While 279,000 people started apprenticeships in the 2009/10 academic year, in 2010/11 this figure had grown to 442,700.

Apprenticeships in manufacturing, engineering, construction, health and public services all grew in popularity.

In July, the government launched a £25m fund to help businesses, especially SMEs, provide up to 10,000 advanced and degree-level apprenticeships in areas where there are skills shortages.

Total funding for apprenticeships in 2011/12 has been increased to more than £1.4 billion.

Business secretary Vince Cable said: “By helping firms build a stronger skills base, this investment puts businesses on solid foundations to deliver sustainable growth and a more balanced and inclusive economy.

With the cost of a university education soaring, it seems that more people are turning to apprenticeships as an alternative.

According to preliminary figures from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), university applications for 2012 have fallen by 9 per cent.

When overseas applications are excluded, the figures show that applications from UK students have fallen by 12 per cent.

Although the deadline for many courses is January, these early figures could be a strong indication that the sharp rise if fees is deterring many students from considering university as an affordable option.

The controversial suggestion, devised by David Cameron’s chief strategist Steve Hilton, was aimed at freeing up business and boosting economic growth.

However, business secretary Vince Cable said it was “unnecessary, based on no evidence and unlikely to improve labour market flexibility”.

The suggestion to abolish the right to claim unfair dismissal, and replace it with the right to claim redundancy, was part of a report prepared by Conservative donor and venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft.

Mr Cable said that the report had not been officially commissioned.

Unfair dismissal rules have already been reformed, with an extension to the qualifying period due to be introduced in April 2012.

This will mean that new employees will be unable to make a claim for unfair dismissal until they have been employed for two years.

They are currently able to make a claim after just one year.

The change has been welcomed by the Forum of Private Business and the British Chambers of Commerce, but was criticised by Brendan Barber, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress as being a “a charter for bad bosses”.

The private member’s bill, put forward by Conservative MP Chris White, aims to push the concept of social value to the front of the public sector procurement process.

This would mean that all public sector organisations would have to consider the social value of the contracts they award in order to ensure that they have a positive social and environmental impact on the local area.

Currently the emphasis is on securing the “best value” for taxpayers’ money, which means accepting the bid of the cheapest provider who can offer the required quality.

The government has been criticised for awarding major contracts to overseas companies, even though jobs are desperately needed in the UK, because under current rules the contract has to go to bidder offering best value.

The bill covers services such as accounting, advertising, education, care and recreation, as well as emergency, health and government services.

It has cross-party support, but the government has been criticised for cutting key clauses including a requirement for local authorities to promote social enterprise in their area.

The bill has been welcomed by the Federation of Small Businesses which believes it could help SMEs secure public sector contracts.

It is due to go to the report stage in the House of Commons on 25 November.

In related news, the Scottish government has launched a website to help Scottish companies bid for public sector procurement contracts.

The Supplier Journey site will guide businesses through the application process.

With the disparity having the potential to force a business to cease trading in the worst case scenario, accountancy firm Shelley Stock Hutter is calling for the Government to launch a new “code of transparency”.

This would ensure that credit rating agencies revealed the assessment criteria used to calculate how a business is rated.

After analysing the credit reports of 100 private firms, Shelley Stock Hutter found a 150 per cent variation, on average, between the credit limits recommended by Experian, Creditsafe and Dun & Bradstreet (D&B) for the same business.

This type of disparity could mean some SMEs being blocked from securing finance and credit from suppliers.

One small company surveyed was given a credit limit of £7000 by D&B and £290,000 by Experian, even though D&B gave the same company a better credit score than it received from Experian.

A number of factors can affect an SME’s credit rating including changes in accounting reference dates, a change of registered office address and the value of a company’s net assets.

Credit checks have also come under the spotlight today for potentially causing consumers to pay more than necessary for heating and lighting.

Customers who fail routine credit checks by energy companies could be refused access to special offers and could end up being asked to pay a security deposit.

They could also be asked to have a prepayment meter installed, an option which is generally more expensive than other energy tariffs.

Customers can fail a credit check simply because an energy companies makes an error when entering debt information into their system or because payments have been missed in an area unrelated to the supply of energy.

Speaking to small business leaders, Mr Clegg said he wanted to stop regulators “breathing down the necks of businesses”.

He suggested that it is time to find a middle group between those who want even more rules and those who want regulations scrapped altogether.

This will mean a culture change at bodies such as HMRC, the Environment Agency and the Health and Safety Executive, placing the emphasis on making it easier for businesses to operate, not harder.

The new system of regulation will be “designed for busy, working people”, Mr Clegg said.

One of the rules that could be withdrawn under the reforms is the requirement for shops to hold a poisons licence in order to sell kitchen descaler.

To make sure that the mountain of red tape isn’t allowed to grow any further, a one-in-one-out policy for regulations has been introduced.

In addition, a Red Tape Challenge has been launched, asking ordinary people to report rules which are too complex or which overlap with other rules.

Earlier this week Mr Clegg announced plans to appoint seven new advisers to monitor Whitehall departments which are headed by Conservative ministers, including the Home Office and Health department.

The advisers are being appointed following a report which suggested that the Lib Dems are under-represented at Westminster, leaving too much power in the hands of the Conservatives.

The government should improve access to finance, especially in the bond markets, for mid-sized firms, the CBI said.

John Cridland, the organisation’s director general, applauded Germany’s “Mittelstand” – around 3.5 million companies with fewer than 500 employees and annual sales of less than 50 million euros, which together employ 78.5 per cent of the German workforce and generate 53 per cent of the country’s GDP.

Mr Cridland suggested that the UK should emulate this model by fostering a core of medium-sized firms with access to new kinds of finance.

Research commissioned by the CBI from consultants McKinsey found that many mid-sized firms lacked management ability and that family-owned companies run by sons on average underperformed.

The CBI suggest that these companies should be more ambitious and should consider recruiting professional executives with university educations to their leadership teams, rather than passing roles down to family members who may lack the business skills needed to take the company to the next level.

Although mid-sized companies account for fewer than 1pc of all UK businesses, together they employ around 16 per cent of the workforce and contribute almost a quarter of GDP.

Yesterday, the CBI warned that a planned business tax increase in Scotland could deter large retailers from investing in the country.

A new, public health levy is being introduced on large retailers of alcohol and tobacco.

According to E.ON’s research, this means that they are missing out on £7.7 billion every year.

SMEs could soon improve their energy efficiency by installing simple equipment in the workplace, the energy company says.

The research found that the vast majority of small businesses (86 per cent) don’t have lighting timers or motion sensors installed and 81 per cent don’t have energy monitors fitted.

Other areas where energy efficiency could easily be improved include making sure windows are closed when air conditioning or heating is on and installing smart meters.

Earlier this month E.ON launched a new ‘Energy Fit’ tariff, a two-year deal offering two months’ worth of energy for free, a free energy monitor and online energy efficiency advice.

While this sounds a good deal it’s worth checking the small print as Guardian blogger, Lisa Bachelor pointed out that customers who take up the offer won’t be eligible for the 8% direct debit discount ordinarily available to duel fuel customers.

John Cheney, the CEO of Workbooks.com which published the results of the survey, said: “One company found that for every £1 they spent on Google AdWords they generated a mere 18 pence in sales”.

When setting up their account AdWords users select a number of key words related to their business.

When an Internet user carries out a Google search containing one of these key words, the business’s ad is displayed along with the search results.

The advantage of the service is that ads are only displayed to people with an interest in the business and the company is only charged when someone clicks on the ad.

Google claims that it is easy for businesses to track how well an ad is performing through reports available in their account.

However Mr Cheney said: “SMEs feel they need to be ‘seen’ on Google, but they just don’t have the tools to measure the effectiveness of their investment”.

In related news, Google today confirmed that it is upgrading its Gmail service with a new interface designed to be cleaner, simpler, and more intuitive than the old one.

However, there will be a cap on the price of second-class stamps, to ensure people on low-incomes will still be able afford the service.

With volumes mail falling and costs rising, it seems likely that company will now bump up the price of 1st class postage in order to increase revenues.

The move by Ofcom is seen by many as a key step towards the privatisation of the Royal Mail and will help the company compete against delivery firms such as DHL and TNT.

A price of a first class stamp is currently 46p, while a second class stamp costs 36p.

The cost of second class stamps for letters will be capped at 55p plus inflation, which still represents quite a hefty increase.

Royal Mail Group reported a £141 million fall in operating profit to just £39 million for 2010-11, compared with £180m for the previous year.

Core mail volumes fell by 4 per cent, contributing to a fall in revenues to £9.2 billion, compared with £9.3 billion in 2009-10.

The Real-Life Entrepreneurs campaign aims to provide solutions to help entrepreneurs deal with everyday challenges.

The FSB and Everywoman are calling on the government to set targets for growth in female entrepreneurs.

They estimate that 150,000 start-ups could be created each year if as many female entrepreneurs set up businesses as male entrepreneurs.

The campaign will provide help with areas such as finance, cash-flow, tax and regulation.

As well as encouraging female entrepreneurship it will also encourage other groups under-represented in business, including young people, the over-50s, and people with disabilities.

John Walker, chairman of the FSB said: ” The Government wants to see the private sector pick up the slack from public sector job losses and with a large number of female employees working in the sector as well as large numbers of women already unemployed it is really important that setting up their own business is seen as an option.”

In the US, a new survey suggests that more women are setting up technology companies.

According to research by Women 2.0 published by TechCrunch, the number of women entrepreneurs in the technology sector has doubled in the past three years.

San Francisco-based Women 2.0 aims to increase the number of women entrepreneurs opening high growth companies through the provision of information and resources.