Improving access to finance for small and medium-sized enterprises : thirty-eighth report of session 2013-14 : report, together with formal minutes, oral and written evidence /
Great Britain.Parliament.House of Commons.Committee of Public Accounts.
Hodge, Margaret.
Stationery Office (Great Britain)
London : The Stationery Office,
2014.
BIS manages six main schemes that are intended to provide around £2.85 billion of financial support for SMEs between 2011-12 and 2014-15. In 2012-13, these schemes helped just over 5,900 firms.  In addition, HM Treasury and the Bank of England jointly oversee the Funding for Lending scheme, under which banks and other lenders have been provided with £17.6 billion at cheaper than market rates, with the intention that they will lend this on to businesses and households. The new British Business Bank, which will start operating in 2014, has £1 billion of capital at its disposal in addition to the resources of the existing BIS-led schemes, and is designed to better identify and fill gaps in the market for financing SMEs. But net lending by banks participating in the Funding for Lending scheme has declined by £2.3 billion since the scheme was launched, and the number and value of loans backed by the Enterprise Finance Guarantee fell each year between 2010 and 2013. The departments' schemes are managed as a series of ad hoc initiatives to address particular weaknesses in the market, rather than as a coherent programme. Government must use the establishment of the British Business Bank to start managing departmental schemes as a coherent programme, clearly setting out what it wants to achieve, and how each scheme and the programme as a whole will contribute towards the overall objective of making it easier for SMEs to access the finance they need.
HC 775.
"Session 2013-14."
"21 January 2014."
The NAO report on this subject published as HC 734, session 2013-14 (ISBN 9780102986976)
Full text accessible when logged into Webcat.
BIS manages six main schemes that are intended to provide around £2.85 billion of financial support for SMEs between 2011-12 and 2014-15. In 2012-13, these schemes helped just over 5,900 firms.  In addition, HM Treasury and the Bank of England jointly oversee the Funding for Lending scheme, under which banks and other lenders have been provided with £17.6 billion at cheaper than market rates, with the intention that they will lend this on to businesses and households. The new British Business Bank, which will start operating in 2014, has £1 billion of capital at its disposal in addition to the resources of the existing BIS-led schemes, and is designed to better identify and fill gaps in the market for financing SMEs. But net lending by banks participating in the Funding for Lending scheme has declined by £2.3 billion since the scheme was launched, and the number and value of loans backed by the Enterprise Finance Guarantee fell each year between 2010 and 2013. The departments' schemes are managed as a series of ad hoc initiatives to address particular weaknesses in the market, rather than as a coherent programme. Government must use the establishment of the British Business Bank to start managing departmental schemes as a coherent programme, clearly setting out what it wants to achieve, and how each scheme and the programme as a whole will contribute towards the overall objective of making it easier for SMEs to access the finance they need.