Written question asked by Lord Wills (Labour) on Tuesday, 30 November 2004, in the House of Commons. It was due for an answer on Tuesday, 7 December 2004. It was answered by Nigel Griffiths (Labour) on Tuesday, 7 December 2004 on behalf of the Department of Trade and Industry.

Dept of Trade and Industry

Question: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, what measures she is taking to enable Business Links to continue to deliver all the services they currently deliver after 1st April 2005 when they will no longer be able to claim full recovery of VAT on their services.

Answer: Mr. Wills: To ask the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry what measures she is taking to enable Business Links to continue to deliver all the services they currently deliver after 1 April 2005 when they will no longer be able to claim full recovery of VAT on their services. [202052] Nigel Griffiths: The Small Business Service is supporting Business Link Operators and the Regional Development Agencies, which from April 2005 will be responsible for Business Link services in their region, as they work through the implications on VAT recovery on future BL service delivery. Under the Business Link transformation programme, Business Link branded activity will be moved increasingly toward the delivery of information, diagnostic and brokerage services. However, these services will only represent one aspect of the licensed operators overall activities and consequently the VAT implications will vary across different BL licensed organisations depending on the mix of their overall activities. BLOs have still to provide the information to enable an assessment of the impact of irrecoverable VAT on service delivery.

Secondary information