BOROUGH OF POOLE
REPORT TO COUNCILLOR L EVERETT
SMALL BUSINESS ENGAGEMENT ACCORD
25 FEBRUARY 2010
Recommendation
That the Council signs up to the Small Business Engagement Accord
Background
On 21 July 2009, Colin Jamieson, the Wessex Regional Director of the Federation of Small Businesses made a presentation to members on the Small Business Engagement Accord. The Accord is designed to encourage local authorities to engage with small businesses in their area and ensure that they take account of the needs of small businesses in the development of policies and programmes.
A heavy emphasis is placed upon open dialogue and consultation with the local business community, understanding that new procedures and practices should not be developed without the input of those who it will affect. Also it suggests that new policies and documentation should be produced in a manner that can be accessed by all. This is an approach that the Borough of Poole is undertaking in its new strategic development of local authority procurement and the upcoming consultation event. This has been designed to help business understand the rules and regulations of local authority procurement and how local business can help inform ongoing development work. (See Accord Appendix 1)
Rationale for signing the Accord
- Corporate Strategy – Dynamic economy objective
- MAA – Improvement of competiveness of sub regional economy and businesses within it of which Business Growth is one of the themes.
- Sustainable Community Strategy - Ensuring that the Council and partners have a coordinated approach to development including strengthening the local economy through economic development
- Enterprise & Economic Development – Poole Core Strategy.
Small businesses are important to the economy – 5313 out of the total of 6253 businesses in Poole employ 1 – 10 people.
Implications
As such the Borough of Poole is already operating in the spirit of the Accord. The clauses within the Accord (see Appendix 1) are identified below together with an indication of the work the Council is already doing to address these points.
- Councils should nominate representatives to be “business engagement champions” whose role will be to ensure that the views of the local business community are considered at every stage of any consultation exercise.
- Council “business engagement champions” should be tasked with creating effective links with all sections of the business community.
- Councils should identify business owners that can be “engagement champions” within their local business community.
- Councils should look to “front load” consultations in order to ensure that engagement with the business community happens at the earliest stages of any consultation exercise.
As already stated the Council is engaging with local businesses in the development of its strategic procurement processes. The emergence of the MAA and the Business Growth and Skills Themes also have a heavy emphasis on engaging with strategically significant business, in shaping its delivery. Significant work has already been undertaken and is underway in building relationships with local education establishments and employers, helping to shape further programmes and projects aimed at improving the delivery of education and training leading to sustainable, quality improvement.
- Local authorities must use recognised business organizations’ when consulting with small businesses.
- Councils must not regard consultation with just one business or business organisation as an adequate consultation.
The Council has strong strategic and operational links with the FSB, Dorset Business, Business Link, Local Traders Associations and Industrial Estate associations. These relationships are regularly used to engage with local business.
- Councils should employ a range of communication tools to promote better business engagement in consultations including for example utilizing consultation documents, newsletters, information on web sites, text messages, local media, or staff directly working with businesses.
The Council is presently developing its Business & Economy web pages and creating a corporate procurement web site and the development of a supplier contract management system is also underway. In addition, there is ongoing work to develop an ‘E News Letter’ for business, intended to inform the business community of developments and issues facing the local authority. The Council’s Economic Development team has also undertaken a Top 40 Employers visit programme, intended to open dialogue with Poole’s most significant employers and help business inform the local authority of issues it is facing and how they feel they can be resolved. An ongoing visit programme of manufacturing companies is also underway to aid in the knowledge base of local industry and help sector support. The Council published Business Brief has a circulation of over 2000, with over 700 named recipients. This quarterly magazine covers topical developments and news stories from the Local Authority and the business community in Poole.
The recommendations of the Accord are sound and run in line with present local authority practice and as such do not impose any great pressure on current resources.
However, signing the Accord would confer a requirement on service units to give consideration to the needs of small businesses in the discharge of their duties and where appropriate involve them in the development of new policies and programmes.
A clear programme of engagement at a corporate level would also be appropriate.
We are also working towards becoming signatories to the national Small Business Concordat in the next few months.
STEPHEN THORNELIZ WILKINSON
HEAD OF PLANNING AND REGENERATIONHEAD OF FINANCIAL SERVICES
Appendix 1
Small Business Engagement Accord