"SMEs don't take this very well because that [business development] is what we do."

To compound the issue, the day before the working group's meeting with the Cabinet Office, Stephen Allott, the Cabinet Office's Crown Commercial Representative for SMEs since February, said that it will take two years before the government stops excluding SMEs from procurement.

"Phase one is not excluding people by accident when the government is buying something that they could buy [from SMEs]," he told the Telegraph. "We are still in years rather than months".

Taylor said: "This is simply not acceptable. All of the evidence is that it's going backwards. There are SMEs being taken out of procurement, not put into it."

Taylor believes that there is a fundamental contradiction in the government's policies, which is slowing down the SME efforts.