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Street-Level Technocracy in UK Small Business Support: Business Links, Personal Business Advisers, and the Small Business Service

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  • Kevin Mole

    (Centre for Small and Medium Sized Enterprises, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick, Coventry CV4 7AL, England)

Abstract

The broad focus of this paper is the divergence of implemented policy from intended policy in UK small business support. The Small Business Service (SBS) is the United Kingdom's most recent attempt to provide coherent support for small business. With its structure of local franchisees and multiagency partnerships, the SBS is part of the United Kingdom's Modernising Government agenda, which aims to provide ‘joined-up’ and responsive public services. However, it is not always easy for policymakers to execute new plans in the form in which they were intended. Street-level bureaucracies develop where those who implement complex policies amend them to make them easier to apply in practice. This paper investigates the UK Business Links' Personal Business Adviser (PBA) service. The paper draws on data from a focus group often PBAs and subsequent survey of the 175 PBAs in England and Wales conducted in summer 1998. The experience and tacit knowledge of PBAs provides the expertise for a bespoke support service to small businesses. Business advisers have both technical expertise and closeness to delivery that confers the power to amend small business policy. This tacit knowledge confers powers akin to a ‘street-level technocracy’. Thus, policies that do not carry PBA support, such as targeting, are unlikely to be implemented effectively. A new approach to small business support has been formed from the difficulty in controlling PBAs through performance indicators, which appear to have distorted the intended policy, and the Modernising Government agenda. The new SBS devolves the operation, but not all control, of business advice from the national SBS to local Business Links. PBAs will play a major part in the network mode of governance of the new SBS franchisees.

Suggested Citation

  • Kevin Mole, 2002. "Street-Level Technocracy in UK Small Business Support: Business Links, Personal Business Advisers, and the Small Business Service," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 20(2), pages 179-194, April.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:envirc:v:20:y:2002:i:2:p:179-194
    DOI: 10.1068/c0112
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Arturo Vega & Mike Chiasson & David Brown, 2013. "Understanding the Causes of Informal and Formal Discretion in the Delivery of Enterprise Policies: A Multiple Case Study," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(1), pages 102-118, February.
    2. Norin Arshed & Colin Mason & Sara Carter, 2016. "Exploring the disconnect in policy implementation: A case of enterprise policy in England," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(8), pages 1582-1611, December.
    3. Koen PR Bartels, 2018. "Collaborative dynamics in street level work: Working in and with communities to improve relationships and reduce deprivation," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 36(7), pages 1319-1337, November.
    4. José García-Quevedo & Francisco Mas-Verdú, 2008. "Does only size matter in the use of knowledge intensive services?," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 31(2), pages 137-146, August.
    5. David Pickernell & Adrian Kay & Gary Packham & Christopher Miller, 2011. "Competing Agendas in Public Procurement: An Empirical Analysis of Opportunities and Limits in the UK for SMEs," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 29(4), pages 641-658, August.
    6. Capelleras, Joan-Lluis & Mole, Kevin F., 2012. "How ‘buzz’ reduces uncertainty for new firm founders," MPRA Paper 38170, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. David Pickernell & Christine Atkinson & Christopher Miller, 2015. "Guest Editorial," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 33(1), pages 4-8, February.
    8. Kevin F Mole & Mark Hart & Stephen Roper & David S Saal, 2011. "Broader or Deeper? Exploring the Most Effective Intervention Profile for Public Small Business Support," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 43(1), pages 87-105, January.
    9. Ainurul Rosli & Federica Rossi, 2014. "Explaining the gap between policy aspirations and implementation: The case of university knowledge transfer policy in the United Kingdom," Working Papers 20, Birkbeck Centre for Innovation Management Research, revised Dec 2014.
    10. Monder Ram & Kiran Trehan & John Rouse & Kassa Woldesenbet & Trevor Jones, 2012. "Ethnic Minority Business Support in the West Midlands: Challenges and Developments," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 30(3), pages 504-519, June.

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