Mr. Darling gives helping hand to enterprise and innovation

Despite its apparently epoch-making levels of tediousness, Mr Darling’s first Budget was actually pretty good news for anybody thinking about starting up and running their own business. In addition to the usual plans to tax all the fun out of our lives, there were a number of new initiatives and pledges of cash designed to kick-start the UK’s nascent entrepreneurial culture and to encourage innovation and wealth creation.

Most significantly, with the global credit squeeze making it even more difficult than usual for small businesses to access funding, the Chancellor has extended the Small Firms Loan Guarantees scheme to allow companies that have been trading for more than five years to participate, even if they have changed ownership since inception. For new start-ups, the Government has pledged to increase funds available through the scheme by £60m in the coming year. Other measures include a new £30m enterprise capital fund to provide debt and equity finance to small, fast-growing firms as part of the Government’s attempts to tackle the lack of private sector provision in this area.

For women entrepreneurs, the Treasury will be investing in a £12.5m co-investment fund designed to back and provide support for women-owned businesses. In addition, the Government will be launching new mentoring programmes and Women’s Business Centre Pilots to provide tailored information, advice and business support.

Once small businesses are up and running, the Government wants to find ways of removing the barriers that currently prevent them from winning business from the public sector. Following in the footsteps of his predecessor and boss,whose penchant for Reviews is legendary, the Chancellor has launched two of his own to assess the practicality of a 30% target for government procurement from SMEs.

All these measures form part of the Government’s new campaign to foster an enterprise culture and address issues that they believe are restraining the UK’s economic growth. These are all outlined in a white paper called, “Enterprise: Unlocking the UK’s Talent” that was launched on 12th March to coincide with the Budget.