FSB’s ‘An Entrepreneurial North’ report says the success of levelling-up rests on nurturing small business growth and unlocking diverse business creation.
- Infrastructure: Businesses call for a parity of infrastructure funding for the North with the South East as 59% of businesses feel the road network across the North is not fit for purpose, and 54% feel the public transport network is not adequate for their needs.
- Grants: Over 40% of small businesses report grant funding to be vital to business creation and growth
- Recruitment struggles: 70% of employers struggling to recruit report ‘finding the right candidate with the personal skills suitable for the business’ is their biggest challenge
- Apprentices: Over a third (34%) of small firms don’t feel they have the capacity to train an apprentice
- Broadband: Over two thirds (64%) of businesses in the north face challenges with broadband connectivity
- Green investment: 62% of Northern firms feel grant funding would support their Net Zero journey as FSB continues to call on Government to introduce a ‘Help To Green’ scheme.
The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has today released a new report – An Entrepreneurial North – outlining how supporting small businesses and enabling entrepreneurialism can reduce regional inequalities and create prosperity across the North of England.
Businesses in the North of England account for almost 20 per cent of the UK’s overall economy and contribute almost 17 per cent to annual private sector turnover. Small-to-medium enterprises (SMEs) and the self-employed make up a total of 99 per cent of this business base.
Growing and thriving businesses generate more income and profit, create jobs for local people and, in turn, create an ecosystem of suppliers and clients. A key question which stakeholders at all levels of Government and local leaders need to address is how small businesses can be better supported to achieve their full potential.
Previous areas of focus on growing the Northern economy have been centred on inward investment from global private sector organisations, and funding from central and local government. In a break from this, the report calls for strategies to boost economic growth by supporting the growth and development of small businesses founded and owned in the North, as this is organic, sustainable, creates more resilience and long-term employment prospects, and can drive innovation and productivity in the region. This can only be achieved through effective and meaningful interventions delivered to nurture an entrepreneurial culture.
Broadly speaking, FSB believes there are three main ways that the Northern economy can grow:
- Encouraging entrepreneurialism and diversifying start-ups;
- Supporting small business resilience and growth; and
- Capitalising on cultural and creative assets to grow the visitor economy.
Divided into four sections – Business Support, People and Skills, Connectivity and Infrastructure, Communities and Place – An Entrepreneurial North sets out FSB’s recommendations for achieving these aims, creating an entrepreneurial culture, building-in resilience and forging a sustainable and thriving economy.
FSB held a total of six virtual roundtables and, over a period of 11 weeks, surveyed businesses from a range of sectors across the North of England. The research found that:
- Targeted support to encourage entrepreneurialism in diverse communities including ethnic minorities, female entrepreneurs, and disabled entrepreneurs, would unlock the North’s potential – and could add more than £100bn to the UK economy;
- Small businesses find navigating the support landscape to be too complex, and struggle to identify the programmes of support available to them;
- Businesses feel it is essential to bridge the gap between enterprise and education in order to address future skills needs; and
- Investment in digital and, in particular, transport infrastructure is consistently identified as the top priority of Northern communities - 59% of businesses say the road network is not fit for purpose, and 54% that public transport is inadequate.
FSB’s recommendations to address the barriers to business success in the North include:
- Business support: Challenging and adapting the current business support model to create a truly inclusive and impactful programme of support, including through the delivery of comprehensive enterprise education for the next generation of business leaders and new entrepreneurs with a Help To Enterprise scheme;
- Employment: Utilising the strengths of small businesses to address unemployment and economic inactivity by providing targeted support to small employers, empowering them to engage with the ‘hard to reach’ communities, and supporting and encouraging self-employment opportunities within these communities;
- Transport investment: Improving the public transport network and creating an integrated and cost-efficient transport system; and
- Boosting tourism: Simplifying regulation and removing barriers to business success for those operating in the visitor economy to create vibrant towns and cities across the North, and reducing the burden of a cost of operating crisis on an incredibly fragile sector.
Mohammed Hussain/Paul Wareham, FSB Policy Representatives for the region, said:
“Businesses across the North of England already play a major role in creating jobs and generating sustainable economic growth, and by doing so they are helping to rebalance the UK economy. To achieve the ambitious aims set out by Government in its Levelling Up White Paper, Northern entrepreneurs will be the key to our success.
“This report brings together proposals from small business owners right across the North to form a clear and cohesive approach to supporting businesses, creating an entrepreneurial culture, and reinvigorating our communities. Our ambition is simple. We want to make the North of England the best place in the UK to start-up, scale-up, and run a small business.
“We want people across the UK, and indeed the world, to truly recognise the North of England as a powerhouse for small business enterprise and growth. It is only by nurturing and encouraging entrepreneurship and investing in Northern infrastructure that we believe the Government will be successful in increasing the growth rate of this economy.
“Our success will depend on commitment and a set of targeted actions to include all communities across Northern towns and cities: from the Humber to the Solway Firth, from Northumberland to Cheshire, every single member of our community must be brought forward with us on our journey to economic success. The focus must be on small businesses at each stage of their growth journey, including the self-employed, pre-start, starts-ups, businesses with moderate growth ambitions and scale-ups.
“Ultimately, we represent businesses in every corner of the North of England. We know their entrepreneurial spirit will, if unleashed, generate the jobs, growth, and productivity we need to rebalance the UK economy. It is only by helping small businesses to achieve their ambitions that we will see genuine economic success.”