Learning from the story of Business Link
April 18, 2012
What went wrong with Business Link? Elliot Forte looks back on its rise and fall and examines whether latest attempts by government to support businesses are any more likely to succeed
On 25 November 2011, the coalition government closed the Business Link Advisory Service. This event hardly registered a blip on the radar of the national, or even local, press. The closure was not unexpected. After all, the service had been under fairly sustained public attack by politicians, press and partners since the publication of the Conservative sponsored Richard Report in 2008 (the blueprint for the current laissez-faire policy and the new business support landscape).
I had just committed six months of life to researching and writing a history of Business Link and analysis of small business policy. I had also spent a fairly uncomfortable session interviewing Lord Heseltine, the founder of Business Link himself. So, to be honest, the fact no one else seemed to care took me by surprise. But then, the chancellor George Osborne himself had already issued his edict that ‘those who oppose these reforms are the forces of stagnation, that would commit our country to decline’ (not exactly inviting a balanced open debate).
I spent over 15 years working as an adviser at Business Link and would be the first to acknowledge the service was far from perfect. I would also be quick to recognise that Tony Blair’s obsession for measurement and league tables had created doubt regarding the official performance figures. But even if you believed the numbers had been cooked up (and I have never seen or found any factual evidence to suggest they were), the sheer scale of contact was difficult to dispute.
Business Link served millions of small businesses for a generation. It was the largest single engagement of the small business market in history. Even in the final year of operation, in the face of negative press and scaled back activity, the data suggested over 500,000 customers had asked for help. That figure is more than the combined membership of the Chambers of Commerce, the Federation of Small Businesses and the Confederation of British Industry.
Mike Chitty
Good piece.
However in spite of the stats quoted about customer satisfaction, many, perhaps most, people’s experiences of Business Link were less than satisfactory because too often advisers were little more than a sales force for the latest great economic development wheeze. If there was a workforce development budget to spend then that would be pushed. Need to get mentoring rates up? That would become the panacea of choice. They became increasingly delivery agents of the latest minister’s bright ideas. And, unless you were in the right sector, with the right postcode at the right time with the right aspiration (or a credible pretence to them) you would also get referred to the increasingly puny ‘universal start-up’ offer.
For several years there was a serious attempt at capturing learning from the BL network. The Business Link University aimed to capture and share best practice and pioneered the use of study visits, extranets and other fresh approaches to learning. However when the service was regionalised and managed by the RDAs they decided that they no longer required BLU.
But the fatal flaw for me was that Business Link put itself at the heart of the relationship with the small business. Instead of encouraging them to turn to peers for support and advice it became ‘ring our call centres’, ‘visit our website’ or, if you qualify for anything more than the universal start up offer, perhaps even get to ‘speak to an adviser’.
Interesting to note that the ‘parallel market’ for business support has now been destroyed and Mr Richard has just completed a marathon tour promoting his own School for Start Ups. Only those who can afford to pay can now access ‘expert’ business support.
Suzy
Good piece Elliot. I agree it is a shame BLOs have gone and also agree that changing them would have gone a long way in delivering SMEs the required support we saw on a day-to-day basis.
I disagree with Mike (above): there was nothing wrong with BLOs putting themselves at the heart of the relationship – indeed the advisors who did this were the most productive and valued of all. By any measure, being valued by your clients can only be a good thing.
Colin Weatherspoon
I mostly agree with Mike, but would qualify this by observing that Business Link being regionalised ended up with a supply-driven rather than demand-led service that resulted in the call centre/national website approach. National Business Link policymakers were at fault not the local coalface provision that was scrapped.
The other problem with Business Link over the years was the loss of identity of local enterprise agencies, many of whom also went under or struggled when they refused to operate their services under the Business Link banner.
In a way the scrapping of Business Link will slowly bring back some equilibrium in the business support market – by this I mean that supply will slowly but surely meet local and demographic demand. However I also suspect that within 3-5 yrs we will see a return to a nationallly operating business advice service under another name, but hopefully coordinated independently rather than nationally from Whitehall.
A thought-provoking piece Elliot.
Sean Stacey
With the demise of Business Link the local dimension of advice for small business has gone. The government has abrogated its responsibility for small business to the internet. Business Link was a valuable resource for small business. It is a great shame that politicians / policymakers failed to understand the important role Business Link provided and chose to play politics. I fail to see how scrapping the service entirely will help solve the problems that did exist. Business needs local help from a human being not a corporate website like Government Gateway. Fine if you want to tax your car but who can I talk to now? Nobody, that’s who.
Michael Bowerman
A piece that awakened my thoughts again. Working as a manufacturing director for Navico in Margate from 1990 to 2004 I spent considerable time supporting Business Link and its predecessors by letting them use my facility as a hub to demonstrate best practice, for free. I watched as I saw it change from a proactive facilitator for small business to a call centre directing people to expensive consultants who knew a lot about theory but had nothing to demonstrate active real best practice as I had been doing. I feel there is a role to replace the concept of Business Link and there are a lot of us with extensive manufacturing best practical practice whose expertise is being left to wither. We want to provide mentoring, training and advice to SMEs at an affordable level to help businesses make that step change. I’m currently working at Cambridge University but am more than happy to help anyone with their manufacturing queries. I used to provide such a service through the Kent Technology Transfer Centre by the way.