EEDA - East of England Development Agency

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Enterprise Road

One way to reduce the economic exclusion of individuals and communities in the region is to stimulate enterprise in these communities, thereby growing solutions from the grassroots. However, this is a significant challenge, and raises many questions.

EEDA therefore commissioned the action research consultancy The Ideas Mine to run a year-long programme – which came to be called Enterprise Road - to facilitate a conversation around the issues. The programme brought together practitioners, policymakers and funders in a dynamic action learning setting to develop a shared understanding of effective interventions and appropriate delivery models for enterprise support in economically deprived communities.

‘Expert seminars’ which included contributions from regional and national public sector commissioners, providers and policy-makers, helped to develop a shared ‘vision’ of what outcomes or impact should be prioritised for the region, and to consult on the form and content of enterprise coaches and business creation for under-represented groups in the region.

The key themes

Key themes which emerged included:

• lack of confidence needs to be tackled as part of enterprise interventions
• many third sector organisations and small businesses find public sector contracts inaccessible
• there is lack of alignment between regional policy and local delivery
• effective interventions need to be underpinned by clearer strategies at county level, better information sharing and good use of intermediary organisations
• delivery needs to be through a "local face" and one-to-one support
• participants strongly recognised the value of building relationships and sharing ideas and experiences
• quality and depth becomes more important than quantity, particularly in the current economic climate
• there is a need for third and public sector bodies to collaborate more effectively
• consortium/partnership approaches to service delivery can be successful, but take time and trust to build
• a consortium approach to bidding for public sector contracts, building partnerships between large providers working with smaller third sector organisations.

Next steps

EEDA will be running a pilot project to explore some of the key issues underpinning Enterprise Road. It will test out partnership-based delivery models to help individuals who would not normally access mainstream business start-up support to understand the opportunities and risks of self-employment and to guide them to the most appropriate service.
 
The project will fund two local pilots that deliver one-to-one coaching support as set out in the Solutions for Business framework, with a particular focus on helping those who are unemployed and economically inactive. 

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