Mr. John Trethowan:

The genesis of the enterprise loan scheme was the First Step scheme that went before it, which has transformed itself into the enterprise loan scheme. We have been using that for two and a half years for smaller loans that have come through. Many of these loans involve people who are starting up for the first time with new enterprises with little or no capital. These people basically are going it alone. They may be coming out of unemployment and are having a go themselves. However, banks never supplied seed capital for start-ups, especially for small-scale lending, and consequently this scheme is tailored for them. We put a lot of people through to the First Step programme prior to this and we already have started using the microenterprise fund for some of the smaller ones, in conjunction with the county enterprise boards, to make sure that such small businesses are mentored from the outset as well.