix business with leisure and bounce ideas off each other. Their conversations were taped and fed back to them as they slept. This ‘learning from peers’ process was felt to be very successful and eight weeks deemed to be just long enough for a business to prove that it could survive without the presence of the Owner Manager. Indeed, nearly two-thirds of the businesses did survive.

The OAHBS – Open All Hours Business School has proven very popular with small business owners who need to relax after business hours with a drink. Top business schools at Cranfield, Durham, Warwick, Scarborough and Manchester now mix the ‘gin’ of management and leadership development with the ‘tonic’ of entrepreneurial ribaldry and retribution. An additional feature is the opportunity to visit other Business schools by train. Indeed, one entrepreneur rated the experience of six hours of buffet trolley hospitality between Scarborough and York as ‘staggering’.

Finally, TURDV – Training U-like Response Discount Vouchers allows the small business owner  to invest in technology and to maximise their use of it. So, for example, a business owner purchasing any Microsoft Office package will be given £50 in vouchers for training support by Microsoft for any other Microsoft software they purchase next.   A similar voucher scheme is likely to be used by banks for micro loans to start ups. So, instead of money the prospective entrepreneur will be given vouchers which will be redeemable against business planning advice from a bank adviser. Much more useful'


A lot to look forward to then, for a fiver,  from small business policy after the Spending Review.

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