Sometime in the next two months a General Election will be called, which will take place against the background of an economic situation which most of us would find unprecedented. We are entering a period when crucial decisions will be made, and the area of enterprise support is one which will come under close scrutiny.
The NFEA Board has taken the view that the voice of enterprise needs to be heard in this debate, and has decided to make our contribution by creating the NFEA Enterprise Manifesto
We’ve now published and distributed the document and hopefully you’ve had a chance to read it. All the feedback we’ve received so far has been positive, and we thank members for offering their support.
For anyone who hasn’t yet read the manifesto, it can be viewed here. We’d welcome any comments below.
Update- Thanks to members for giving us your feedback on the manifesto. Click on the links below to read blogs on the publication from various enterprise sector professionals and commentators:
This is exactly what we need - we fully support your Manifesto.
George – just wanted to say, I think this is a great Manifesto – we’ll be featuring it on Enterprise Nation next week.
Congratulations on the NFEA Enterprise Manifesto. It reads well and to the point. Let’s hope the politicians take note.
It is great that the NFEA has published its Enterprise Manifesto, representing the wealth of knowledge that exists among practitioners working year round to support entrepreneurs. I particularly like the fact that it reflects on the importance of face-to-face advice and examines the role of digital exclusion in this context.
At Enterprise UK we are hosting an online space where individuals can submit and rate a range of enterprise policy ideas. The proposals coming from NFEA’s manifesto are already on there, (thank you George!)
The reason we are developing the collaborative Manifesto is to ensure that the voice of entrepreneurs and the ideas being offered by different organisations are heard by policy-makers to help improve the environment for businesses. The strongest and most popular ideas from the project will be presented to political and business leaders as ‘The Enterprise Manifesto: practical ideas for an entrepreneurial Britain’ at the end of April. The Director magazine ran a piece about it this month which you can read here http://www.director.co.uk/manifesto/index.html.
So, do have a look and have your say! You might want to build on the ideas from the NFEAs manifesto, or you might have a solution of your own which you want to put forward. Do you agree, for example, with Peter Jones that every school in the UK should have an ‘entrepreneur in residence’? Do you agree with the FSB who say we should focus resources on advice brokerage and mentoring with a greater number of competent advisors with experience of running successful businesses as owners and managers?
Whatever your views the floor is yours so join in online http://www.enterpriseuk.org/enterprisemanifesto or email policy@enterpriseuk.org. The deadline for submissions is 14th April, so don’t miss your chance to get involved.
George - with local elections in London - we have taken local action endorsed the manifesto and have e-mailed a copy to each and every incumbent councillor asking for their comment.
In addition we will be e-mailing and posting a copy of the manifesto to every known trading business on our extensive data base - ensuring that for once the business voter considers which party best represents their interest.
As a post election follow up to both the local and national elections we will also be holding a “meet the business voter” event inviting MP’s and local councillors to attend.
None of this would have been possible without the NFEA manifesto acting as a catalyst. My thanks