Tuesday afternoon tea and biccies was had in the company of some very smart, passionate women. I seem to be making a habit of that lately.

This time it was to attend the inaugural meeting of the UK Women's Enterprise Taskforce set up by the Government "to champion women's enterprise and to increase the number of women setting up and growing businessess" announced by Margaret Hodge in November.

Over its three-year life, the taskforce will identify barriers to women's enterprise and suggest ways to remove them - ranging from the role of Finance and Technology to ways of delivering improved support services and advice in the regions.

Anyone see Dr Glenda Stone on the Paxman interview or BBC Breakfast recently? There's since been a fascinating debate raging on the whole subject of profit, passion, and the need for a women's-only taskforce at all. Read some of Glenda's comments here.

While 28% of businesses are owned by women in the US (or a whopping 48% if you take equal stakeholding rather than the 51/49 metric) the figure in the UK is a poor 17% so perhaps some affirmative action is required? Why not?

According to research presented by Prof Sara Carter, the UK female self-employment rate reached the 1m mark in 2006 but that still means that men account for 73% of the self-employed population. Compare 40% in the US to our 27%. Women's s/e rate is growing faster but the share of the overall population is static - which means they are exiting self employment as fast as they enter it. 

Evidence also shows that women use one third of the financing that men do - but there is a correlation between early stage under-funding and failure. And why is it that only 2% of VC funding goes to women-led firms?

So what can we learn from the US? How do we encourage more women to start businessses and how do we support women leading and owning more scaleable, sustainable ones?

Certainly from my point of view we need to see more female Web 2.0 entrepreneurs and young female CEO's. Wouldn't it be nice if that's where the next 'killer app' came from....

With the average turnover of women-owned UK businesses being only £578,000 there's clearly room for more profit. And there's always room for passion. Helps to have both!!