NIPC News

Jane Lambert The State of Small Business: Putting UK entrepreneurs on the map   , which was compiled by Nesta (the National Endowment for Science Technology and the Arts)  in collaboration with The Sage Group  Plc , is a data-led guide to the state of small and medium enterprises ("SME") in the UK.  It is accompanied by a website called "The State of Small Business"   which provides detailed information about how such businesses are performing and changing in each area. The authors hope that decision-makers will take advantage of the data to understand their local business environments and thereby assist them to drive growth and productivity locally and nationally. The authors' recommendations to central government and other national policy makers are to:- Know that the productivity puzzle must be solved at a local level, Devolve capacity, not just powers,  Hold local authorities and devolved areas to account, Simplify busin...

Jane Lambert The life sciences industry makes a lot of work for my branch of the legal services industry so when Professor Sir John Bell, the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford , delivered a report to the government on a strategy for life sciences, we were full of anticipation.  The life sciences industry was one of a handful of sectors that were identified as engines of growth in the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy's green paper,  Building our Industrial Strategy , earlier this year (see page 97) and Sir John's work was specifically welcomed in that consultation document (see pages 102 and 105). Sir John has now delivered his report,  Life Sciences Industrial Strategy – A report to the Government from the life sciences sector , at the Institute of Translational Medicine  of the University of Birmingham in the presence of Greg Clark MP, Secretary of State for Business and Jeremy Hunt MP, Secretary of State ...