Small Business Week

As part of a wider analysis of the 2009 Business Pulse, and BT's work on inclusion, we wanted to analyse the opinions of people with a disability in the small business sector. Of the 7,200 respondents, six per cent (around 430), said that they have a registered disability.

People with a disability generally consider that their businesses have been less affected by the recession but they think that the upturn is further away. They also believe that their businesses are equipped to succeed for now and in the future. In fact, a quarter of this group has experienced business growth during the recession as opposed to one fifth of others in the survey.

64 per cent of the people with a disability that responded to the survey said that their businesses are based at their homes, as against 46 per cent of other businesses and a large proportion, 36 per cent, of them are sole traders. They are more likely to use formal sources of business advice and are happier with this advice than other respondents.

Business people with a disability are more likely to be at the forefront of technology in order to further their business, for example, more people with a disability considered video content on websites and social media to be important or very important (36 per cent) to their business than everyone else (26 per cent). However, it must be borne in mind that most of those with a registered disability who responded were men. In the overall survey, men were more likely to be better disposed towards technology.

With regard to finance, 26 per cent of people with a disability have been able to source external funding as opposed to 20 per cent of other people, with grants and Government schemes being the most likely sources of funding.