A new government drive, focused on employee ownership within a business, has been launched by the deputy Prime Minister to establish the concept in British industry.

According to the deputy PM, employee ownership is key to improving growth and productivity. Graeme Nuttall has now been appointed as a government advisor on the topic.

Employee ownership models can impact levels of staff engagement, generate innovation, increase productivity, lower absenteeism, better industrial relations and improve business performance.

The Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is now seeking views from employee owned businesses and other stakeholders, for discussion with Mr Nuttall. These will include their views on incentives to facilitate employee ownership, specific regulatory barriers or other disincentives to employee ownership and the most efficient way of becoming employee-owned.

Nuttall, a partner at law firm Field Fisher Waterhouse, will take on a part-time, advisory role and will bring extensive experience as he is a long-standing adviser to the Employee Ownership Association. Nuttall will work alongside the government to identify the barriers to employee ownership and help find the solutions necessary to overcome them.  His final recommendations to the government will be made in a report to Norman Lamb this summer.

Lamb is leading the cross-Whitehall work to investigate how the government can support the grown business model of employee engagement. The model has seen the number of employee owned companies grow increase by 25% in two years from 200 in 2009 to 250 in 2011.