Presentation from the capacity building seminar “Financing business start-up by under-represented groups”, 27-29 June 2012, Trento – Italy; organised by the Local Economic and Employment Development (LEED) Programme and its Trento Centre at the OECD in collaboration with the Directorate-General Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion of the European Commission. See www.trento.oecd.org

1. Entrepreneurship Action Planning –
An outline of rationale, activities and
impacts .
Iain Willox

2. KEY Elements of Presentation
•My Background
•Rationale for intervention
•Getting started
•COPIE Example
•Potential Impact

3. My background
• Responsible for Enterprise services in
Wales 1998-2007
• EU-Coordinator for Community of Practice
for inclusive Entrepreneurship and lead
expert on Action planning

4. Rational for Joint
Action Planning
• Lack of an integrated strategy
• Short term and fragmented business support
• Sharing of good practice is limited
• Lack of data or robust impact assessment
• Inconsistent public sector commitment to
entrepreneurship

5. Getting started
• Understanding the issues, creating a powerful inclusive
alliance. The Entrepreneurship Steering Group.
• Consulting widely and creating a vision “a bold and
confident nation where entrepreneurship is valued,
celebrated and exercised throughout society and in the
widest range of economic circumstances”
• Translating the vision into strategic aims

6. Getting started
• Building the implementation plan.
• Agreeing lead roles, targets ,costs, and impacts
• Confirming integration between activities.
• Carrying out baseline research
• Cementing links with structural funds and domestic
government funding.

7. Offering a helping hand to
future Welsh stars

8. KEY THEMES
• CHANGE ATTITUDES
• EMBED ENTREPRENEURSHIP EDUCATION
• WIDEN HORIZONS TO NEW
ENTREPRENEURSHIP OPPORTUNITIES
• STIMULATE ENTREPRENEURIAL BEHAVIOUR
WITHIN LOCAL COMMUNITIES
• A NATIONAL BUSINESS BIRTH RATE STRATEGY
• ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN GROWTH BUSINESSES

9. THE COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
ON INCLUSIVE
ENTREPRENEURSHIP
“A network of people actively involved in opening up
entrepreneurship to all parts of society”
,

10. –Key facts about COPIE
KEY FACTS ABOUT COPIE
– ESF Learning Network; approved by DG Employment, Social
Affairs and Inclusion in April 2009
– Common goal: Transformation of the policy environment
so that entrepreneurship becomes a natural choice for
people from all walks of life
– Builds upon experience of the EU Community Initiative
EQUAL and the results of a COPIE pilot initiative from 2006 –
2008
– 10 national and regional partners across Europe

11. The COPIE Toolkit in Detail
DEVELOP AN INCLUSIVE ENTREPRENEURSHIP
COPIE Tool: COPIE Diagnosis REGIONAL/NATIONAL POLICY FRAMEWORK
Tool • map strength/weaknesses
• develop concrete action plans
ENGAGE WITH IMPROVE THE CURRENT ENTREPRENEURSHIP SUPPORT
STAKEHOLDERS planning: INFRASTRUCTURE
COPIE Tool: Action Priority Area: Priority Area: Quality Management /
How to create a common vision Entrepreneurship Integrated Business Support
Education
COPIE Tool: COPIE Tool: COPIE
COPIE Tool: Action planning: COPIE Tool:
Entrepreneurship skills requirements
How to build an integrated COPIE Business
Education Diagnosis Tool survey for business
campaign Advisor Profiling
advisor
COPIE Tool: Finland ESF COPIE Tool:
COPIE Tool: Action planning: COPIE Tool: COPIE
Entrepreneurship Case Business
How to agree an evaluation Study Business Advisor
Advisor Training
strategy Self-help guide
Priority Area: Access to Modules
Finance Tool: Manual on COPIE Tool: COPIE COPIE Tool:
COPIE Tool: Action planning: COPIE Business Advisor COPIE
How to plan for a legacy Access to Finance for Passport Resources map
ESF Managing Authorities

12. Action Planning
• Brings together key actors to develop
consensus about the way forward.
• Takes account of a variety of objectives
that may be met by inclusive
entrepreneurship
• Builds ownership, clarifies roles and drives
individual responsibility for action.

13. Who is involved?
• Typical actors would be ESF Managing
Authorities, Policy leads from member
states/regional governments, business
support organisations.
• Approach has been tested with
delegations from Asturias, Czech
Republic, Flanders, Germany and
Wallonia.

14. Baseline study
• Separate interviews with key Government
Departments, service providers and
business organisations.
• Analyse existing integrated enterprise
policies for region and good practice
elsewhere in EU.
• Highlight shared policy priorities and future
workplan within COPIE.

15. Approach Adopted
Critical areas for agreement between the
actors are identified;
• Creating a common vision,
• Agreeing evaluation measures,
• Sustaining cultural change,
• Planning for legacy

16. Approach Adopted
• For each agreed critical area International
workshops are convened with key actors
from every region to compare approaches,
confirm common ground and agree roles
for taking things forward.

17. Impact
"COPIE provides a great opportunity to share knowledge
and experience within the crucial area of inclusive
entrepreneurship, thus facilitating efforts to ensure
efficiency and a sustainable impact of the ESF."
Filip Kučera,
Ministry of Labour and
Social Affairs of the "Being member of COPIE provides
Czech Republic you extra knowhow on how to tackle
Joeri Colson,
social exclusion."
ESF Agency Flanders
"The exchange of best practices between European regions opens
the opportunity of facing the socio-economic downturn in a new
way, leading to innovative solutions, especially for those who are on
the most vulnerable side of the crisis."
Noemi Iglesisas Rodriguez,
Business Innovation Centre
Galicia

18. Impact-Cultural change
57
Plenty of opportunities to
60
start a business if want to
63
Govt policies encourage 33
people to start new 47 2001 (February)
business 50 2005 (May)
Nov '05 & Mar '06
Where I live best way to 33
get sort of job want is to 43
start business 49
Its harder to succeed in 36
Wales in running your own 24
business than rest of UK 21

19. Impact-Education
Investing in education – Entrepreneurial core
competencies, now part of the National Curriculum.
Attitude – understanding yourself Creativity – generating ideas,
and your motivation and setting solving problems and creating
and achieving your goals opportunities
Relationships – expressing your Organisation – being able to make
own views and ideas, appreciating decisions and fulfil your objectives
others’ viewpoints and working co- by planning and managing
operatively decisions, opportunities and risk

20. Impact –Increasing Diversity
• • Creating a more diverse new generation
• of entrepreneurs.
• • 13288 clients assisted through Potentia
• • 2562 new Business Starts after receiving
• Potentia support
• 3754 Jobs created from those starts

21. Impact -Starting Up
•VAT Registrations - Highest stock for 10
years
•2 highest registrations for 10 years in last
2 years
•Rise three times UK average in 2005
•Source;VAT data 2005

22. Impact –Open to advice
37
Accountants
56
23
High street banks
46
28
Solicitors
31
37
Friends & family
28
2000
12
WDA 2005
24
13
Training providers
21
12
Local Authority
20
IT providers / 10
consultants 18
Beaufort Baseline and Follow up surveys 2000/2005

23. Impact Performance
comparison with other
countries
•In 2000 the Welsh TEA was at 28 % of
the average for this GEM – 18 group
whilst in 2005 this had risen to 94%.
• Since 2000 only 3 other nations have
shown an overall increase none of these
as great as in Wales which saw a
doubling over the 5 year period.”
Source; Wales GEM report 2005

24. • Thank you for listening, Any questions ?
• Iainwillox1@btinternet.com