An independent review, the Lilac Review, highlights the significant challenges faced by disabled entrepreneurs in the UK, with inaccessible support services, poor access to funding and the ‘burden of proving disability’ key to addressing. identified as a serious problem.
Launched in February and co-chaired by Kevin Hollinrake (Minister for Small Business), Mims Davies (Minister for Disability) and Victoria Jenkins (Founder and CEO of Unhidden), it is supported by Government support. Preliminary results of this review by the authors pointed to a common conflict. It prevents people with disabilities from accessing entrepreneurial opportunities. These challenges include navigating unnecessarily complex processes to access business support, finances, and benefits.
The Lilac review team estimated that “leveling up the entrepreneurial opportunities” for disabled founders could generate an additional £230 billion in UK business sales. The main recommendations from the reviews are:
Simplify support services: Radically simplifying support services such as mentoring, networking, business training and guidance to bring the needs of entrepreneurs with disabilities to the forefront.
Elimination of annual benefit revaluation: Eliminate annual conditional reassessment of benefits throughout life to reduce administrative costs and put pressure on entrepreneurs to repeatedly justify the need for support.
Access to trust-based support: Moving towards a trust-based rather than evidence-based system for accessing disability support.
Victoria Jenkins highlighted the need for equal access to opportunities for entrepreneurs with disabilities, saying: ”
The final report and recommendations from the Lilac review are expected to be published by the end of next year.
The review, led by Small Business Bulletin, follows the precedent set by the Rhodes review, which identified barriers to women starting and growing their businesses. The work of the Rose Review, including the development of the Investing in Women Code, led to a significant increase in women’s entrepreneurship, demonstrating the potential impact of targeted support and policy change.
The Lilac Review aims to transform the landscape for disabled entrepreneurs as well, ensuring they have the support and opportunities they need to succeed. As Jenkins noted, engaging a wide range of founders in the creation of these services is essential to addressing diverse experiences of disability and building a more just world for entrepreneurs with disabilities. .
