A. How effective is the Welsh Government’s approach to promoting youth entrepreneurship?

B. What steps can be taken to improve or strengthen support for potential young entrepreneurs in Wales?

Issues that the Committee is considering as part of these terms of reference include:

1. What are the experiences of young entrepreneurs in Wales?

Young entrepreneurs in Wales have an enormous range of support potentially available to them. This is often the envy of other UK regions with free advice, training and funding available.

University and college students are able to access appropriate support through guidance and signposting provided by funded enterprise education staff based within each institution. Again, this enterprise champion type model is the envy of educational institutions throughout other UK regions. 

2. What is the scale of Welsh Government resource and funding targeted at the promotion of youth entrepreneurship? Is it sufficient?

The overall scale of Welsh Government resource and funding for the promotion of youth entrepreneurship is reasonable. It is understandable that the promotional budget has been cut over the years from the high-profile and effective business start-up marketing campaigns run between 2000 and 2006. However, there are still mass awareness activities carried out within further and higher education promoting youth entrepreneurship.

Some of the promotional materials previously provided by the Welsh Government – for example, the Silver Book aimed at young people starting a business – have proven excellent resources for promoting entrepreneurship.  The University would be happy to work with the Welsh Government to advise on suitable materials to be used in future campaigns.  Likewise, we would be happy to support the ongoing development of the Big Ideas Wales website, that has the potential to be an extremely useful online resource for young entrepreneurs. 

3. What progress has been made in implementing the Welsh Government’s Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy and Action Plan?

From an educational perspective, there has been significant progress in implementing the Welsh Government’s Youth Entrepreneurship Strategy and Action Plan. The funding made available to colleges and universities through initially the Knowledge Exploitation Fund, and more recently the Dynamo funding, has encouraged a real interest in the area. This has helped to put business start-up firmly on the strategic agenda for colleges and universities across Wales.

The more recent move to regional entrepreneurship educational hubs has been very effective in driving innovation, raising the quality and ensuring consistency of provision across colleges and universities. Institutions are constantly pushing the boundaries and devising new ways to engage students and graduates with entrepreneurship. There continues to be enormous scope to drive the youth entrepreneurship agenda through education and across Wales.

4. How does the Welsh Government’s approach to promoting youth entrepreneurship incorporate issues such as equality, social enterprise and regional variations in skills and training opportunities?

Historically, Welsh Government initiatives such as Potentia (pre-start business programme) worked very well through providing bespoke support for young people whilst working with business support provision to improve their support (including materials) for young people. However, since the demise of that EU-funded programme, there is a risk that support for certain target groups and industry sectors (including social enterprises) could be overlooked.

Within education, there is a duty of care (as per institutional equality policies) to ensure that all individuals can access the entrepreneurship education provision on offer and all reasonable adjustments are made to enable this.

It would be interesting to find out the demographics for people currently starting businesses through mainstream business support (e.g. ethnicity, age range, disability, etc.). This would provide the data required to assess how inclusive the Welsh Government business support provision is.

5. What opportunities are presented by increasing youth entrepreneurship as a means of tackling youth unemployment and inactivity?

There is an enormous opportunity to tackle youth unemployment and inactivity through increasing youth entrepreneurship. Within education, there is a growing commitment for colleges and universities to prepare individuals for employment and this is now increasingly recognised as including self-employment (as per the Cardiff Metropolitan University Corporate Strategic Plan). The competition between universities for each student along with high tuition fees means that students expect to have a return on their investment (i.e. a successful career in their chosen field).

The social enterprise agenda continues to generate interest from students and graduates with many interested in starting community or social ventures. However, these individuals often do not see entrepreneurship support as being relevant for t