Reaching the parts that other policies have failed to reach? Developing ethnic minority business support in the UK through increasing engagement with minority communities

One of the fundamental issues in the landscape of UK small business policy is the unevenness in the take-up of support and advice by businesses, particularly by Ethnic Minority Businesses who have tended to rely instead on self-help and informal sources of assistance. This paper seeks to contribute to the development of policy designed to reach the businesses that have traditionally been under-represented in the client base of mainstream business support agencies. The paper will present new evidence on a model of business support which builds upon the activities of existing, community-based organizations and utilizes them as a vehicle to reach minority groups of business owners