The Government have released their green paper for building the UK’s Industrial Strategy.

The Government aim is to build an industrial strategy that will deliver a high-skilled, competitive economy that benefits people throughout the UK.

The green paper lays out its plans for developing a modern industrial strategy. They want to build on the UK’s strengths to enable all parts of the country to succeed: helping to deliver a high-skilled, competitive economy that benefits people throughout the UK.

Part of the 10 point strategy aims to develop a mechanism for supporting businesses to start and grow. The Government proposes to continue to work in partnership with Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs), Growth Hubs and the private sector to help businesses start, grow and scale up across the country. The Growth Hub network has been successful in supporting businesses to grow and create jobs since their inception.

There is a commitment to drive business growth and productivity by:

•  improving access to finance for businesses looking to grow;
•  backing institutions that can catalyse private sector equity investment – particularly in places where this may be more of a problem;
•  improving other support for scale-ups and entrepreneurs by building up networks, supporting the business-led Productivity Council, and using government data in a smarter way;
• ensuring the uptake of new technology and digital processes which support growth;
• considering whether any measures need to be taken to promote a more long-term approach to funding.

The Minister for Small Business Margot James MP will take on a new role of Scale-Up Champion, overseeing a task force to support high growth scale-up businesses across the UK and to build peer-to-peer business networks to improve productivity, working with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Growth Hubs, the ScaleUp Institute and other partners.

To understand better where there are barriers to the growth of long-term investment, the Government has launched a new Patient Capital Review led by the Treasury. The review will publish a consultation document in the Spring and make its final recommendations ahead of the Autumn Budget 2017.

You can download the full Industrial Strategy document here.building-our-industrial-strategy-green-paper

The green paper is a consultation document and you can give your opinions on the industrial strategy by taking part in the survey here.