ENTERPRISE AND SOCIAL EXCLUSION
National Strategy for Neighbourhood Renewal: Policy Action Team 3
Published by H M Treasury November 1999
Introduction by the Financial Secretary, Stephen Timms MP
There is a vital role that enterprise can play in helping to renew our poorest and most marginal communities. It helps to create jobs and stimulate activity in communities where crime and unemployment are high. It helps meet the basic needs of local people, by providing vital services like shops. Perhaps most fundamental, it helps develop self-confidence and determination in local people and communities - the real drivers of regeneration in the long run.
This report has been prepared in response to the Social Exclusion Unit's publication, Bringing Britain Together. It sets out an ambitious agenda for change - one that requires the participation and partnership of many different players. Government has a key role, in providing high quality leadership and acting as a catalyst of change. This needs to be recognised at each of its different levels - national, regional and local. Voluntary organisations have a vital part to play, by helping to shape the debate, and acting as links with communities themselves. The private sector's role too is pivotal: banks are the main source of outside finance for new and growing businesses, and other large firms are key players in the local community. But in the end nothing will work without the active engagement of communities themselves - and this report recognises that.
The proposals call for a new period of innovation and experimentation, both in Government policy and in the way that banks, business support agencies and others approach these markets. We will be reflecting closely on the recommendations as we take forward work both on the enterprise front and on neighbourhood renewal. Most of the implementation in Whitehall falls to DTI, and Patricia Hewitt - Champion Minister for PAT 3 until the summer - will be responsible for taking these elements forward. I know that she is very enthusiastic about the task in her new role as Minister for Small Business.
One final point needs emphasis. This report was prepared to contribute to work on neighbourhood renewal. But it should also be seen as a contribution to the Government's goal of helping to build an enterprise society. The proposals here are one facet of that broader task - alongside encouraging high growth businesses, and removing barriers to the success of all business. I see no tension between promoting enterprise in our worst estates and in, say, our leading universities. Both are needed if we want to build a society in which enterprise thrives.
I am very grateful to the Policy Action Team - particularly the external members - for producing such a useful and timely report, and also to all those from the wider community who helped the Team in its work.
STEPHEN TIMMS
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