Cabinet Office
Printable version E-mail this to a friend

SME friendliness tool

SME friendliness tool

An SME friendliness tool to help government departments engage with SMEs.

To request this document in an alternative format such as braille, audio or a different file type please email publiccorrespondence@cabinet-office.gsi.gov.uk quoting your address, telephone number along with the title of the publication ("SME friendliness tool").

Detail

The SME friendliness tool is a self-assessment tool for departmental use. It has been developed in consultation with representatives of the SME panel, a representative group of stakeholders who help to ensure the government remains in touch with the reality of SME experience in engaging with government.

The overall purpose of this tool is to change how government procures: so that SMEs make up a bigger proportion of the businesses helping government to achieve sustainable outcomes. Specifically, this tool has been designed to:

  • describe what SME friendly procurement looks like
  • help measure progress towards the aspirational goals of the government to boost SME provision (especially opening up to new SME providers)
  • incentivise and support improvement by allowing departments to benchmark against and learn from each other

Facing the Future...find out more