evidence based policy on entrepreneurship in the uk ian kay, 5 december 2006 small business service...
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Evidence based policy on entrepreneurship in the UK
Ian Kay, 5 December 2006
Small Business Service (SBS), an agency of the DTI
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
UK / EnglandDTI sets some laws which apply to all 60
million people in UK; but within DTI, SBS only sets entrepreneurship policy for the 50 million in England
Entrepreneurship policy outside England is set by:
• Scottish Executive
• Welsh Assembly Government
• Department of Trade, Enterprise and Investment Northern Ireland
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
How will we measure success?Statisticians, researchers and economists
discussed with our customers who decide government policy:
• What does success look like?
• How will we know if we are achieving our goals?
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Where will we get the data from?Productivity of small businesses
Office for National Statistics Annual Business Inquiry
Gap between male and female self-employment
Office for National Statistics Labour Force Survey
Equity investments in early stage businesses
British Venture Capital Association
Businesses seeking external advice before start-up
?
Businesses citing regulation as an obstacle to success
?
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Design new data collectionAnnual Small Business Survey
• ~8,000 telephone interviews with owner/managers of businesses from 0 to 249 employees
• Stratified random sampling from Dun & Bradstreet, weighted to represent UK SMEs
• Can split by industry, employment, geography, turnover, age, if part-time, sex, ethnicity, disability, urban / rural, rich / poor district
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
An offer to share survey results
How many people do you currently employ?
How many did you employ 12 months ago?
How many do you expect to employ in 12 months’ time?
Does your business sell outside the UK?
Do you
aim to g
row
your b
usin
ess?
Why / w
hy n
ot?
Have
you t
ried t
o o
bta
in fi
nance
?
How
much
? W
hat
for?
Did
you h
ave a
diffi
cult
ies?
• Questionnaires and results at www.sbs.gov.uk/asbs• Over 200 questions
Is your business
a family-owned
business?
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Problems we still face:Longitudinal or cross-sectional?• Cross-sectional survey better at measuring
absolute value?
• Longitudinal survey better at measuring change?
• Longitudinal surveys can contaminate some measures
• If two surveys ask the same person “Have you used this website”, the second survey will show higher usage
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Problems we still face:Discontinuities• Contractor introduced ‘helpful’ wording to
focus the mind of the interviewee
• But this made previous results inconsistent
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Problems we still face:Overall assessmentWhich is better:
• Increasing the proportion of businesses seeking advice from 60% to 65%;
• or increasing the proportion of businesses that innovate from 30% to 35%?
Perhaps economic growth is the only thing that counts as success – but this takes time
EVIDENCE BASED POLICY ON ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE UK
Ian Kay
Assistant Statistician
DTI Small Business Service
+44 (0)114 279 4439