What is business support?
Business support is ‘support to a business, group of businesses, organisations or to people starting or considering starting businesses.’ This includes free or subsidised advice, grants, reduced-interest loans, training and help with finding workspace. Business support helps develop entrepreneurs, businesses or organisations, while achieving broader economic, environmental or societal goals.
The Business Support Simplification Programme (BSSP)
A national programme of Business Support Simplification was announced in the Government’s 2006 Budget and is managed by the Department for Business, Innovation and Science (BIS). Business Support Simplification was designed to address the confusion that individuals and companies can experience with publicly-funded business support.
The aim of Business Support Simplification was to reduce the number of business support interventions from more than 3,000 to less than 100 by March 2010. To deliver this, the government has worked with RDAs, local authorities, users and other stakeholders to develop a portfolio of 29 business support products. One North East was commissioned by BIS to lead the implementation of business support simplification in the North East and worked with a wide range of partners to deliver the region’s vision.
Business Support Simplification is not about reducing funding for business support - it is about ensuring that business support meets the need at a regional, sub-regional and local level and that is efficient and can be accessed easily. Business Support Simplifications ensures that more funding reaches the customer and less money is spent on adminstration.
Simplification in the North East
Prior to the introduction of the Business Support Simplification programme One North East worked with a wide body of funders and stakeholders to simplify business support and make it easier for individuals, businesses and organisations to navigate their way to the support they need. Collectively, we demonstrated a number of early successes, including:
- Pioneering the integration of skills and business brokerage through the Adult Skills Pilot and Train to Gain
- Developing new ways for businesses and individuals to access business support, including local access points, business intermediaries, and a ‘no wrong door’ approach
- Delivering a new regional Business Link service and embedding start up into the Business Link service from April 2007
- Aligning funding for business solutions through the North East England Investment Centre (NEEIC), which encompasses a variety of funding, with a single application process and common funding criteria.Following the introduction of the Business Support Simplification Programme
Since the introduction of the Business Support Simplification we have worked with regional partners to further simplify business support in the North East. Working together, we have made excellent progress. To find out more about the work that has been undertaken and the progress that has been made, please click here.
