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Election 2015: North East business women & female entrepreneurship

With Election 2015 quickly approaching Bdaily is asking for thoughts from across the North East; today we focus specifically on businesswomen in the region.

The NECC

The North East Chamber of Commerce has launched its general election programme for women in business through its Women’s Advisory Board, calling for action to: encourage and support greater levels of female entrepreneurship; maximise employment and career development opportunities for women; and bridge the gender gap in skills.

Nickie Gott, Chair of NECC’s Women’s Advisory Board, said: “Our general election programme for women in business is a fundamental element to growing the success of our region.

“The North East’s economy does not perform below potential because of the poor performance of its businesses, but because it does not have enough businesses. Female entrepreneurs have been making a huge contribution to addressing this deficit and we need to build on this.

“Women have different skills and with tailored business support, targeted advice programmes and focused efforts to reduce youth unemployment among females, more women can get a foot on the career ladder and help drive North East business forward.”

Many vital industries for the North East face serious skills shortages in the years ahead and within these industries there has been significant under-representation of women in the workforce.

Information Technology is providing major growth opportunities in the North East, but just one in five employees in the sector are women. Over the last year NECC has been working on a project supported by the Government Equality Office to promote more girls pursuing STEM skills.

Jo Hand, Managing Director, Jo Hand Recruitment is also supporting the programme. “In order to set a good example to future generations we need to promote greater numbers of female leaders in entrepreneurship, the private sector, politics, government and the public sector,” she said.

“We have a responsibility to bolster the talent pool of women with senior leadership and management experience and this programme brings attention to the untapped potential in our region.”

Tees Valley business women

A round table discussion involving Tees Valley business women, hosted by Odyssey Systems, believes a cut in business rates, business-boosting immigration policies and out-of-hours GP services should be top of the General Election agendas.

The business women’s forum, which meets at the Stockton-based telecommunications company every two months, discussed what initiatives they would like to see adopted by the political parties in their manifestoes.

The wide-ranging debate covered topics including:

• Introducing out-of-hours GP services so business people can see a doctor without it impacting on their working day. A seven-day-a-week service also would take the pressure off A&E departments
• Public sector services and departments drawing on private sector knowledge and principles
• Capping welfare payment levels so it pays people to work rather than rely on benefits
• Immigration restricted to people who want to work

Cutting business rates to rescue dying town centres by attracting retailers in to empty shops and to give small businesses the financial ability to grow and expand

Christine Gilbert, director of Odyssey Systems, said: “With the General Election fast approaching, the group felt it was timely to turn its attention to what business women would like to see adopted in election manifestos.

“The forum presented an opportunity for women from a range of companies in Tees Valley to scrutinise election issues from a business perspective and identify those that they believe are vital to the area’s and the country’s economic wellbeing.

“The top three issues, which emerged from the discussion, were reducing benefits to make work pay, the need for out-of-hours GP services so that seeing a doctor does not affect a business person’s productivity and how immigration is not necessarily bad for the economy if restrictions are introduced.”

Check out our monday bulletin to see more reaction from the North East ahead of Election 2015.

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