There is a renewed focus to grow the economy at a faster rate. Achieving this will require many changes to be made, but returning productivity growth to historic trends will be essential. Within this puzzle, attention will need to be paid to small businesses in particular – which evidence suggests have dragged on overall productivity in recent years.
In Supporting SMEs Successfully, a new report published by the APPG for Entrepreneurship, we assess some of the current government support programmes for SMEs to boost their productivity. Our central finding is that while existing interventions are well intentioned, and in many cases working well for the businesses using them, more could still be done to ensure they are as effective as possible.