SMEs go back to school
A group of expert accountants is to be established to find ways of improving the understanding of finance and training requirements for small and medium sized companies.
Link: Budget 2003
The move comes as one a raft of measures to help SMEs identify their training needs and puts accountants at the heart of a campaign to support small businesses.
Headed by the Department of Trade’s Small Business Service, the project will also work with banks to identify the best support for SMEs.
The project emerges from a clear concern about the way SMEs access funding for their ventures.
The hope is to develop a US style Small Business Investment Company – which produced companies that have since gone on to become big names in business.
Sir David Cooksey, chairman of the Small Business Investment Task Force, said: ‘Household names such as Federal Express, Apple and AOL benefitted from initial investment by US small business investment companies and we are determined to replicate this success for small growing businesses in the UK.’
The Government and Accounting Working group will work specifically on helping accountants to provide SME clients with the right finance and training options.