Ministers have outlined plans to inject £350m into the small business economy to help firms train employees, despite calls for more direct action to support small business owners.

The facts:

Skills secretary John Denham today unveiled the £350m pot to fund training in areas such as business development, leadership and people management. But small businesses said the money would do little to alleviate the pressure caused by the global economic slowdown.

Denham said the plans would be delivered with the “minimum level of bureaucracy and delay” and that small businesses would have to commit to complimentary training that would not directly affect the bottom line, such as health and safety.

Yesterday, the Conservative Party outlined a headline-grabbing package of measures for small businesses, including a reduction of national insurance contributions and deferred VAT payments.

However, the government said the Tory plans would divert money from other tax breaks that benefited businesses already. Small business lobbies say they are still waiting for concrete measures from ministers to boost the small business economy.

They said:

"Small businesses are an important engine of our economy and we must make sure that we support them during tough economic times,” said Denham in a statement today.

"We are overhauling the training system to make sure that they can get help with training their staff with the very minimum of bureaucracy. We know that firms which invest in skills do better than those that don't, which is why we will be urging small businesses to take up this offer from government."

We say:

This measure, though welcome over the long term, will do precisely nothing to encourage small business growth when the economy is at its weakest. Small firms are focusing on maintaining sales and staying afloat, how many will want to commit staff to train?

The government needs to prove it understands the plight of Britain’s small businesses now, and must introduce measures to alleviate their top concerns. Skills are hugely important but training subsidies are useless in the current climate.

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By News Desk  on   Oct 21,2008

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Keywords

John Denham    training    skills    economy    downturn    small business   

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