Transparency data

Women-led high-growth enterprise taskforce meeting minutes: 26 September 2022

Updated 1 February 2024

This was published under the 2019 to 2022 Johnson Conservative government

Attendees

Taskforce members

• Anne Boden MBE (Chair), Starling Bank
• Alex Depledge MBE, Resi
• Angela Scott, TC BioPharm
• Check Warner, Ada Ventures
• Emma Sinclair MBE, EnterpriseAlumni
• Helen Steers, Pantheon
• Jan Putnis, Slaughter and May
• Judith Hartley, British Business Bank
• Poppy Gustafsson OBE, Darktrace
• Sam Smith, finnCap Group
• Zandra Moore, Panintelligence

Secretariat, analysts and other support staff

• Alexandra Cardenas, Starling Bank
• Teena Lyons, Starling Bank
• Gillian Unsworth, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Barbara Collins, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Hannah Morris, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Sue Beaumont-Staite, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Leah Shearer, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Francis Evans, Department for Business (BEIS)

Apologies

Taskforce members

• Deepali Nangia, Speedinvest
• June Angelides MBE, Samos

Secretariat, analysts and other support staff

• Alexandra Frean, Starling Bank
• Marcus Bell, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office
• Paul Williamson, Equality Hub, Cabinet Office

Summary of actions

1) The Secretariat to:

• set up a meeting between Anne and the new Minister for Women
• set up a meeting between Gillian and Emma in mid-late October on procurement and revenue generation and engaging a group of core companies
• liaise with the Equality Framework Team regarding the Act’s provisions on protected characteristics
• pull together a final, definitive list of sub-groups and their membership following expressions of interest to the Secretariat for the Procurement sub-group

2) Francis to ask the Council for Investing in Female Entrepreneurs whether they would be content to share notes of their meetings with the Taskforce, as requested by Check.

3) Zandra to liaise with her network in Leeds for a rough estimate as to how much funding might need to be made available for one person in a city to lead on delivering the blueprint for their area. Zandra agreed to feed back at the next meeting.

4) Jan to put together a research note for the Taskforce with a few examples on high-growth businesses in other jurisdictions.

5) Check to send through her thoughts on issues regarding the Equality Act and SEIS to the Secretariat.

6) All members to:

• let the Secretariat know if they wish to be involved in the procurement sub-group
• let Alex and the secretariat know if they wish to be involved in the PWC session

Discussion items

1. Minutes and actions

No comments, actions completed any further discussion on actions will take place during the sub-group updates.

2. Government/Ministerial update (Gillian Unsworth, GEO)

Gillian provided an update on the ministerial changes and responsibilities across the Equality Hub’s brief ^{[footnote 1]}.

• The Rt Hon Nadhim Zahawi is now the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and also Minister for Equalities
• Katherine  Fletcher MP is now Minister for Women and will likely have day-to-day responsibility for the Taskforce
• Baroness Stedman-Scott has been appointed as the Equalities Minister in the House of Lords though she will not continue with her policy responsibilities as Minister for Women

Action: The Secretariat will look to set up a meeting between Anne and the new Minister for Women.

3. Update on the Rose Review (Francis Evans, BEIS)

Dean Russell MP has been appointed as the Minister for Enterprise and Markets and would most likely have responsibility for the Rose Review Board. The Board focuses on women’s enterprise across all sectors and stages of growth and is Chaired by a BEIS Minister.

One of the successes of the Review has been around access to finance particularly the Investing in Women Code, which has secured over 160 signatories. Progress is less advanced on delivering the Review’s recommendations on educational initiatives and childcare.

The Board and the Council for Investing in Female Entrepreneurs (CIFE) are currently looking at ways to further develop their online portal for female entrepreneurs – the Invest in Women Hub – and would welcome collaboration with the Taskforce on this. There was a discussion around the plethora of existing online resources and the risks and benefits of adding another.

Action: Check asked Francis for a copy of the minutes of CIFE meetings. This request will be passed on and would be for CIFE to decide as an independent body.

Jan asked if the Rose Review had looked at international comparators and referenced some work with high-growth businesses in Scandinavia. All agreed there is lack of data on international comparators.

Action: For the next meeting, Jan to put together a research note for the Taskforce with a few examples on high-growth businesses in other jurisdictions.

4. Sub-group updates

a) Regional sub-group: Zandra Moore

Great progress had already been made on capturing data around female high-growth enterprises in the Leeds area, engaging local partners and organisations, and setting up a local board (network made up of city high-growth leaders on science and technology). The long term goal is that this will become a blueprint for other cities. Engaging the Centre for Cities will be key to achieving this goal as well as achieving a consistent data set across cities.

Action: Zandra to liaise with her network in Leeds for a rough estimate as to how much funding might  need to be made available for one person in a city to lead on delivering the blueprint for their area. Zandra agreed to feed back at the next meeting.

b) Tax relief/incentives sub-group: Check Warner

Positive changes were made in the recent mini-budget to SEIS. Next step here is to raise awareness of the SEIS scheme in relation to women entrepreneurs, female partners and Angel Investors in the regions. There was some discussion around targeting funds for those groups of interest. Judith said the BBB could explore this.

Action: Check to send through her thoughts on issues regarding the Equality Act and SEIS to the Secretariat.

Check also mentioned she would like to explore options for getting more Series A, B and C funds signing the Investing in Women Code.

c) Best practice, role models and networks sub-group: Angela Scott

Angela was supportive of an online portal (electronic playbook) as a way to promote case studies and best practice and ‘sign-post’ people to other sites/areas with a particular regional focus.

Helen updated on elements of good practice happening internationally where funds are invested proportionately much more into minority-run businesses.

Sam highlighted that the sub-group was thinking about looking at the role models and case studies on the ‘ScaleUp Female Founders Index 2022’ and Beauhurst and suggested the government could convene a number of these women for an event. Sam also highlighted her idea of a ‘Scale-Up Britain’ campaign, which would result in Growth Hubs having a Scale-Up Champion.

d) Procurement and revenue generation sub-group: Emma Sinclair

Emma made the following points:

• Securing contracts with large customers can often involve complex procurement processes which ‘high-growth’ companies may not be equipped to engage with.
• A critical element of revenue growth is what constitutes a ‘high growth enterprise’.
• The Taskforce should help women-led business’ win and maintain revenue and reduce friction in achieving that.
• Robust contracts and driving revenue allow companies to trade without relying on investment, contribute to investors wanting to invest for those seeking it, contribute to compelling valuations for shareholders and ensure debt providers can provide lending.
• There are examples in the US and Australia where the government and some parts of the private sector have incentives around procurement for minority led businesses. More work needs to be done to look at best practice and incentives around procurement for minority business in the UK.

Emma wants to gather existing examples of how companies allocate budget to spend on minority led vendors and getting a core group of companies actively working on this topic

Action: Gillian agreed to have a call with Emma in mid-late October regarding getting a group of core companies engaged. Secretariat to set this up.

Anne agreed that another sub-group should be set up to look specifically at procurement and revenue generation which would be led by Emma.

Action: Any members of the Taskforce who wish to be involved in the procurement sub-group should let the Secretariat know as soon as possible.

e) Private equity sub-group: Alex Depledge

The next step for this group was the PWC meeting due to take place over the next few weeks which would act as a white-board exercise. This meeting has now been postponed and will be rescheduled shortly.

Action: Members wishing to attend the PWC White Board meeting should let Alex/Secretariat know.

5. AOB

Action: Secretariat agreed to pull together a final, definitive list of sub-groups and their membership following expressions of interest to the Secretariat for the Procurement sub-group.

1. As at time of meeting. Subject to Ministerial changes ↩