BME Leadership Forum Meeting
London Deputy Mayor Rishard Barnes AM met with BME Leadership Forum on 7th March 2010 at CEMVO Boardman House Stratford E15
7th March 2011 at CEMVO Boardman House, Stratford E15.
Chaired by Anil Bhanot OBE
Richard Barnes, the Deputy Mayor, in charge of Equality and Diversity, gave a talk on business contracts now being made available to small and medium businesses for the Olympics through the ‘Compete 4’ web based application procedure. Some social enterprise companies from the Tower Hamlets Community Leadership Forum headed by Emdad Haque, along with other BME aspiring entrepreneurs attended the meeting.
Richard explained that now the bigger infrastructure work is coming to an end the opportunity for smaller businesses is huge on bidding for small contracts, like provisions for food, laying carpets and such services. He said 35% of people work for SME’s employing less than 50 people and he would like to aim for 60% of the contracts to go to London businesses.
I proposed that since some of the very small BME businesses may be hesitant to bid for contracts due to some perceived cultural barriers that it might be better if an organisation like CEMVO can be a support link between the BME business and Compete 4, to which Richard agreed to look into so as to encourage more bids by the BME companies.
Anil Bhanot OBE 08.03.2011
