Abstract
Small business development is a priority of the European Structural Funds in the late 1990s. This coincides with the economic development efforts of many European regions and nations. Policy measures include the provision of business information, advice and counselling; grants, loans and equity investment; schemes for management and workforce development; assistance for innovation and technical development; and infrastructural support for marketing and training. Evaluation of the Structural Funds is generally undeveloped because of institutional and technical difficulties. The concept of thematic evaluation may be useful by allowing a focus on particular issues or policies and avoiding the complexity of regional programme-wide evalu–ations. This paper illustrates this with an evaluation of business development policies in Central Scotland. The evaluation examined issues concerned with the strategy and organization of business support as well as its economic impact and effectiveness.
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