Business Link: never fit for purpose
By Jason Hesse, published 68 days ago in Leadership.
Business Link wasn't fit for purpose. Business Link needed to change, and Mark Prisk is the right man for the job.
The announcement that Business Link was going to be wound down, as we revealed exclusively yesterday, has stirred up a huge amount of emotion – more than any of us expected. But the truth is, Business Link was never fit for purpose – it was a lottery.
Most of the people who commented on our story accept that something needed to give. Business Link's return on investment was just not good enough. Sometimes you got a great consultant, but often you ended up more confused and lost than you were before getting in touch with Business Link. Its £190m annual budget was not an example of taxpayers' money being put to best use.
Do we think the £190m is too high a price to pay for Business Link's service? Yes, we do, as ultimately, Business Link is trying to offer a service that is already largely covered by the private sector – which also tends to do it much better.
We do accept that Business Link does offer good advice sometimes, and it does have some very good consultants. But overall, many businesses are left disappointed at the Business Link service, calling it a waste of money or time.
Recent research by the Central Office of Information revealed that each visit to the Business Link website (businesslink.gov.uk – run by HMRC) cost the taxpayer £2.15. Sure, it's much less than the uktradeinvest.gov.uk site – which costs an eye-watering £11.78 per visit – but it's still pretty dismal. Something had to change, and Mark Prisk is the right man to do the job.
Before entering politics, Mark Prisk was an entrepreneur like you. He knows what growing businesses worry about, he knows about the red tape, he knows how difficult it can be to work with government. He blogged for us after his visit to DIY Kyoto, again highlighting the need to simplify processes.
The writing has been on the wall for Business Link for a long time. It was inevitable that Business Link was going to be affected by public sector spending cuts. In my interview with Mark Prisk yesterday, he defended cutting Business Link's funding.
Mark Prisk said: “This department [BIS], like all departments, is looking at a 25 per cent cut or thereabouts. It may be more or it may be less – we'll have to wait and see. But that's the reality of it – and business support is part of that. ”
Although some of the £190m will be used to fund his new online business support offer, a large part of it won't be redeployed.
What Mark Prisk doesn't want is to try and do what the private sector does, he added. “We're going to do more with less – we can deliver more online and make better use of private providers. That's where we have to think intelligently about how we enable [it] to happen.”
There is a huge amount of free information in the public domain for potential entrepreneurs to tap into. Free networking groups, free websites, free how-to guides, and much more.
Sure, Business Link's complex website did hold a lot of valuable information – but this won't stop. Mark Prisk made it very clear that he wants to move publicly-funded business support online, and really, it can only be an improvement on Business Link's current sinuous website.
A significant overhaul of Business Link was needed, and it is now happening. Are we happy that people may lose their jobs as a result? Of course not. But these are difficult times and tough decisions need to be taken. We can't spend ourselves out of it, we have to cut out the waste.
I'm keen to hear more of your views on this. How useful did you find Business Link? Did you use it mostly online or face-to-face? What effect will this have on your business, if at all?
23 comments.
Sean Rydal 68 days ago.
It was nice of Mark to make this announcement through the press prior to informing the thousands of staff at Business Link. Maybe next time he has an announcement affecting thousands of employees he could consult the Business Link website for advice on how to communicate effectively.
Mike Morrison 68 days ago.
Business Link, when at its best did help many organizations to grow. We must remember its original purpose was to develop trust in business to value the contribution of external people and to encourage growth by learning from others. In recent years BL has moved away from established businesses towards startup and very small businesses as well as stopping giving advice (from experienced business people) and started sign posting. Sign posting adds little or no value to business.
Robert Ashton 68 days ago.
I'd hope that the better Business Link teams would see the opportunity to create their own social enterprises and continue to work to meet local demand for their expertise. As most business advice is delivered by fellow business owners, this introduction to commercial reality and personal accountability would sharpen their skills and add to their crediblity.
Robert Ashton 68 days ago.
I'd hope that the better Business Link teams would see the opportunity to create their own social enterprises and continue to work to meet local demand for their expertise. As most business advice is delivered by fellow business owners, this introduction to commercial reality and personal accountability would sharpen their skills and add to their crediblity.
Kevin Mole 68 days ago.
Business Links: is this proposal cutting waste or a wasteful cut? Using local authorities to support businesses through their agencies flies in the face of the available evidence. In their book Three Decades of Enterprise Culture researchers from Warwick University including Prof. David Storey showed that local authorities provided support which was poorly rated by new firm owners. This was consistent over three decades. An evaluation of over 3000 cases that control for bias showed that intensive assistance from Business Link created jobs.
Kevin Mole 68 days ago.
The evidence for the cost of the website needs to be assessed against the benefits. In research we found no benefits from the online use of BL in terms of actual jobs created but significant benfits from face-to-face interaction which paid off for government but that is being scrapped.
Nick Williams 68 days ago.
I have used the Business Link service and it has been really excellent, with timely face to face advice. When a business takes those first baby steps it needs reassurance. This all smacks of this governments desire to outsource their problem to anyone else and the inability not to recognise for a very small sum of £190M they have a team of people dedicated to ensuring new small businesses start and flourish. Hopefully Mr Prisk's work experiance week with some SME's will enlighten him to the fact you cannot replace humans with computers. I'm not holding my breath though.
Jill Cartlidge 67 days ago.
I'm sure that business link has served a purpose to as many as it has seemingly failed, however more concerning for me is the climate it's demise creates. Many start up businesses are vulnerable and whilst signposting is of little 'added value' to an enterprise I have had many clients state that they at least felt assured they were being referred to competent services. We can only cross our fingers that those small businesses needing constructive and postive input towards their growth and establishment find their way to reputable services.
Mick Harwood 67 days ago.
Speaking from personal experience having established and sold a business for a healthy return and now in the early stages of a second business, I cannot speak highly enough of the service that Business Link has always offered.Its always my first port of call for advice or a point in the right direction.Its excellant network always means that we can find assistance from he right people within the right budget.
Mick Harwood 67 days ago.
This move is really disappointing and short sighted. On the one hand the Government are reducing tax revenue coming in from business start-ups with the NIC holiday, but then reducing the liklihood of these new businesses surviving long enough to return those revenues in later years.
Ian McKendrick 67 days ago.
We think these changes will have a profound impact to local businesses and also to international trade coming into the area. We'll be featuring this in our show "The Business Hub" this Sunday. Please let us know how these changes will be affecting your business and we'll try to include your comments in the show: http://cot.ag/9rhGTm Thank you Ian
Rich 67 days ago.
can only guess that Mr Hesse is MR Prisks mouth piece? Most of the comments were pro-Business Link. Call centres have been tried and failed. The movement towards sign-posting was a BIS requirement under Labour govt. Truth is that this is about cutting costs as Eric Pickles revealed last night on newsnight.
Jason Hesse 67 days ago.
Hi Rich, thanks for your comment, but I'm certainly not Mark Prisk's mouth piece. When I wrote this piece yesterday, the mood of most comments was that change was needed. Like I say above, Business Link - like any other organisation - has both some great consultants and some bad apples. But that's not the point. My argument is that the public sector shouldn't be trying to compete against what the private sector already excels in. Finally, in my piece above, Mark Prisk is very open about having to make cuts in his department. There's no hidden agenda here!
William Poel 67 days ago.
Whilst acknowledging the perils of generalisation, and that your mileage will vary, my experience is that Business Links provided a fine array of non-entities (who were able to tick a few boxes and chant a wholly predictable mantra), opportunities to hitch a ride on a handy gravy train. Like much else about the stultifying bureaucracy that was built at part of Labour's 13 wasted years of effort to create a client state, it will not be missed. "Things can only get better."
William Poel 67 days ago.
Oh God I am such a cynic. The defence of BL here looks quite nicely organised. After all, who wouldn't want to keep their very own gravy train on the rails? Comments that numerous relevant services and networks in the private sector are available are perfectly accurate. Although BL did not murder its sector as effectively as the BBC continues to strangle the (quality) news media industry.
Rich 67 days ago.
I have yet to see Mr Prisk talk about cutting costs, as this would be too direct, far better to make unfounded accusations about BL to muddy the waters. On bureaucracy, clearly there is afailure to understand the audits etc that BL goes through - I suppose that they could just leave a suitcase full of cash in the town centre for SMEs to help themselves but I'm sure this would be wrong too...
Kevin Mole 66 days ago.
Mr Hesse is wrong to think bl competed with the private sector. Our evidence was that firms who took advice from bl were more likely to go to private consultants thereafter.
CHRIS 63 days ago.
Its interesting how the private sector has jumped on the 'Business Link Demise' bandwagon. A Google search in news items this morning returned 18 items from sites like this. No mainstream press or government sources are identified. There is a message for small businesses here. The private sector may think it can do things better but you will have to pay for it and then some and to be honest the plethora of private sector generated stories shows they are rubbing their hand with glee. Whatever you say about Business Link we are impartial, independent and value for money.
Geof Thornton 63 days ago.
As an advisor to sme's this Government initiative is incredibly out of touch with reality. SME's require face to face support very few in my experience will either pick up the phone or go on line to seek advice. They just haven't got the time. The vast majority will also not pay for advice. What these people need is practical simple advice and support that is free, with tools that help to sustain their businesses. Local authority!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Rob Clarke 61 days ago.
Business Link Dorset is not only effective but have a superb history of helping start-up enteprises. For years governments have ignored traditional businesses in favour of finance / IT, now the country is in need of a mixed economy, they take away the support! The proposed new system will, I fear, not be as effective as our tried and tested Dorset Business Link.
Mickey Mouse 59 days ago.
So Mr Prisk broke this news without consultation with all his co-workers at BIS, gave Real Business the exclusive, which he also has a Blog with for his PR stunt of "work experience". Boy these connections just get better for the Ex "shadow minister for Cornwall". Has he paid his expenses back yet? Funny what you find when you start to dig... If he really wants to find out about SME needs, see plumbers and shopkeepers, electricians, etc. The backbone of our economy. I think we can take what Mr Prisk says with a big pinch of salt.
Nuala Pinson 58 days ago.
Dealing with Business Link is like taking part in a lucky dip. You may pull out a star consultant or, spend the morning with someone who hasn't a clue about ones business and market sector. Star consultants are few and far between.
Rachel 13 days ago.
As a new start-up I have found the Business Link support superb, their courses very useful and networking events highly motivating. I would not have used the private sector if Business Link had not existed as I cannot afford to do that. They phone me out of the blue to check up on me, I have regular meetings with an advisor, all of which has taken a weight off my shoulders as starting out on your own is a very scary thing to do if you have never been down this road before.