The Government has determined that the way to offset cuts in the public sector is to boost the private sector. Individuals are being urged to start their own businesses and a new wave of entrepreneurs is being encouraged.

But Kim Hills Spedding has seen it all before. Over almost a quarter of a century he has advised thousands of people, ranging from those wanting to be the next Alan Sugar or Richard Branson, to people wanting to run a micro-enterprise from their kitchen table.

Now he has put that wealth of experience into a book, The Really Practical Guide to Starting Up Your Own Business, in a bid to help the next generation of start-ups flourish and prosper.

For many of those 24 years he was head of the Thames Business Advice Centre, or TBAC as it is universally known.

He started it in 1986, having been made redundant aged 48 from Shell-Mex/BP, where he had been UK distribution manager for the lubricants division.

Shell-Mex paid him a salary for two years after redundancy to allow him to qualifty for an early pension, and that gave him the security to become involved with something called Business in the Community, which came out of the Enterpise Agency.

Toby Blackwell of Blackwell’s bookshop dynsasty took up the mantle for Oxfordshire, and Mr Hills Spedding came in to run it with former Marks & Spencer manager David Hurt.

“We started off seeing 20 people a month and we then found out there was Government money to be had through the Enterprise Development Grant,” he explained.

This came in the form of a guaranteed £20,000, as long as it could be match-funded by private sector sponsorship, which Mr Hills Spedding found after approaching local professional firms who quickly saw the benefit of being recommended to start-up businesses.

Meanwhile, a banker was seconded to the fledgling organisation for a year and, gradually, advisers were recruited, extending to services for existing businesses through the Business Growth Programme.

Mr Hills Spedding said: “By then we were really motoring. Oxfordshire had the highest survival rate in the South-East out of the people who came to us for advice. And for those businesses surviving after three years, it was the highest in the country.”

Each new potential client was asked why they wanted to start their own business. Once they did get up and running, they were urged, above all else, to keep their fnances and books in order to ensure stability for growth, while also being in possession of a sound business plan and making allowances for inevitable problems.

And Mr Hills Spedding practised what he preached, balancing his books and even making a surplus, enabling TBAC to survive through the hard times just as well as its clients.

But ill health forced him to review his life and he realised the job of running TBAC was becoming highly stressful. Government mandarins were checking his every move, and he was being forced to justify every penny he spent.

In 1996 he left and linked up with the Berkshire Enterprise Agency to deliver courses, and was also contracted by Business Link to do the same thing — helping people wanting to start their own businesses and, now aged 72, he has continued doing that to this day.

TBAC, meanwhile, went into decline and the whole business advice side of it disappeared and it acted simply as a provider of accommodation for start-ups.

Then, a couple of years ago, it was relaunched by Mike Jennings of Jennings of Garsington, which operates the Monument Business Park in Chalgrove.

Mr Hills Spedding had a close relationship with Mr Jennings’s father Joe, as he was one of the first local sponsors of the original TBAC and Mike, then working as an accountant, became a business adviser before joining the board.

Naturally, he is once again acting as an adviser for TBAC, but has also found time to document that advice in the form of the book.

Of course there are scores of books about how to start a business, but Mr Hills Spedding believes he has found a gap in the market.

“I looked at a lot of books and they all told you what to do but very few told you how to do it. I have talked to thousands of people over the last 24 years, and listened to what they have said. My book is practical, whereas others are theoretical.”

Interestingly, 40 per cent of people who came to TBAC in that time decided not to go ahead with starting up a business but Mr Hills Spedding insists that it was their decision.

“It was not for us to judge. For some people starting a business is the most wonderful thing that has happened to them, but it is not for everyone.

“It has worked for many hundreds of thousands of people in the UK, but the key thing is to get advice and training. It does not cost anything to ask for help.”

n The Really Practical Guide to Starting Your Own Business is on sale priced £12.99 n Contact: Kim Hill Spedding, 01525 401411. E-mail: hsassoc@btinternet.com