To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what research his Department has (a) undertaken, (b) commissioned and (c) evaluated on attitudes of small and medium-sized enterprises to regional development agencies. (223820)

The Department has conducted the following research into regional development agencies (RDAs), which included attitudes of small and medium-sized enterprises to RDAs.

In 2006-07, the National Audit Office carried out independent performance assessments (IPAs) of all the RDAs (except for London which had been covered in a previous Audit Commission review). This is available on the NAO website:

http://www.nao.org.uk/guidance/rdas.htm.

In 2003, BERR published the results of regional surveys of stakeholders' perception of the RDAs. The survey was not directed specifically at small and medium sized enterprises, but included the Small Business Service (SBS), Business Links (BL), voluntary sector, businesses, chambers of commerce (LCC).The surveys were commissioned from MORI Social Research Institute.