Agenda and draft minutes

Received from Marc Dorfman- Assistant Director Planning Regeneration and Economy

The Chair will consider the admission of late items of urgent business. Late items will be considered under the agenda item they appear. New items will be dealt with at item xxx below.

None received.

A member with a personal interest in a matter who attends a meeting of the authority at which the matter is considered must disclose to that meeting the existance and nature of that interest at the commencement of that consideration, or when the consideration becomes apparent.

A member with a personal interest in a matter also has a prejudicial interest in that matter the interest is one which a member of the public with knowledge of the relevant facts would reasonably regard as so significant that it is likely to prejudice the member’ judgement of the public interest.

None received.

To consider the minutes of the meeting held on 11 December 2009.

The minutes of the meeting held on 11 December 2009 were agreed.

To receive a presentation from the Assistant Director Planning, Regeneration and Economy setting out proposals for efficiency savings and service development.

It was agreed that this report be deferred to the next meeting to enable the Assistant Director to attend and present it.

To hear from representatives of small local businesses on how well they have been supported by the Council.

The panel received a presentation from Embrace UK, an organisation funded by the Council and set up in 1994 as a grass root organisation to provide information, advice and guidance for disadvantaged groups including migrants and refugees. Their services included business advice, training and development. An outline of their organisational structure was noted. Embrace advised that there were around 8,500 businesses in Haringey, of which 90% employed 10 or less people. SME’s accounted for 29% of the total employment in the borough and in particular BME’s were considered to be disadvantaged.

Embrace were sceptical of the Council’s statements that enterprise grants were available thoughout the borough and that over 750 voluntary and community organisations were addressing community needs through enterprise activity. 

Embrace considered that the main needs of  businesses starting up  and existing small businesses from BME communities were training (planning management, bookkeeping and marketing) finance (gants and low interest finance)  and community based business advice, particularly where there could  be cultural and language difficulties. They stated that businesses were naturally suspicious of local authorities.

Details of Embrace’s achievements since October 2008 were outlined which included providing one to one support to businesses and residents, supporting newly established business, referring to Haringey Guarantee, organising workshops and events and helping to establish networks for the hard to reach business communities.  There was a need of BME small businesses for more community based business support in all categories of skills, financial support i.e soft loans, and more training and networking activities.

In terms of support given to small businesses from the Council they stated that the Business and Enterprise team were always very helpful and supportive, particularly in respect of advice, networking and organising and attending events. As part of their contractual arrangements Embrace attended workshops and events organised by the Council and pan London training. The Council also supported them with staff recruitment. With regard to support in finding premises the Council’s website was helpful and its application was simple. However there was some concern around the limited number of properties available, particularly retail and the market rent was too high for many start up businesses.

In respect of signposting to information the business link website was helpful and for employment the Haringey guarantee was a good scheme. Research and dealing with applications was an area where small businesses required further help. Businesses felt that there was too much formality and more assistance was needed around training, planning, management, bookkeeping and marketing.  The Authority’s officers’ should be bridging the gap and more resources were needed to help BME’s with language and cultural differences. Embrace also felt that more help was needed in accessing funding as they considered that much of the existing finance was out of range for many small businesses.  Council officers advised that through Embrace the Council had gained far greater access to many small BME’s.

Embrace would like to see more networking amongst small businesses, and more community advice funding. Also they wished to gain the Council’s support  ...  view the full minutes text for item 13.

To receive a presentation from GLE OneLondon outlining their Loan Funds and programmes they are currently offering across London.

The Panel received a presentation from GLE oneLondon in respect of the availability of loan funds for local authorities. GLE one London was a provider of business support and non bank finance to SME’s. They provided loans to London businesses that had difficulties in securing access to mainstream finance. The majority of the loans were for sums less than £50k and were for existing businesses  to prevent closure or redundancies caused by the current credit crunch, they were all based on the liability of the business. GLE oneLondon explained that their tailor made packages were ready to go, with fully established procedures and experienced lending teams. Details of the likely costs were outlined. The cost to the Council of running a £300,000 loan scheme would be less than £100,000, and such a loan would support around 25 businesses to maintain the local economy, to save or create new jobs. The offer from GLE was open to all London boroughs. Although the loans were unsecure, guarantees were required from Directors and occasionally debentures were sought. Sole traders were personally liable.

Members sought further statistical data on the number and types of loans that had been issued. It was noted that less than 15% of loans defaulted. GLE oneLondon agreed to provide further information on their recovery procedures.

It was accepted that there was a general shortage of start up capital for small businesses in London. 

RESOLVED:

1. That the report be noted
2. That GLE oneLondon be requested to provide further information on the number and types of loans issues and information on their recovery procedures.

To receive a presentation on a number of initiatives being delivered by Capital Enterprise members including:

• Empty Property Schemes
• Business Turnaround scheme
• New Business and self- employment start- up programmes

The Panel heard from Capital Enterprise on initiatives supported by them. Capital Enterprise offered to implement and manage pop up shop schemes for London Councils, Landlords and Town Centre Managers. A “pop-up” shop was a short term let of a property in a good or unusual location for a nominal rent to either a team of creative individuals who use the shop to display and sell their time limited offers or limited number of creative wares or to a pre-vetted new businesses to test and trail new innovative products/services or retail concepts in a suitable high street setting. It was noted that an intermediary such as the LYST was needed to run the schemes. A major issue that had been identified was that the rental price was likely to be very high. This was due to landlords wishing to keep the capital value as high as possible.

Another initiative was the Business Turnaround Service launched by Capital Enterprise as a service which offered a free of charge professionally qualified business turnaround advisor. Currently seven London Councils were funding this service in their boroughs. An investment of £25 k would support around 50 businesses. Members requested details of the literature provided by other boroughs on this scheme. The meeting noted that the LDA had reduced their funding to Haringey to only £50k, (a letter from Cllr Kober to the Mayor of London to raise Haringey’s concerns about the reduction) and the target for business support was now around job creation. An update on LDA funding support was requested. Members were informed that there appeared to be a running down of funding from the LDA and the number of business agencies had reduced from 3 to now only one (LBDC). The challenges to meet the gap were difficult.  The LBDC advised that the Council needed to give urgent consideration to the support to SME’s especially with the Government’s shift to encourage businesses to start up without the full support being in place.

RESOLVED:

1. That the report be noted.
2. That information be sought from those borough’s using the Business Turnaround service
3. That an update of LDA’s funding regime and implications for Haringey be provided.

To receive a report from North London Business and Economic Regeneration on the  Haringey City Growth programme, its evaluation and outputs.

Members sought information regarding the independent evaluation that had been carried out regarding the city growth project which ran from 2006-09. 

Members were concerned that the report did not reflect or deal with the outcomes or recommendations of the external evaluator, the LDA. Members found this to be unacceptable and asked that a revised report be submitted to the next meeting with at least a minimum of three pages highlighting the outcomes and comments from the external evaluator. They wished to ascertain the key objectives of the scheme, the main outputs on each sector and whether it had made a difference. Effiong Akpan from LBDC stated that businesses had not been properly engaged, and consequently the LDA had changed the scheme to be more business led in order to generate and sustain employment and create more job opportunities. The scheme was seen as flawed as it was an American scheme which did not lend itself to the style of UK businesses. One of the conclusions from the project was that greater funding was required to support businesses and groups across the borough.

A new initiative that has arisen was the finance summits held with local banks to help SME’s to gain finance.

RESOLVED:

That a revised report be prepared for the Panel to reflect an update on the discussions and comments from the LDA.

To consider any items admitted at 2 above.

It was agreed that the next meeting be held on Thursday 4 February 2010

Agenda Items

1. From  the Assistant Director for Planning, Regeneration and Economy on: -

Future strategic vision and proposals for the Economic and enterprise unit

The potential affects of the Spurs development on small businesses

2. From Property Services on:-

How they offer support particularly in the current economic climate and on enforcement issues (to amplify on the information provided)

3. From Procurement on:-

To expand and amplify the information provided to the Panel by e-mail.

4. From LBDC on:- how they support local businesses

5. From  LYST on  Pop Up shops