Member Article

Debate on potential of North East women

North East businesses are being encouraged to think about the benefits of getting more women to set up business, and grow their existing ones.

SERU, Newcastle University Business School and the UK Women’s Enterprise Policy Group are delivering a debate on the subject, entitled ‘Stop and Think…about women in business.’

The debate aims to raise awareness of what is happening to support women in business in the region, as well as highlight examples of best practices, coalesce thinking, and feed the message back to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Entrepreneurship, APPGE Micro business and Mark Prisk.

A report from the Fawcett Society suggests that as nearly 1.1m women are out of work, the impact of austerity measures threatens to unravel decades of work to put women on an even keel.

Tax and benefits changes hit lone parents, most of whom are women, the hardest. Many are forced to supplement welfare benefits with paid work, and increasingly diminished employment opportunities aggravate this problem.

Cuts to public sector are disproportionately affecting women as 65% of public sector employees are female.

This context that will frame the debate, where organisers are hoping to get people to engage and participate in group discussions.

Comments and data collated will be used to inform the future debate and action associated with capitalising on the potential of women in the North East economy.

Some key questions include: do private sector, women led initiatives running successfully need more support and strategic linkages? How can the best practice in the region be captured to ensure it benefits a wider set? Does the government funded business mentoring scheme work?

The debate takes place at Newcastle University Business School on June 29 between 10-12.30, and is supported by The International Centre for Entrepreneurship and Enterprise (ICE Ltd), PeopleIntoEnterprise; Jayne Graham of 2020 Consulting; Nicky Gray Enterprise Speaker; Sandy Ogilvie of the FSB; and The Global Exchange for Women’s Enterprise Stop and think about Women in business.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Tom Keighley .