The UK government has announced plans to create two advisory positions at Westminster for entrepreneurs to help the growth and recognition of small businesses. The move, announced by the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) comes at the start of an important week for small business owners; Global Entrepreneur Week starts today, with over 40,000 events worldwide.

The government has said that the advisory roles are intended to ensure that new policies take the needs of small businesses into consideration. BIS also announced that it was planning to launch an Entrepreneurs and Education Programme to promote self-employment and enterprise, and that it will be encouraging more businesses to take advantage of the Seed Enterprise Investment scheme, which gives tax breaks to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).

The theme of Global Entrepreneur Week 2012 in the UK is “pass it on” (promoted online using the hashtag #passiton), encouraging freelancers, entrepreneurs and start-ups to share information, knowledge and tips to foster a supportive community for new enterprises.

If you’d like to attend one of the events, make sure you get some personalised business cards printed out for networking, and make your way to one of the 3,000 meet-ups across the UK – check out the GEW website to see what’s on near you.