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Rt. Hon. Barbara Roche - Former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Small Firms (May 1997 - Dec 1998)Enhanced Business Links - A Vision for the 21st Century |
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Foreword by the The Rt Hon Margaret Beckett MPPresident of the Board of TradeA central aim of the Government's economic policy is to create a modern forward looking economy - an economy in which our businesses grow and our citizens prosper. My aim is to ensure that my Department works in partnership with businesses to support them in becoming as competitive as possible and in generating the wealth and job opportunities which we need to create together. It is particularly important that we help and support small and medium sized enterprises. In many ways they are likely to be the engines of our future growth and the source of our future prosperity. Over the next five years, I want to see an economy in which our small and medium sized businesses flourish. In the 21st century, I want to see our country developing the most successful and fastest growing SME sector in the world. I want to see an SME sector which is forward looking, internationally oriented, IT literate, and innovative. This means an SME sector where:
Business Links will provide crucial support to the SME sector. They will provide a small army of personal fitness trainers for businesses - helping you to get into shape to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities of the 21st century. I am determined that Business Links and my Department will provide you with the right sort of help - where you want it and when you want it. In this document Barbara Roche sets out 18 practical proposals for enhancing the Business Link service to provide that support. I am determined that under this Government Business Links will develop the quality of help and support which you told us that you want to see. Second best will not do. Only the best is good enough. I am determined that Business Links will be - Simply the Best. Enhanced Business Links - a Vision for the 21st Centuryby Barbara Roche MPParliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Small Firms, Trade & IndustryIn our election manifesto, the Government made a commitment to you, the men and women who own and run small and medium sized businesses in this country, that we would enhance the service available to you from Business Links to help you develop and grow your businesses. This document sets out how I now intend, as the Minister for Small Firms, to fulfil that commitment to you. I am addressing you directly about our plans because you are the people who will determine whether your businesses succeed and prosper and provide the new jobs and the wealth on which we all depend. The various agencies involved in Business Link partnerships - the Chambers of Commerce, Training and Enterprise Councils, Local Authorities, Enterprise Agencies and the Government - can all help. But in the end it is you and you alone who will determine whether or not your business thrives and whether our economy becomes more competitive and our country more prosperous. Why do we need to enhance the Business Link service? - what is wrong with it now? Before the General Election last May, I was able to travel around the country and talk directly to you. I was also able to talk to many of the bodies that represent your views. We had pledged to bring in the one -stop shop in our 1992 manifesto - one idea which the previous Government then took up. So I was pleased to learn from you that there was still widespread agreement with the principle of the one-stop shop approach. I was also told of many cases where the service now received from the Business Link partnership was dramatically better, in terms of its quality and relevance, than anything which had gone before. I learned of numerous cases where you felt that your Business Link service was adding real value to your business. It became clear to me that the Business Link service was, in the best areas, beginning to act in a radical and refreshing way as a real source of strength to support and help you in running your business. But I also learned that in a number of areas the service was not yet matching up to the rhetoric. In too many areas there was still confusion about where to go and who to talk to, in order to get the help you need. In too many areas there were still suspicions about the quality of the service on offer. So what we need to do is to build on the good examples - to make sure that the services of all Business Link partnerships are brought up to the standard of the best. Even in those areas where the service is already working well, we need to make sure that there is a continuous improvement in quality. Just as you cannot stand still if you are to compete successfully in your markets, so too Business Links must constantly focus on the quality of the service they offer to you, their customers, and on continuous service improvement, comparing themselves with the best in class. Based on what you told me, I became convinced that action was needed by the Government to address these weaknesses. In the past, too many Ministers coming into office have identified potential for improvement and been tempted to jump straight into a root and change of direction. That is not this government's way - and it is not my way. We reject the easy option of making cosmetic changes while leaving the real problems untouched. Instead, we believe in the more difficult but ultimately more effective approach of building on strengths which already exist in order to secure real and lasting improvements. I know from talking to so many small firms that this is what you want - not yet another change of course or another exercise in moving the furniture around, but real and effective action to make sure that what is there already works as it should do and delivers the quality of service to which you are entitled. For these reasons the Government made a commitment in its election manifesto earlier this year to enhance the Business Link service - to enhance it, not replace it. The present document builds on this. It sets out how we now intend in Government to deliver that manifesto commitment. It presents a "vision" for small businesses of what they can and should expect from the Business Link service. It sets out specific actions we will take to ensure that you get what you need and what you are entitled to expect. This is not the first "vision" statement for Business Links. It is however the first which is addressed primarily to small businesses themselves and not to those who provide the services. A good deal of the previous government's "vision" for Business Links was concerned with issues of organisation and structure. While these matters are important for the partner organisations involved in each Business Link, from the perspective of the businesses who are the customers or potential customers of Business Links they are completely irrelevant. What matters to you, the small firm which is looking for help and support in growing and improving your business, is the quality and coherence of the service you receive. My vision for an enhanced Business Link service is a vision which is about quality and about service, about continuous improvement and excellence, about focusing on your needs as a customer first, last, and always - a vision about what matters to you. As Margaret Beckett said shortly after the General Election, our three priorities for Business Links are quality, quality, and quality. So what do you, the owners and managers of small businesses, want from the Business Link service? Based on my discussions with you over an extended period, I believe we need urgent improvements in five key areas: (i) Making A Reality Of The One-Stop Shop We need to make sure that your Business Link is the place you need to contact to get all the help and advice you need. Business Links should not be seen as yet another, additional, local agency - adding further confusion to an already confused landscape. They are joint ventures between the existing local agencies, working in partnership in new ways to deliver their existing services as well as new ones. The way they do business differs from one place to the next. But that should not matter to you. What does matter is that it should now be much easier for you to get help and advice from one authoritative source and that the services all fit together. We also need to make sure that Business Links act as an effective signpost through the mass of regulatory requirements administered by the public sector. I want this to develop further so that in every case the Business Link partnership provides a one-stop shop which is a reality and not an empty slogan. (ii) Making Business Links More Businesslike While Business Links are not Government agencies, many of you feel that some at least act as if they are. You want Business Link partnerships which are more like you, the businesses they serve. You want them to be innovative, professional, highly focused, responsive to the needs of you their customers, and market driven. I firmly believe that all Business Link partnerships must develop a real entrepreneurial and commercial culture if they are to be credible in the eyes of their customers. Like you, they must deliver a service which their customers value and want to come back to. That is why they must charge for their services and bring in private sector services wherever possible. (iii) An Increased Commitment To Continuous Improvement The world doesn't stand still for anybody. You know that in your business you are constantly having to adapt and develop and to improve the quality of your product or service if you are to survive, let alone thrive. You have told me that you want Business Link partnerships which never rest on their laurels. You want them to be completely dedicated to continuous improvement in their standards of service, to bench-mark their performance against the best elsewhere and to take decisive action to correct any weaknesses revealed. You want them constantly to scan the horizon so that they develop services which meet the challenges of the future rather than dealing with the problems of the past. I agree with you. I want to ensure that all Business Link partnerships develop a culture which is dedicated to continuous improvement in the service they provide and develop the mechanisms required to support and sustain it. (iv) Improved Quality Assurance If you are to use the Business Link service with confidence, you need to know that you can rely on the quality of service regardless of whether your business is in Bognor or in Bootle. You want the Business Link brand to act as a hallmark of quality. Just as with precious metals, you want to know that you can rely on getting what you are paying for whenever you see the hallmark. While each Business Link is an independent organisation, owned by its local partners, all Business Links are part of a national network in which we have all invested in order to secure high nationally agreed standards. Any small or medium sized business which uses a Business Link service anywhere in the country is entitled to expect that the service it receives is accredited to meet high minimum standards which are rigorously enforced and constantly raised across the Business Link network. We cannot tolerate second best. I intend to strengthen further the existing accreditation arrangements and I will not hesitate to withdraw Government funding and the use of the Business Link brand from Business Link partnerships which fail to meet or sustain the required standards. (v) Providing a Service for All Small and Medium Sized Businesses Many of you - including the Federation of Small Businesses and the Forum of Private Business - told me that you believed the Business Link service was only for larger businesses and that Business Links were not interested in any business with fewer than 10 employees. I can promise you that any business, regardless of size, will be able to find services to meet its needs at its Business Link. Because Business Link is a partnership of existing organisations, the services of partners such as Enterprise Agencies should already be part of the Business Link service. As the glue which binds these partners together, the Business Link will be able to provide a simple system to help you move from one part of the service to another as you grow and as your needs change. However, just like any other business, Business Links need to segment the market and provide a differentiated service related to the differing needs of all their customers. They will need to continue to target their more specialised services on those growing companies where such resources can be used most effectively. They will also need to ensure that they have effective signposting arrangements so that their service adds value rather than duplicating and competing with what is already available in the market. But although their primary focus will continue to be on where they can make most difference - the growth firm - there should be something for everyone. My vision for Business Links over the next five years is, therefore, a vision of a network of partnerships which show real and sustained improvement in terms of:
I believe that if we can develop and enhance the Business Link network to meet this vision, we will have a network which really is customer driven, which shows real imagination in providing you with the help you can't get anywhere else, and which responds to the needs that you so clearly identified and articulated in my discussions with you. An Agenda for Action
People The quality of any service depends ultimately on the quality of its people. While much is already done to ensure that you deal with high quality people in Business Links, I believe that we now need to go further. We will discuss with the appropriate professional bodies the introduction of a comprehensive range of national standards of professional competence for all those delivering Business Link branded services, with the aim of introducing them within 6 months. I also propose to review in 12 months time whether, in the light of experience of this new system, we should make such standards mandatory. There are two groups of people whose performance and capability are central in ensuring that you receive the high quality Business Link service to which you are entitled. These are the Board members and the Chief Executive or General Manager of each Business Link. These people, above all others, are responsible for providing the leadership which will ensure that Business Link partnerships are the entrepreneurial and customer driven bodies which you want them to be. The members of Business Link boards come from a wide variety of backgrounds. They are almost always part-time, unpaid, non-executive directors who in Business Links operate in an environment which is quite different from that in which they normally operate, requiring a mixture of private sector and public sector skills. Where they are nominated by partners they have to balance the interests of the partners with their legal obligations, as Board Directors, to act in the best interests of their Business Link company. If they are to provide the leadership required to develop the customer driven Business Link service which you want, they need help in developing the necessary skills and knowledge to carry out the uniquely difficult task we have given them. I am therefore working with the Institute of Directors to develop a framework for Board development which we can introduce for all Business Link partnerships to use as quickly as possible in 1998. We will then expect all Business Links to provide, as a condition of accreditation, evidence to show that effective Board development procedures are in place. I also propose to strengthen the accreditation criteria for Business Links to ensure that the Accreditation Advisory Board satisfies itself, before recommending a Business Link partnership for accreditation, that the Executive Management responsible for the Business Link brand have the background and experience required to provide the necessary leadership within a Business Link partnership, and have credibility with the local business community. Culture If Business Link partnerships are to operate in the way which you want them to, we must make sure that they have an entrepreneurial culture - that they are market driven and customer led, not bureaucratic and driven by the availability of Government funding. We must also make sure that they have the same sort of continuous improvement culture which is a feature of the most successful companies in the private sector. A key test of whether a Business Link partnership is providing the services customers want is whether those customers are prepared to pay for the service. While continuing public funding may be necessary to help overcome the initial scepticism of customers regarding the value of a service, I do not believe that an organisation which continues to rely entirely on public funding can ever become the customer driven organisation which you want. That is why the Government will continue to set targets for Business Link partnerships in terms of the proportion of their income which is raised by charges to their customers. But charges are not the whole story. It is clear to me from my discussions with you that while many Business Links already have a culture which is about meeting customer needs and helping them improve their competitiveness, many still have a culture which is bureaucratic and predominantly about securing access to Government grants and subsidies. In order to make sure that Business Link partnerships really do develop an entrepreneurial culture, I propose to extend the remit of the Accreditation Advisory Board so that in future they only advise accreditation of Business Links which can clearly demonstrate that they have developed the required entrepreneurial culture. I will ask the Board to define and publish the criteria it will use in forming its judgement and this new test will apply to all applications for accreditation which are received from the beginning of 1998. If Business Link partnerships are to develop services which are driven by your needs rather than the needs of the agencies which provide the service, then I believe it is essential that the Boards of each Business Link partnership include members who are independent of the partners and act as the voice of the customer. I therefore propose that all Business Link partnerships applying for accreditation will in future need to satisfy the Accreditation Advisory Board that their Boards are representative of the SMEs in their areas and include members who are independent of the agencies providing the services. I recognise that it can take time to adjust the composition of Boards and find the right people. My intention is, therefore, that while the Accreditation Board should begin to require evidence regarding plans for structuring Boards in this way for all applications from the beginning of 1998, the requirement should not become absolute until the middle of next year. No world class company is ever satisfied with its performance. However well it does, it always wants to do even better. The best companies systematically review their performance and their processes and compare them with the "best" in class. They develop the systems and culture which allow them to methodically expose and correct comparative weaknesses in their performance. I believe that if Business Link partnerships are to develop the responsive services which you want they must develop a similar culture of continuous improvement. Such a culture has to come from within. It cannot be imposed from outside. But I believe that there is much which can be done to help Business Links develop a continuous improvement culture in a way which is consistent across the Business Link network. I therefore propose to take two steps during 1998 to work with Business Links to develop the toolkit they need to help them develop a continuous improvement culture:
Depending on the results of this work, I will consider in 12 months time how we can ensure the use of benchmarking and the Business Excellence Model across the Business Link network in 1999. Improving Services We need the right people and the right culture if we are to give you the services you need to help you grow. High quality services which are "fit for purpose" have to be the touchstone of an effective Business Link. Through their partners, the Business Link should be able to offer a range of services which fit the needs of customers at different stages of their development. Making the One-Stop Shop a reality will itself improve the quality of those services if the partnership removes duplication and concentrates on the services which are best for each segment of the market. Integrating services will also help move firms through from one level of service to another as and when they are ready. The intensive services of the Personal Business Advisers and the Specialist Counsellors for innovation and technology, design, exports and finance will continue to be targeted on the potential growth firms. That is where they can make most difference and where improvements in business performance can have the greatest impact on the UK's competitiveness. We will also need to make sure these local Business Link services fit in with other help and support which is available regionally, nationally or through European programmes. Business Link services have a vital role to play in the support we want to offer to high tech firms, to new and existing exporters and to those innovating in various ways to improve their business. Through their diagnosis of firms' capabilities and market opportunities, Business Links can help their customers to identify areas of weakness or inadequate skills and then work with them on a long term plan to address those deficiencies. Firms can also use Business Links to help tackle the challenges of success, fulfilling new orders without getting into over trading. All Business Links work to a common service guide agreed by all the National Partners to ensure that you, their small business customer, have access to help in how to plan your business, how to introduce effective financial control systems, how to raise finance - including making introductions to local Business Angels - how to market and so on. This support for you, the small business, can only be offered at the local level. And without it the national schemes of support which we offer - for example Overseas Trade Services - cannot be as successful in bringing new firms into exporting; the same is true for IT, and support for other high technology areas. As well as offering these basic services to their small firm customers, Business Links also need to assess through their partnerships the particular needs of growing firms in their locality. They have a role to play in regeneration. They will have an opportunity to develop this further with the creation of Regional Development Agencies whilst retaining the vital interface with business through my Department. Tackling the special needs of particular localities is something which Business Links will often need to do on a collaborative rather than an individual basis. The local ownership of Business Links is a source of great strength. But there are also issues of critical mass and economies of scale. We need to make sure, for example, that the quality of service to rural businesses is just as good and just as comprehensive as that available to firms in large cities. The development of services for firms in particular sectors or for particular regions of the country will often best be undertaken collaboratively. Equally, over time, we can expect that the quality of Business Link services more generally will be substantially improved by more effective collaboration between Business Links, to ensuring that each local Business Link can draw on the resources and expertise of the whole Business Link Network. I therefore propose to invite Business Link Partnerships, working with the newly established Regional Development Agencies, to put forward proposals for developing Centres of Expertise, with one Business Link partnership, for example, providing specialist services for customers from several Business Links. Part of the overall funding which DTI provides for Business Links will continue to be allocated to meet the costs of such proposals on a collaborative rather than a competitive basis. Where there are national priorities for such services, I will publish a prospectus setting out the government's priorities for Centres of Expertise. New technology will have a considerable influence on the type and quality of services which Business Links can offer to you. Since taking office I have already taken a number of steps to improve their capabilities in this area. From the beginning of October, a new network of regional video conferencing centres has been launched and at the end of October we will launch the Enterprise Zone Internet site promised in our Election Manifesto. This will help you, whether or not you are a customer of a Business Link, to get instant access to the business information you require from the Internet. The Enterprise Zone will also, I believe, make a major contribution to improving the information service available to you from your local Business Link. In addition, we announced at the end of September a new body - Action 2000 - to give greater impetus to our programme for helping companies to deal effectively with the problems of the Century Date Change. Action 2000 will provide a package of products and work closely with Business Links to help their clients deal with this problem. The pace of change and the development of information and communications technology is so rapid that we need to keep under constant scrutiny the potential improvements which it can bring. In order to make sure that we keep the Business Link service modern and up to date and that we capture these potential benefits early, I propose to commission each year a stocktake of what further practical steps can be taken to use information and communications technology to improve the quality of service and to identify priorities for action. The first such exercise will take place next Spring. Quality Assurance Business Links are not Government agencies. Developing the quality of their service is the primary responsibility of the Board of each Business Link partnership. The quality of the service on offer to you as their customer is ultimately in their hands. However, the Government does have a responsibility, and indeed a duty, to ensure on your behalf as its customers and as taxpayers that you can rely on the quality and effectiveness of the Business Link service right across the country. It is my responsibility as a Minister to ensure, through the contractual and accreditation arrangements, that effective minimum standards are applied across the network. One of my first actions in coming into office was to ask for the existing accreditation criteria to be strengthened by insisting that no Business Link could be accredited without a recent certificate of audit. The current accreditation criteria are not easy to meet. So far only 14 Business Links have become fully accredited. Every one of them has said that it has found the process extremely tough. What is more, a number of Business Links have had to engage in further development work following their first application for accreditation before they have been finally accredited. I am determined that this process will continue to be applied rigorously and that the standards required will be raised over time to ensure that they remain challenging. The agenda for action set out in this document contains a number of proposals for strengthening the criteria. I am asking the Accreditation Advisory Board to develop the detailed criteria required to give effect to these proposals and will announce detailed changes by the end of this calendar year. Business support services are not an end in themselves. They are provided and funded in order to help you to secure real improvements in the competitive performance of your business. We therefore need to monitor, systematically and carefully, whether they are achieving that objective and whether the taxpayers' investment is being repaid through the improvement you are making in your business performance. The Government has recently consulted on ways of measuring these improvements in performance by assessing the improvements in productivity, profitability and export sales. The responses have been very supportive of the proposed new approach. From the beginning of the 1998/99 financial year, therefore, all Business Links will monitor and report on the impact of their services on the productivity, profitability, and export performance of the companies they help. As the information builds up, this will allow you as customers to compare your Business Link's performance with Business Links in other areas, since I intend to publish league tables of comparative performance with the aim of helping to drive up performance across the network. I will consider in 12 months time the precise timing and detailed arrangements for the introduction of such league tables. In many ways, the most telling view of the quality of the Business Link service is your view as the customers of that service. You are best placed to assess whether good intentions are turned into practice in terms of the service you receive. In my view, you can only do this if you have a clear picture of what you are entitled to expect from your local Business Link service and know that you can complain if the service you receive falls short of what you are entitled to expect. The fact that the 89 Business Link partnership areas will all differ in some respects makes no difference. There is already an agreed set of mandatory services which all Business Links have to offer as a condition for the receipt of their Government funding. But this requirement is not yet set out in terms of a statement of services to which you are entitled as a customer. I believe that it should be. I am therefore asking the national partners to draw up and agree such a statement with the local Business Link partnerships. I will ensure that this customer service statement is published in January 1998. I also intend to consult bodies which represent small and medium sized firms on how this national customer service statement can best be brought to the attention of all businesses which are customers or potential customers. Finally, having published such an entitlement, I want to see effective arrangements to allow people to complain when the promised service is not being delivered in practice. I therefore propose to establish, within the existing budgets of the Department of Trade and Industry, a national "Business Link Complaints Hotline" to register complaints and to ensure that they are followed up effectively by the relevant Business Link. Implementation We need to implement this agenda for action as quickly as possible if we are to enhance the Business Link service so that it continues to meet your requirements as its customers. The Government is only one of the partners involved in delivering this agenda. The British Chambers of Commerce, the Local Government Association, the TEC National Council and the National Federation of Enterprise Agencies have, together with their local constituents, a crucial role in developing a Business Link service which meets the demanding vision which we have for it. I have consulted closely with these national bodies in developing these proposals and I will continue to work closely with them in securing the implementation of the agenda for action set out above. We are all, as national Business Link partners, members of the Business Link Implementation Strategy Group which has been formed specifically to oversee the development of the Business Link service. I shall be looking to that group to take responsibility for implementing the proposals in this document so that we provide you, the owners and managers of small businesses in this country, with the service which you have told me so clearly that you need. Like you, Business Links live in a rapidly changing environment. The action agenda will need to be constantly updated if Business Links are to remain relevant to your needs. We will also need to consider, as part of the Comprehensive Spending Reviews which we are conducting for all our policies, how the provision of Business Link services by Business Links and the private sector needs to evolve further over the medium to long term. I will therefore conduct a stocktake of the Business Link service next year, to take account of the results of the Comprehensive Spending Review, and annual stocktakes thereafter, and report the results to Parliament as part of the planned Annual Debate on small firms issues. Summary of Action Points This document sets out 18 separate action points for enhancing the Business Link service.
Conclusion The agenda for action set out above presents us all with a formidable challenge:
I am sure that, working together, we will all rise to meet these challenges. There are already mandatory requirements regarding the competitive recruitment of Personal Business Advisers and other specialist advisers by Business Links. They must also have effective arrangements in place for the development of their staff. All advisers must spend a minimum of 60 hours each year on their continuing professional development. Business Links must achieve the Investor in People standard before they can be accredited. Last year a census of all Personal Business Advisers revealed that nine out of ten had run their own business or managed a small business and a similar proportion had a degree or equivalent professional qualification. Business Link Board Members Business Link Boards are business-led. Typically the Chair is from a local business. The other Directors come from a wide range of local organisations, representing the Business Link customer and local business support agencies such as TECs, Chambers of Commerce, Local Authorities and Local Enterprise Agencies. Their key task is to make sure that the Business Link is a true joint venture committed to integrated customer focused business support services. Current Charging Targets By their fifth year of operations, Business Link partnerships are required to earn at least 25% of the income needed for their Business Link branded services from the businesses they assist. In earlier years, they will be expected to be making clear and defined progress towards this target. Developing an entrepreneurial culture and an effective charging policy does not mean unfair competition. A condition of DTI funding is that Business Links must not compete unfairly with the unsubsidised private sector. The business of a Business Link is to provide services - at a price small and medium sized enterprises can afford - that otherwise would not be available to them, not to duplicate services already available in the market place. Benchmarking In the ever more competitive business environment, benchmarking has become an established tool for improving performance. Benchmarking has been described as "the continuous process of measuring our products, services and practices against our competitors or those companies renowned as leaders." Benchmarking allows businesses to compare their performance internally in key areas such as finance, management and operations, against current and future target levels or with other businesses. It can help identify strengths and areas of weakness which require improvement. Increasingly, benchmarking is being used in public sector and business support organisations as a performance improvement technique. Business Excellence Model Developed in 1991 by leading European companies recognised for their excellence, the Business Excellence Model now forms the basis for the continuous improvement activities of thousands of businesses, large and small. The Model consists of nine elements split between "Enablers" (how we do things) and "Results" (what we target, measure and achieve). Each of these elements has a number of sub-criteria and areas to address. Self assessment is a comprehensive, systematic and regular review of an organisation's activities and results measured against the Model. This allows an organisation to identify clearly its strengths and those areas in which improvements can be made. The Business Link Network Company was established by the Business Link National Partners with the aim of becoming "the Business Link for Business Links". Its objectives are:
Enterprise Zone The Enterprise Zone will be the definitive Internet site for small businesses requiring business information. A great deal of valuable business related information is available on the Internet - including help on regulatory information, sources of finance, exporting, innovation and technology, and managing an infant business. The problem for busy managers of small companies is finding the right information quickly and efficiently which meets their needs. The Enterprise Zone is being designed to address this problem by providing users with the quickest route to the most appropriate, authoritative information. Regional Video Conferencing Regional Video Conferencing Centres (RVCCs) have been established in 10 Business Links around England. The aims of these centres are to provide enhanced and new Business Link services using video conferencing technology, to help raise awareness in the business community of the business benefits of video conferencing and to provide access to video conferencing systems for those businesses which have not yet invested in this technology. Business Link customers have already used the system to demonstrate their products and services to the other side of their county and, indeed, to the other side of the world. Video conferencing has also been used to conduct interviews with job candidates from the USA and New Zealand. Video conferencing systems in Business Links have already been used to remotely access manufacturing expertise at the Birmingham Centre for Manufacturing and for export advice from our embassies and consulates overseas, many of whom now have their own video conferencing systems. The RVCCs are located in Business Links Tyneside, Doncaster, Halton, St Helens, Leicestershire, Walsall, Hertfordshire, London SW, Kent and Devon & Cornwall. Current Accreditation Arrangements An innovative application of the BS EN ISO 9001:1994 quality management standard has been developed for Business Links. This goes beyond the usual tests for the quality and consistency of the processes employed to deliver services, to incorporate agreed standards of service within the BS EN ISO 9001:1994 framework. In order to become accredited, each Business Link is independently assessed as to whether it meets the BS EN ISO 9001:1994 standard, including the additional requirements. A Business Link will not be certified unless it does so. The Business Link Accreditation Advisory Board considers the outcomes of the independent assessments before advising Ministers on whether or not a Business Link should be accredited. After accreditation, Business Links are subject to regular 6-monthly surveillance visits by assessors, who check that they are still complying with the standard. Mandatory Service Requirement Although Business Links are essentially local partnerships, we are promoting the Business Link brand nationally. Therefore, there is a clear need to set down the minimum range of services from which business customers can expect high quality help, whichever Business Link they choose to contact. The Business Link services framework sets out these basic requirements. A number of mandatory services lie at the heart of every Business Link:
Accreditation Advisory Board The role of the Business Link Accreditation Advisory Board is to advise the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry on whether each Business Link meets the required standards of service and to ensure that only those outlets that meet demanding standards are accredited and permitted to be part of the Business Link network. The majority of members are business people running their own small or medium size businesses and have experience as board members of business support organisations. Board members are:
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Other speeches by Rt. Hon. Barbara Roche - Former Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Small Firms (May 1997 - Dec 1998) |
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