Addressing the business support needs of ethnic minority firms in the United Kingdom

The authors examine the provision of enterprise support to ethnic minority businesses (EMBs) in five cities in the United Kingdom. The central focus is on the nature of support provision, including relationship with the commercial banks. It is well established that EMBs are underrepresented as clients of mainstream providers of enterprise support, such as Business Links in England, or Local Enterprise Companies in Scotland, and that participation and practice, even with specialist ethnic agencies, is highly variable. The authors discuss evidence from research undertaken through a programme of thirty-three face-to-face interviews with respondents from a cross-section of support agencies in five city locations in which EMBs are concentrated, namely, London, Leicester, Birmingham, Glasgow, and Edinburgh. They discuss evidence from the face-to-face interviews in the light of previous research findings, developing implications for future support policy for EMBs. They highlight good practice, identify gaps in provision, and suggest policies which can improve the access of EMBs to support and finance.