ABSTRACT
The late 1990s and into the 2000s saw the New Labour government broaden the objectives for enterprise policy, encouraging a new push towards equality of opportunity for enterprise, attempting to boost access to self-employment in deprived areas and amongst excluded groups. This chapter discusses what were, at this time, the three key elements of the enterprise policy agenda (regulation, advice and finance) and the degree to which the Small Business Service achieved its aim of bringing coherence to this policy agenda (a more ‘joined-up’ approach).
The 2008 financial crisis renewed emphasis on enterprise policymaking as the government sought to support troubled firms and stimulate economic recovery. In the second half of the chapter, we outline briefly how the familiar tools of enterprise policy that had been developed by this time were deployed in the aftermath of the financial crisis by governments including all three of the main, UK-wide political parties.
