« Previous | Contents | Next »
Listen
SMALL BUSINESS SERVICE NATIONAL OMNIBUS SURVEY SCOTLAND: AUTUMN 2002
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) are a very important sector of the Scottish economy. They account for 99% of the 243,000 businesses (November 2001) active in Scotland and they represent 50% of non-government employment.
The Small Business Service conducts a regular survey of the opinions of the owners of businesses in England with fewer than 250 employees. For this wave, the fifth, the survey covers the whole of the UK and the Scottish Executive commissioned a boost to the sample in order to generate statistically robust results for Scotland. The survey was carried out between 5 th October and 6 th December 2002. A total of 4,217 businesses across the UK took part in the survey, including 1,002 SMEs in Scotland.
This report covers the findings for Scottish SMEs.
Where differences between Scotland and the UK as a whole are statistically significant this has been identified. Otherwise it should be assumed that differences are not statistically significant.
Where possible the results for Scotland are also compared to the findings for Scottish businesses from the second wave of the survey, October 2001, when 1,004 Scottish SMEs were interviewed. Comparisons with 2001 are shown in brackets.
1.1 OBJECTIVES
The survey is a listening exercise to:
- Primarily, gauge the needs of small businesses, their concerns and the barriers to fulfilling their potential.
- Record awareness, perception of, and satisfaction with Small Business Gateway.
- Act as a screening survey for other research such as panel surveys, focus groups or surveys of sub-groups of the small business population.
« Previous | Contents | Next »