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In 2004, 'A Government Action Plan for Small Business' was published. It formalised the Government’s commitment to delivering a strategic framework for a government-wide approach to helping small businesses. That approach was built around a number of strategic themes, all designed to enhance the enterprise culture and environment and provide the conditions for more successful SMEs. The Action Plan set out the evidence base for government engagement in promoting enterprise, current and future actions within that engagement, and success measures for it.
A summary report of activity undertaken within the strategic themes, together with an assessment of the success measures assigned to those themes, is set out in the final report on the Action Plan below.
In July 2007, with work in pursuit of the Action Plan completed, the Government announced its intention to renew its strategy for enterprise and small and medium sized businesses.
To help inform this work, a series of workshops between Ministers and the SME business community began on 20 September 2007 with a meeting for entrepreneurs held at No 11 Downing Street hosted by the Chancellor, the Secretary of State for BERR and the Minister for Competitiveness. Discussion at that meeting was informed by a BERR evidence paper, ‘Enterprise and Growth: Discussion Paper’ which is available below.
The No 11 meeting was followed by workshops in each of the nine English regions, Scotland and Wales. In addition to an event held for representative bodies, additional events have been held for under-represented groups: women, young, black and ethnic minorities and social enterprises.
These provided an opportunity for Ministers to meet with around 600 small business owners and entrepreneurs to hear their ideas and views for what more Government can do to further enable thriving UK entrepreneurship and SME business growth.
In September 2007, a progress report was produced, highlighting the progress to date. This is also available below.
On 15 January 2008, the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State for BERR and the Minister for Competitiveness hosted a meeting for entrepreneurs at Number 10 Downing Street to discuss the emerging outputs from these events.
Taking the Work developing policy continued, with negotiations led by BERR across Whitehall and the Regions. The result is the new Enterprise Strategy published on Wednesday 12 March as part of the Budget 2008.
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