Business Support in Northern Ireland

Business Support in Northern Ireland FSB About this Series In 2015, FSB in Northern Ireland commissioned a series of Policy Position Papers on iss...
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Business Support in Northern Ireland

FSB

About this Series

In 2015, FSB in Northern Ireland commissioned a series of Policy Position Papers on issues that are of significant concern to our members. The purpose of the papers is to set out those concerns, examine and explore each issue as it affects SMEs, to gather and analyse information and to make recommendations for improvement. We will use the papers, alongside the other activities in our research and policy development programme, to stimulate debate, raise awareness, and ultimately to advocate for our members as a campaigning and lobbying organisation which not only communicates concerns, but informs the development of practical solutions. These papers are aimed at policy-makers and decision-takers, and as such we will bring them to the attention of government departments, local councils and councillors, MLAs, MPs and MEPs. We welcome comments and debate, particularly from our members, our main stakeholders. As experts in business, we offer our members a wide range of vital business services, including advice, financial expertise, support and a powerful voice in government. Our sole aim is to help smaller businesses achieve their ambitions.

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Business Support in Northern Ireland

Foreword

FSB is the largest business organisation in Northern Ireland as well as the UK as a whole. Our aim is to help smaller businesses achieve their ambitions. In holding and delivering on this aim, FSB provides a huge range of benefits, advice and support for its members on an individual basis, whilst we also lobby decision-makers for the collective benefit of all SMEs. There is often frustration amongst business owners and politicians alike, as one group calls for action whilst the other feels it is delivering, yet there is clearly a mis-match between the demand and supply, or the expectation and the action. Small businesses are to be found in every single constituency, employing people, creating wealth, and contributing to society. Politicians hail their presence and their value yet, despite that recognition, entrepreneurs often feel great dissatisfaction about the difficulties caused for them by the structures and processes of government.

see if there are lessons to be learned in how others ensure the actions of government match its rhetoric. As an extension of this, many policy-makers act in good faith when setting up schemes and initiatives to help small businesses, but without a realistic prospect of them being effectively communicated. Indeed, there are over 200 sources of advice for small businesses in Northern Ireland – the problem is not the availability of advice and support, it is the challenge of navigating such a crowded profusion of resource, and the inefficiency that the current system fosters. This paper sets out to explore the realities behind the engagement between government and business, to consider how it might be improved, and to see how advice and support might be better structured and packaged to ensure that all of the initiatives and measures that have been developed are easily navigated and drawn upon.

FSB is effective at engaging with all of the political parties, and with the Departments and agencies, but government is often not good at keeping the importance of small business to the fore when it is engaging with itself. It is for this reason that we have looked elsewhere, such as to the Small Business Administration in The United States of America, to

Wilfred Mitchell OBE FSB Policy Chair, Northern Ireland

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Contents

Foreword 3 Contents 4 Introduction 5 Summary of Recommendations 6 Current small business strategy in Northern Ireland 8 International Approaches 9 United States of America 9 Great Britain 9 Republic of Ireland 10 Australia 10 Northern Ireland?

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A Fresh Approach to Business Support The Small Business Advocate

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Statutory Basis 11 Promoting smooth implementation of government initiatives 11 Coherent policy and ‘joined up government 11 Small Business Research 12 Culture of Enterprise 12 Skills 13 Recommendations 13

One Stop Shops - The Small Business Advice Centres

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The Profusion of Support 14 A Small Business Advice Centre Network 15 Advisors 16 Two-way Communication 16 Complementing Existing Provision 16 Recommendations 17

Conclusion 18 References 19 4

Business Support in Northern Ireland

Introduction

Northern Ireland is a small business economy. Research carried out for FSB by Ulster University’s Centre for SME Development shows that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) account for a remarkable 75 per cent of private sector turnover in Northern Ireland, and sustain more jobs than all large businesses and the public sector combined. As a proportion of the economy, this is significantly greater on both these measures than the equivalent in the UK as a whole, making the protection and promotion of SMEs in Northern Ireland even more important. The Executive put ‘the economy’ at the heart of its Programme for Government 2011-16 That commitment followed one of the most torrid economic periods in the history of Northern Ireland and after massive initial job losses, growth returned in both indigenous companies and through foreign direct investment. As a result, the Northern Ireland unemployment rate has fallen to below both the UK and European averages. In the next two to three years it is projected that around 22,000 new private sector jobs will be created here, of which 19,500 are expected to be with SMEs.1 Thus, it is critically important that any strategy to rebalance the economy puts small and medium businesses in Northern Ireland at its core. Policy makers speak warmly about SMEs; politicians understand the importance of them in their constituencies; and many measures have been developed to support the sector. Despite this wealth of understanding, benevolence and assistance, the

business ‘birth rate’ in Northern Ireland remains stubbornly lower than the rest of the UK and, of even greater concern, the rates of company registration and deregistration here are maintaining parity. In other words, the number of businesses is static, meaning that growth relies entirely on the same base number of businesses. This is in stark contrast with the rest of the UK, where business births exceed deaths by a factor of 50 per cent and economic growth is more buoyant. Despite the commitment to rebalancing the economy the government usually introduces legislation and regulation that applies to all business, irrespective of size or capacity to comply. Sometimes, as happened with the introduction of auto-enrolment pensions, a degree of flexibility is applied to enable smaller businesses to adapt over a longer time-frame, but this is rare. The small business with one or two employees finds itself in the same category as the large business or the public sector where full-time, in-house HR, legal teams and occupational health departments are available to help them navigate everything that government asks them to do and ensure compliance. If we are to enable local businesses to flourish, we must ensure that they are central to considerations within the Executive, and that the advice and support environment is effective and accessible. This Policy Paper sets out to examine the need for effective advocacy and advice, looks at solutions from other jurisdictions and offers practical proposals to address the deficiencies.

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Summary of Recommendations

Recommendation 1: The Executive should establish a Small Business Advocate for Northern Ireland, modelled on the COPNI, NICCY and the Equality Commission.

Recommendation 2: A statutory duty should be introduced, placing an obligation on all Northern Ireland public authorities to take account of the business impact of all of their functions.

Recommendation 3: The Executive should commit itself to ‘joined-up government’ as a key priority for economic growth, and include the Small Business Advocate in governance structures to monitor the ‘joined-up’ approach.

Recommendation 4: The Small Business Advocate should cooperate with Northern Ireland’s academic institutions and economists, including the commissioning of new research on SMEs in Northern Ireland, in order to better inform decision-makers.

Recommendation 5: The Small Business Advocate should promote a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland.

Recommendation 6: As part of creating a culture of enterprise, the Small Business Advocate should contribute to regular audits of the Northern Ireland skills market and make recommendations on how to increase the availability of skilled workers.

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Business Support in Northern Ireland

Recommendation 7: The Executive should form and fund a Small Business Advice Network, using existing models to provide advice and support to local small businesses. The Small Business Advocate should oversee the network.

Recommendation 8: Small Business Advice Centres should be: - Accessible – physical premises on high streets or in well known locations. - Clearly branded, recognisable and inviting - Staffed by trained and well-informed advisors who can filter and tailor information to varying small business needs. - Well-stocked with relevant information.

Recommendation 9: The Small Business Advice Centre Network would assist the Small Business Advocate to: - Monitor take-up of schemes and assess gaps in support provision - Facilitate co-ordination of provision from different agencies and sources - Promote a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship - Gather information about skills needs

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Current small business strategy in Northern Ireland The Independent Review of Economic Policy in Northern Ireland2 recommended, inter alia, that “a small business unit should be created within Invest NI, with responsibility for the development and coordination of relevant support to SMEs throughout NI”. It also recommended that “the concept of Invest NI ‘clients’ should be removed to allow Invest NI to work throughout the entire business base to raise awareness and provide support for businesses undertaking innovation, R&D and exports” While the second of Professor Barnett’s recommendations, quoted above, has been implemented, the first has not, with the result that the mechanisms and overarching governance structure for small business policy in Northern Ireland are not reaching optimal effectiveness. Policy intervention needs to properly target end users, and policymakers need to consider the difference in business size and characteristics within the private sector. The needs of micro-firms (with fewer than nine staff) are very different from the needs of medium sized firms (with between 50 and 249 employees) in relation to finance, advice and internal capability. To address these issues and to provide an anchor to policymaking and delivery of small business support, we recommend the creation of a Small Business Advocate for Northern Ireland. Such an institution, under the title of the Small Business Administration, has been in place in the US since the 1950s, with considerable success. The main goal of the Small Business Advocate for Northern Ireland (the Advocate) would be to raise enterprise, and therefore economic, performance in Northern Ireland. By defending the interests of small businesses at the highest levels of government, and with direct access to policy- and decision-makers, the Advocate would ensure that the voice of small enterprise doesn’t become lost among competing Government priorities.

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Key action areas would include rationalising the numerous small business initiatives in place, tackling the key challenges for start-ups and small business, promoting better inter-departmental collaboration to address gaps and overlaps in resource and funding streams, working to reduce red-tape and regulation, and a focus on innovation, procurement, access to finance, skills and entrepreneurial education. By examining the effects of all policy-making on the critical SME sector, the Advocate could deliver polices better aimed at small businesses.

Business Support in Northern Ireland

International Approaches Several countries and jurisdictions around the world have taken steps to give small business a voice at the heart of government. The following examples illustrate approaches to small business advocacy and policy in some other jurisdictions.

United States of America The Small Business Administration of the United States3 was founded in 1953 by the Small Business Act, with the core function of assisting small businesses across America and defending their interests. The Small Business Administration focuses on the following areas: 1. Ensuring businesses can access capital, including access to bank lending and investment capital. 2. Assisting small business to procure federal contracts, providing training and information and creating a network of support to aid this process. In 2012 the Small Business Administration helped small businesses secure 22.3 per cent of federal contracting funds across the US, just 0.7 per cent short of a target set in consultation with the current US administration. 3. Developing businesses, including issues such as encouraging start-ups within minority communities and helping more women to setup SMEs. The Small Business Administration provides a range of counselling and low cost training services to business owners. 4. Advocacy on behalf of small businesses. The Small Business Administration reviews legislation and makes overtures to policymakers on behalf of SMEs. It creates a network of contacts among law-makers, ensuring that SMEs have their voices heard.

needs and acting as an ombudsman. It upholds the interests of small business at the heart of the federal administration and at state level, and has been effective in reducing red tape, setting up a network of support centres and helping businesses secure funding to develop and grow.

Great Britain In 2009 Lord Sugar was appointed ‘Business Tsar’ by the then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, and a similar position was created by the ensuing coalition government with the appointment of Lord Young as the Small Business Ambassador, assisted by Karren Brady. These ‘Tsars’ were required to seek to minimise bureaucratic burdens which increase costs and difficulties for businesses; to identify ways for government departments to ensure that companies can access sufficient finance; to encourage people to start businesses; and to improve the way government listens to SMEs when it is designing policy. In May 2015, Anna Soubry was appointed Minister of State for Small Business, Industry and Enterprise within the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. The Minister is responsible for encouraging enterprise, competitiveness and economic growth, as well as protecting the interests of small businesses across a number of areas, such as access to finance and business banking. The appointment of a Minister for Small Business has placed a powerful advocate for SMEs at the heart of the Westminster administration. In September 2015, the UK Government introduced the Enterprise Bill to Parliament. The Bill will introduce a Small Business Commissioner, whose responsibilities centre on supply chain problems by helping small businesses resolve payment disputes quickly and cheaply, and protecting small businesses in their commercial relationships with large companies4. At the time of writing, the Bill is currently progressing through Parliament.

The US Small Business Administration has been instrumental in reducing the burdens on small businesses by both advocating small business

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Republic of Ireland In July 2014, Ged Nash was appointed as the Minister of State for Business and Employment, with responsibility, amongst other things, for small and medium businesses. Mr Nash is a Super Junior Minister in the Irish Government and attends the Cabinet, putting the voice for small businesses at the heart of the Irish Government.

Australia In Australia a Small Business Commissioner was appointed in 2013. The federal commissioner is assisted by a commissioner for each state5. This network of commissioners focuses on making representations for businesses on issues such as unfair practices; publishing reports on the impact of regulation on small businesses; monitoring emerging trends and market practices; and facilitating and encouraging the fair treatment of small businesses in commercial dealings.

Northern Ireland? The acts of appointing an Administrator, a Business Tsar, a Small Business Tsar, a Minister of State and a Small Business Commissioner are all affirmations of the importance of business to government policy. The creation of a Small Business Advocate for Northern Ireland would not only emphasise the importance of business and entrepreneurship to our society but ensure that the actions of the Executive and its Departments match its stated aspirations in respect of rebalancing the economy, deliver our economic goals and place the imperative of private sector growth at the heart of policy-making in Northern Ireland.

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Business Support in Northern Ireland

A Fresh Approach to Business Support - The Small Business Advocate Statutory Basis A Small Business Advocate would be most effective if it were to have statutory powers, enabling it to test legislation and policy against the interests of small business, and to promote the importance of SMEs to the private sector economy in NI. FSB proposes that the Advocate should carry the status and where appropriate be modelled on the Northern Ireland Commissioners for Older People, for Children and Young People, and the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland, and that a statutory duty should be introduced placing a legal obligation on all Northern Ireland public authorities to take account of the business impact of their functions. The Advocate should be given powers to audit and report upon the success of departments and public bodies in meeting this requirement and to highlight good practice as well as instances where it has not been met. For maximum effectiveness, the Advocate should have a duty to advise the Executives, Departments and agencies on policy remits which impact on small businesses. Acting as a champion for small businesses would be a significant and major role of the Advocate.

Promoting smooth implementation of government initiatives Executive departments currently utilise a diverse array of prospective partners whenever they launch an economic initiative. It is unsurprising, therefore, that duplication and complications arise and FSB members have expressed concerns about navigating this environment. The Advocate would improve communication channels to help small businesses to interact more closely with the Executive and Government Departments to develop and implement support initiatives more successfully and to reach the businesses which they are intended to help. For instance, the Advocate could not only improve

awareness of various forms of funding which the Executive provides in order to stimulate the SME sector, but play a pro-active role in designing them according to the needs of business. Establishing a Small Business Advocate would encourage a greater sense of partnership between SMEs and government, striving towards the same goals of increased prosperity and more jobs for Northern Ireland. Equipping a small business champion with these functions would be a step toward a more ‘joined up’ approach to economic policy within the Executive.

Coherent policy and ‘joined up’ government Joined-up government requires horizontal accountability and effective governance structures. The Advocate would help contribute to those structures and have an important role in assisting the Executive to deliver coherent and cooperative policy and strategy with the key priority of growing the private sector Mandatory coalition in Northern Ireland can occasionally result in separate Departments within the administration taking different approaches to the same issue; for example, competing interests regarding environmental protections at Lough Neagh are the responsibility of Ministers for DARD, DOE, DRD and DETI. The result can be unpredictable decision making, which damages the confidence of small businesses and adversely affects the economic environment in which job creation and investment should be encouraged. Where decisions like this impact several Departments, the Advocate could provide advice based on the Executive’s stated aim of growing the economy.

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Small Business Research

Skills

The Advocate would offer decision-makers up-to-date information on small businesses by commissioning new research and collating existing data on SMEs in Northern Ireland. It would cooperate closely with Northern Ireland’s academic institutions and economists, in order to provide the best information available to inform policy making.

Building this culture of enterprise will, over time, also help to assuage the very real concern amongst small businesses in Northern Ireland around the limited availability of skilled employees. Three out of every five small businesses feel they will not be able to find a candidate with the adequate skills and nearly 75 per cent of small businesses feel that college and university leavers are the least prepared for the workplace6.

Culture of Enterprise The Advocate would help the Executive deliver sustainable jobs and lasting prosperity by promoting a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland. Business registration and deregistration figures show that substantially fewer businesses are being born here while closures continue at a steady rate, resulting in a small business sector that is not growing in number. Although a number of schemes have been designed to encourage start-ups, delivered through Invest NI, Enterprise NI and local councils, there are clearly still challenges in persuading enough people here to become entrepreneurs. The Advocate will have an important role in building a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland. By creating such a post, the Executive would send out a strong signal that the future of our economy and society relies upon harnessing the private sector, particularly SMEs, to create jobs and export goods as they grow their businesses. The Advocate should also have a wider educational function, including outreach to geographical areas and to groups traditionally underrepresented in SME creation, working with existing agencies at local and regional level to encourage entrepreneurship and providing information about starting a business. The Advocate would have a leading role in promoting an emphasis on business in schools, universities and colleges.

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The Advocate could work with existing agencies and Small Business Advice Centres (see below) in order to provide information on starting a business and fostering a ‘can do’ attitude toward entrepreneurship. This would complement initiatives reaching out to young people, like Young Enterprise NI, in order to encourage them to consider setting up a business as a realistic and rewarding career option. As part of creating a culture of enterprise, the Advocate would also input to the Northern Ireland Skills Barometer. Through the proposed network of Small Business Advice Centres, the Advocate could help match small businesses to the types of training and skills which would help them to flourish and grow, and to realise their potential. Skills are key to a successful economy and the Advocate would play an important role in ensuring Northern Ireland has the skills it needs to compete effectively in a global market.

Business Support in Northern Ireland

Recommendation 1:

The Executive should establish a Small Business Advocate for Northern Ireland, modelled on the COPNI, NICCY, and the Equality Commission.

Recommendation 2:

A statutory duty should be introduced, placing a obligation on all Northern Ireland public authorities to take account of the business impact of all of their functions.

Recommendation 3:

The Executive should commit itself to ‘joined-up government’ as a key priority for economic growth, and include the Small Business Advocate in governance structures to monitor the ‘joined-up’ approach.

Recommendation 4:

The Small Business Advocate should cooperate with Northern Ireland’s academic institutions and economists, including the commissioning of new research on SMEs in Northern Ireland, in order to better inform decision-makers.

Recommendation 5:

The Small Business Advocate should promote a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship in Northern Ireland.

Recommendation 6:

As part of creating a culture of enterprise, the Small Business Advocate should contribute to regular audits of the Northern Ireland skills market and make recommendations on how to increase the availability of skilled workers.

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One Stop Shops A Small Business Advice Centre Network For every £1 spent on FDI, the equivalent of £1 should be spent on indigenous SME support

Improve business support agencies

The Profusion of Support The research conducted by the Ulster University Business School for FSB in 2015 asked small businesses to identify their main barriers and obstacles to doing business in Northern Ireland, as well as the areas and issues they believed the government should prioritise in order to help them to grow.7 When asked which barriers had impacted most on the success of their business in the past twelve months, the lack of suitable business support ranked highly, with 27 per cent of small businesses identifying this as a main obstacle. In fact, only 21 per cent of businesses identified a government or quasi–government source, and 14 per cent had no main source of business support.8 Perhaps most troubling is that nine per cent of respondents didn’t know where to go for support. This figure is higher than previous indications (e.g. four per cent in 2013).9

When asked the top ten barriers to doing business, small businesses specifically highlighted the provision of better support and investment for businesses rather than FDI, as well as other forms of support in the shape of reducing bureaucracy and regulation, reducing business rates, better access to affordable finance, and rebalancing procurement processes to better suit SMEs. The problem in Northern Ireland is not the lack of business support, but rather a profusion of it. An Audit of Enterprise Support by FGS McClure Watters identified a bewildering array of around 200 plus publicly funded organisations offering government-funded schemes, each offering up to ten forms of support each.10 This results in as many as 2,000 separate forms of support in total. Many SMEs either decline to seek support, despite its availability, or experience difficulties in finding the right form of support for their needs. Our research

The Business Support Space in Northern Ireland International Fund for Ireland

Local Authorities

DARD

LEADER Local Action Groups

Local Enterprise Agencies

Private Providers Universities / FE Colleges

Invest NI

DETI

Business Support

Inter Trade Ireland NITB

DEL

Neighbourhood Renewal Banks / Financial Institutions

Schools / Colleges / Universites

Cross Border Groups

Implementing Agents

Local Strategy Partnerships

Business Angels Venture Capitalists

SEUPB Peace Programmes

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European Programmes

DSD

Business Support in Northern Ireland

identified a particular issue around businesses with fewer than 10 employees. These micro-businesses are run solely by an owner or manager and, due to restricted time and resources, it is a particular challenge to identify and access business support. Small businesses are confused about the myriad support available and find it difficult to identify and access the right source of advice or help. They found that the advice they were offered tended to be too general and did not address the specific problems which they experienced during the day to day operation of their businesses. As a consequence, the uptake of small business support, offered by public sector funded organisations, is lower than it should be. Furthermore, at government level, difficulties in linking assistance to businesses have been illustrated by a number of high profile underspends. For example, Invest NI returned almost £40 million of its budget to the Department of Finance and Personnel over a period of months during late 2011 and early 2012.

A Small Business Advice Centre Network There is a clear demand among small businesses for better advice and information. FSB Northern Ireland envisages a Small Business Advice Centre Network which complements and enhances the effectiveness of the array of existing agencies currently providing support in Northern Ireland. Advice Centres would form an important entry point to the support environment for small businesses, in Northern Ireland which too often fail to access existing provision to acquire the help, information and advice they require to flourish. A Small Business Advice network would help them to navigate the maze of available support initiatives and providers. In a 2010 FSB survey, 74 per cent of small businesses in Northern Ireland said that they would find an advice centre useful.11

Percentage of SMEs who would find Advice Centres Useful 50 40 30 20 10 0 Very Useful

Quite Not Very Not at all Would Useful Useful Useful not use the Service

Don’t Know

We propose that Advice Centres would constitute a physical existence in premises which are accessible easily, offering a uniformly-branded and recognisable high street presence to help promote entrepreneurship at the core of Northern Ireland society. The network, based on similar structures such as Citizens Advice Bureau, would consist of branches across Northern Ireland, offering local hubs for SMEs to access support. Advice Centres would constitute a ‘first port of call’ for small businesses and entrepreneurs planning to set up new businesses, as well as being a source of signposting for established firms. They would give government and public bodies direct lines of communication to grassroots businesses, providing an distribution network for factsheets, details of support schemes, public procurement, recruitment advice, and information about apprenticeships, training and skills, sources of finance, information on environmental legislation, and many other forms of support, as well as providing face to face advice on a wide variety of issues which traditionally pose difficulties for small enterprises, including innovation, research and development, exporting, employment and workplace disputes.

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Support the small business allowing them to operate so they can expand and grow

Re-allocate spend to a greater weighting towards local SMEs

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Support for local business over foreign multinational support

Directly support local business like they do multi nationals

The services offered by an advice centre would largely be demand-led, with local advice centres responding to the particular issues raised by businesses in the area. The Centres would complement and signpost information already available, for example on the nibusinessinfo.co.uk website, thus providing faceto-face, real-time access to real people with whom business owners, in particular micro-business owners who currently struggle to find support, can identify and talk through the detail of the problems and needs of their specific business. As ‘shop fronts’ for an enterprise culture and accessible gateways to help for small business, they would tangibly contribute to growing the private sector, creating jobs, and transforming the perception of business across Northern Ireland. In the way that Google offers a clean, uncluttered point of entry to billions of pages of data, the branded Small Business Advice Centres should de-clutter the advice and support arena and make getting help a simple and frequent exercise.

Advisors Advice Centres should be staffed by trained advisers who are able to master the entire range of support services available and engage with businesses to understand what interventions could assist them to flourish. They could signpost the most appropriate support services suited to the challenges experienced by a specific business. This engagement may be ‘one to one’; or in workshops and open events, and through networking.

Two-way Communication As a benefit to government and its agencies, the Advice Centres would also be able to gather data on the demand and take-up of schemes and services, ensuring that provision can be better tailored to the needs of SMEs in Northern Ireland. This information would provide the Small Business Advocate with an important overview of the business support environment, allowing them to identify duplicate

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provision or gaps, and recommend ways to improve or enhance the delivery of services. A key factor in economic success is improving the skills of workers and matching them to the needs of business. The network could play a valuable role in this, additionally making a contribution the Northern Ireland Skills Barometer through the Small Business Advocate.

Complementing Existing Provision Currently, schemes such as the Regional Start Initiative provided by Invest NI and Enterprise NI offer support for start-ups through the eleven new ‘super-councils’. Assisting new businesses is an important function of any business support network and Advice Centres would work with the existing agencies and local government to signpost these important services. In proposing the introduction of Small Business Advice Centres, FSB’s emphasis is on channelling and complementing rather than replacing existing support provision. However, there is an identifiable need to reduce and improve the number of support products available, with considerable potential to simplify and streamline options and focus on quality, rather than quantity. Creating a new, more effective business support strategy will grow the private sector and realise the potential of Northern Ireland’s small business foundation.

Business Support in Northern Ireland

Recommendation 7:

The Executive should form and fund a Small Business Advice Network, using existing models, to provide advice and support to local small businesses. The Small Business Advocate should oversee the network.

Recommendation 8:

Small Business Advice Centres should be: • Accessible – physical premises on high streets or in well-known locations • Clearly branded, recognisable and inviting • Staffed by trained and well-informed advisors who can filter and tailor information to varying small business needs • Well-stocked with relevant information.

Recommendation 9:

The Small Business Advice Centre Network would assist the Small Business Advocate to: • Monitor take-up of schemes and assess gaps in support provision • Facilitate co-ordination of provision from different agencies and sources • Promote a culture of enterprise and entrepreneurship • Gather information about skills needs

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Conclusion

The introduction of both a Small Business Advocate and a Small Business Advice Centre network would revamp small business support in Northern Ireland, providing entrepreneurs with the environment to help their businesses thrive, unleashing their potential to drive growth and create jobs and wealth in Northern Ireland’s economy. Importantly, if implemented, the recommendations in this paper would ensure value for money from business support provision and magnify the effect of existing schemes through better uptake and, crucially, improving the performance of our local companies.

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Business Support in Northern Ireland

References

1

Ulster University SME Centre & the Federation of Small Businesses, (2015), The contribution of Small Businesses to Northern Ireland (Belfast: Ulster University Business School)

2

DETI and Invest NI, Independent Review of Economic Policy, 2009

3

U.S. Small Business Administration, available at: https://www.sba.gov

4

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, (2015), Enterprise Bill: A Small Business Commissioner, 26 July 2015

5

Australian Small Business Commissioner. http://www.asbc.gov.au/

6

FSB, FSB Voice of Small Business Index, Annual Review 2015

7

Ulster University SME Centre & the Federation of Small Businesses, (2015), The contribution of Small Businesses to Northern Ireland (Belfast: Ulster University Business School)

8

Ulster University SME Centre & the Federation of Small Businesses, (2015), The contribution of Small Businesses to Northern Ireland (Belfast: Ulster University Business School)

9

The FSB ‘Voice of Small Business Member Survey’, 2014

10

FGS McClure Watters & Invest NI, (2008), An Audit of Enterprise Support

11

FSB, (2010), FSB Annual Survey 2010

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Produced by FSB Northern Ireland Press and Parliamentary Office Cathedral Chambers 143 Royal Avenue Belfast BT1 1FH Telephone: 028 9032 6035 Email: [email protected] Website: http://www.fsb.org.uk/NI Printed February 2016

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