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Government Action Plan for Small Business

The Past

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 government action plan for small business (270KB)

The Present

Work in pursuit of the Action Plan has now been completed. 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.

Status report on the Government action plan for small business, July 2007 (186KB)

The Future – A New Enterprise Strategy

With the completion of the Action Plan, the time is now right to drive forward a fresh and renewed Government strategy for enterprise and small business. Enterprise is one of the drivers of productivity and a strong enterprise environment, capable of adjusting to the opportunities and challenges in a more globalised economy will be central to the new strategy.

The new strategy will aim to deliver the conditions for business success and further remove the barriers to the creation and growth of businesses across all regions. It will seek to draw out the creative capacity of individuals and organisations to generate fresh ideas and to encourage the development and capitalisation of those ideas. Past successes in generating new start-up businesses will be built upon, and the best possible support to growing small businesses will be at its heart.