WHO SAYS SIZE MATTERS?

There are four and a half million small businesses in the UK. Collectively, we are responsible for 58 per cent of private sector employment and 48 per cent of turnover. Crucial to the country's economy - especially in times like this - we have to navigate an assault course of challenges: rising costs (especially fuel), rents and rates, late paying clients and customers, and employment legislation such as increased rights for agency workers. One area in which successive governments have failed to recognise this is by simplifying the public sector's convoluted, and frankly at times absurd, procurement system.

Have you ever, as a small business, tried applying for one of these? It's like they put all the country's pen pushers and bean counters in one room, plied them with illegal substances and told them to do their “best” work.

What you tend to get first off in this minefield of mindless and largely farcical bureaucracy is something charmingly known as the pre-qualification questionnaire (PPQ). This is designed to ascertain whether you have the right experience and credentials to be deemed suitable to receive the actual tender documents.

I stopped applying for public sector contracts two or three years ago after one local authority advertised for PR services and expressly said they wanted to "encourage small agencies and one-man bands/freelancers" to apply.

The resulting PPQ ran to 52 pages and apart from wanting to know my willy size and what I intended to eat for breakfast a week on Tuesday, there seemed nothing these people did not want to know. The crunch came when I got to the section: "Please provide details of your international disaster recovery processes".

Now, it was a stroke of luck at this point there were no sharp instruments in the room! It was a small scale PR contract for Christ's sake. My "International disaster recovery processes", should I ever need them, are going to consist of either getting to my nearest and dearest PDQ, or hitting the pub.

Seriously though, isn't our public sector missing a huge trick by making access to its contracts near-on impossible for many able, well-equipped and experienced suppliers. Okay small businesses cannot offer the infrastructure of large agencies (incidentally, why do these people always travel and pitch in packs?) but they can and do offer, in many instances, substantially more.

I'll wager most companies using a (good) small agency or a one-man band will get exceptional service, dedicated attention from one key point of contact, and endless passion and commitment. Small businesses, after all, cannot rely on that monthly pay cheque and the comfort of someone else to pick up the pieces when things don’t quite go according to plan.

And in times like these how much better value per marketing pound do the small agencies offer?

There are times, of course, when the large PR, marketing and creative companies should win the work and where the smaller guys would simply not be able to service the client's needs. But the problem is that, as far as I can see, everything about the current public sector tendering process is skewed firmly against small businesses.

If Vince Cable really wants to do something to encourage and support small companies – and to ensure public sector budgets go further – then he needs to seriously overhaul public sector procurement. And to stop talking and do it now!