The Small Business Service will be restructured following complaints it is ineffective. Two-thirds of small companies do not believe they are getting the support they need from the Department of Trade and Industry agency, according to a survey published last week by the British Chambers of Commerce.

The majority of the 500 firms involved in the survey, said the SBS was failing on six of the seven targets of its small business plan. The BCC’s director general, David Frost, told Radio 4’s Today programme that improvements are needed. “I want to see a streamlined and focused department that shows it really understands the issues that my members face competing in a globalised world,” he said.

The survey followed a National Audit Office report in May which said the agency lacked measures to gauge its effectiveness and was seen as not having enough influence in Whitehall. In response, trade and industry secretary, Alistair Darling agreed the agency needed streamlining and made simpler and easier to access. Much of the SBS’s £150m budget to support small businesses will be transferred to regional development agencies, he promised. 

“I think we need less people, but concentrated on those things that make a difference to small business,” Darling said. “So we will have a smaller policy group working closely with the Treasury. I think in terms of the general support we give for business, the financial support, that’s best done locally through the regional development agencies, for example. I don’t think that Whitehall is best placed to do that.”