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Small Business Service: Business Plan

My right honourable friend the Minister of State for Industry and the Regions (Margaret Hodge) has made the following Written Ministerial Statement. The Small Business Service is publishing its business plan for 2006-07 on Friday 23 June 2006. Copies of the plan have been deposited in the Libraries of both Houses. Electronic versions are available on the SBS website (sbs.gov.uk). The Small Business Service was established in April 2000 as a specialist centre of expertise within Government to champion the sector and to help small businesses to flourish. Its purpose is to make the UK an enterprise society that is the best place in the world to start and grow a business. The business plan sets out what the Small Business Service will deliver over the next 12 months. The agency will focus on making significant progress in four key areas: building an enterprise culture; opening up public procurement; simplification of business support; and better regulation. The plan identifies 10 key agency targets for 2006–07:"Expand the Enterprise Insight campaign, through: the development and running of a bigger and wider-reaching Enterprise Week in November 2006, and supporting the recently launched local enterprise campaigns; and working with Enterprise Insight to develop further local and sectoral enterprise campaigns.""Support the implementation and delivery of the Government's social enterprise strategy for growth in social enterprise.""Promote the new www.supply2.gov.uk web portal (available through www.businesslink.gov.uk) for businesses wanting to win work with government departments; achieve 10,000 registered suppliers, 1,000 registered buyers, 4,000 small business opportunities and 20,000 visitors per month by July 2006.""Publish updated No-Nonsense Guides to small business funding and to finance for high-growth funding, including a web-based self-assessment tool by March 2007.""Complete the establishment of pathfinder round of Enterprise Capital Funds by October 2006. Subject to a successful pathfinder round, we will announce arrangements for a second round of Enterprise Capital Funds by March 2007.""Deliver a programme of communication and events at national, regional and local level to disseminate learning and good practice from Phoenix Development Fund projects.""Lead work with business stakeholders, other government departments, the regional development agencies and other providers, to design and implement a solution for UK business support that targets real need and uses resources effectively and efficiently in areas where the market alone would not provide a solution.""Deliver further improvements to the www.businesslink.gov.uk web portal. This will include an international trade single window delivering an online cross-government information and guidance website by November 2006.""Conduct at least four reviews of the business experience of key areas of regulation focused on those areas viewed as most burdensome. Working with business and lead departments, we will identify and report on remedial actions. The first of these reviews, focused on employment law, is currently being piloted. Further areas for examination are likely to include health and safety, and environmental protection.""Identify opportunities for deepening and extending departmental simplification proposals presented to the Better Regulation Executive, and    work with departments to develop more business-friendly approaches to development of regulation, its implementation, administration and communication, by November 2006."