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Business Link

Answer

The regional development agencies who manage the Business Link regional service in England have reported the following levels of business assisted (i.e. businesses receiving at least two hours of tangible support), for each of the financial years since responsibility for delivering the service was devolved to them. This information has enabled BIS to assess the market penetration quoted as follows:

Financial year	Number of businesses assisted	Number of businesses in England	Estimated market penetration¹ (%)
2004/05	491,349	n/a	n/a
2005/06	554,513	n/a	n/a
2006/07	610,334	n/a	n/a
2007/08	590,079	n/a	n/a
2008/09	733,722	n/a	n/a
2009/10	756,908	3,839,835	19.7
2010/11	584,197	3,883,875	15.0
¹ Market penetration is calculated by dividing the number of businesses assisted by the number of businesses in England at the start of each year.

In addition, the national Business Link website provider has since 2006 has produced estimates of market penetration achieved through the web based on regular telephone surveys of 6,000 businesses by an independent market research agency. These are as follows:

Financial year	Estimated market penetration¹ (%)
2005/06	6
2006/07	11
2007/08	11
2008/09	12.5
2009/10	14
2010/11	20
¹ Market penetration, was defined by the national Business Link website provider as 'owner-managers' of existing businesses between 2005 and 2010, and in 2011 this definition was extended to include; other individuals within a business and pre-starts or self-employed.

Secondary information

Type

Written question

Reference

61107; 530 c718-9W

Session

2010-12

Subjects

Business links

Contains statistics

Yes

Link

View this Written question on www.publications.parliament.uk