President's view Top quality business support is critical to this growth of most small to medium-sized cornpanies. This issue of Lancashire Business View has opened the debate at whether our firms are receiving the assistance they need to flourish. Steven Broomhead, chief executive of the North West Development Agency, has announced a review that will shape the future of business support throughout the region. Most companies will agree with his comments that there is too much duplication and confusion in the market, with too many agencies delivering too many different programmes. Few wil argue with the view of our chief executive Mike Damms that the current level of provision ranges from *dire to excellentÓ. At the Chamber, we constantly talk to our members about what services they actually need before we set out to defiver them. That is the approach that must be adopted across the region. The NWDA must listen to business and industry. When the assistance is not worth all the bureaucracy that is involved, something must be going astray. Red tape must be cut and support made relevant if business and industry is to fully benifit. As a Chamber, we must use our influence as the collective voice of industry to ensure that the NWDA's review is not just an excuse for cutting funding for business support. We would argue that the money should be better co-ordinated and more closely targeted. Our goal must be to raise the standards of every organisation involved in business advice. Excellence should be the norm, not tne exception. TonyRaynor President East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce

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