Businesses were today queuing up to condemn the Government's new scheme to persuade banks to lend.

Gordon Brown launched his Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme in January to help businesses get loans. The idea was that viable businesses struggling to get money due to the credit crunch could have 75% of their loan underwritten by the Government. That would encourage banks to lend.

However, businesses say the system is clogged by weeks of delay that can mean life or death to a small company. Many companies contacting the Evening Standard said it seemed as if bank managers had not been educated about the scheme.

A Federation of Small Businesses spokeswoman said: "People are telling us they go into a bank and are not able to see anyone about funding; then they have to wait quite a while for a letter to come through."

Online publisher Raymond Breen from Haslemere, Surrey said he waited five weeks for his bank to acknowledge his request for a £40,000 loan and will now have to find money elsewhere to keep the business going.

See our poll on bank lending at standard.co.uk/survey.