Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what assessment he has made of the effect on productivity of local council business support programmes.

Government has supported and invested in the creation of a network of 38 Growth Hubs (one in each Local Enterprise Partnership area), providing businesses across England with tailored advice and support. Growth Hubs simplify the business support landscape by bringing together all of the organisations involved in the provision of business support (including those delivered by local councils) and provide a local ‘single point of contact.’ Whilst Growth Hubs aim to improve awareness, coordination and take-up of local and national business support, it is local and combined authorities who are responsible for evaluating these programmes and reporting on outcomes to funders. However, the Honourable Member might like to note that we are funding the What Works Centre for Local Economic Growth and the Enterprise Research Centre to improve the quality of local evaluations and to investigate impacts of business support at a national level. Of the 23 high quality evaluations reviewed so far, 17 found positive programme impacts on at least one business outcome