Launch of charity trust

The Enterprise Trust will help to provide budding entrepreneurs with advice and resources and comes as University of York graduate Mr Harpin publishes a A Mind for Business.

The book tells how he set up and ran five businesses by the age of 20 and how HomeServe was built up from a small joint venture with South Staffordshire Water in 1993 to be a firm worth more than 1bn.

As part of the Enterprise Trust launch, free copies of the book are being sent to schools around the country while the trust's website – www.TheEnterpriseTrust.org – will have teaching resources and exercises linked to specific chapters.

Mr Harpin, whose business is based in Walsall in the West Midlands, will also work with other organisations, such as the Scout Association, to look at more ways to encourage entrepreneurship.