Buckinghamshire Business First
Buckinghamshire, in the South East of England, has one of the highest proportions of microbusinesses in the country with 91.5 per cent of all businesses employing less than ten people. Buckinghamshire Business First was first developed as a joint venture between ten local entrepreneurs and business leaders to support business growth in Buckinghamshire in 2011, aiming to establishing a place for businesses to access support. While BBF is not local authority led, Buckinghamshire council matched the initial funding put up by the founders and others and have been a major contributor over the last ten years, co-investing in the support. BBF has grown to a team of 60 people and is able to provide a wide range of support and advice, as well as being able to triage towards other Business Support Organisations where relevant.
BBF have several support programmes for microbusinesses which benefit the local economy and, in total, actively engage with around 13,500 of the 32,000 total businesses in Buckinghamshire. Support has been focussed on the four priority sectors, space, creative industries, high tech manufacturing and health, but also provides help to all businesses which need support. The first support offer is to act as a point of contact, both by email and by phone, for high volume enquiries. They have also run a number of opportunities around helping small businesses to decarbonise, the funding of which has come from the European Research and Development Fund.
In addition, BBF do a considerable amount of outreach. For microbusinesses, they have set up pop-up stalls in shopping centres and around shops and engaged with the local community boards in Buckinghamshire. Buckinghamshire Business First also have strong links with the council. Awareness of the organisation and what they do is part of the induction package for new councillors, and the organisation is working with councillors to ensure that business owners who contact a councillor for assistance are passed on to them.
In turn, the overall programme has benefitted Buckinghamshire in several ways. BBF supports the councils’ aspirations around having a strong local economy and supporting microbusinesses, through the provision of several support programmes. It also removes the risk of duplication of provision, and pools resources to better help all microbusinesses. It is essential for businesses to understand where to go for support and therefore having the single point of contact has been particularly useful.
The council also gains considerable benefit from their investment in BBF. As BBF is the main business support organisation in Buckinghamshire, there is an opportunity to leverage funding to achieve better results than individual support organisations. For every pound contributed by Buckinghamshire Council, BBF can leverage that funding to generate £14 of additional funding, benefitting businesses through this and through economic of scale. These benefits demonstrate the success of the co-investment model.
Buckinghamshire Business First has been very successful in supporting microbusinesses and other businesses through the variety of offers. During the 2020/21 year, they have assisted 50,000 businesses, helped create 710 jobs, and helped bring 400 new products to market. Much of this has been focussed on microbusinesses. The next year of activities for Buckinghamshire Business First will have a major focus on Covid recovery support, in addition to SME growth and productivity, including supporting microbusinesses in priorities around decarbonisation, innovation, and job creation.
Key message: A co-investment model, where one business support organisation exists in which the council invests, is useful to leverage funding and to avoid the duplication of support.
Key Learning: Funding can be leveraged through this model, as the pooling of resources generates certain economies of scale and size, enabling the organisation to access other sources of funding.
A single organisation providing support can act as a single point of contact, ensuring that microbusinesses know where to go to access help and avoiding the risks of duplication.
Ensure that councillors are aware of the organisation, and that they are willing to direct those who need support to the organisation.
Staffordshire County Council
Staffordshire, located in the West Midlands, has a history of providing support to microbusinesses, both as part of a wider offer for SME businesses and through a number of specific programmes. The council also has a strong collaborative relationship with Business Support Organisations. Staffordshire has 29,545 microbusinesses, according to the latest estimates from the ONS. This accounts for 89.6 per cent of total businesses within Staffordshire, the vast majority of all businesses within the county. Therefore, while there has been a focus on SME businesses, this has naturally meant concentrating on microbusinesses in most of their programmes, in addition to bespoke support specifically designed for microbusinesses.
These are mainly focused on the county’s priority sectors, including manufacturing, engineering, professional services, as well as the leisure and tourism sector. They also provide support through their direct programmes to any business in need. To ensure there is no duplication across the county, and to help develop a shared understanding of the types of provision across Staffordshire, the council hosts a bimonthly roundtable of all business support across the borough. This has been ongoing for several years and has been very successful in developing the relationships of business support organisations across the council. The forum allows business support organisations to share information with each other and directly offer help, with the growth hub advisors being able to coordinate and understand this range.
Having this understanding is essential for the offer which is provided by the Council. One example of this is the provision of a service for small businesses, run under procurement by the chamber of commerce. This allows any small business to phone or email an expert who can provide guidance them with issues, such as regulation, or put them in contact with a Business Support Organisation which could help. The helpline now receives between about 100 and 120 calls per day, in addition to receiving 140 to 180 emails per day.
The county also provides more direct targeted programmes. Staffordshire went into partnership with the Black Country Reinvestment scheme to lend money to businesses, primarily microbusinesses, which have struggled to access other funding over the last decade. These businesses are often seen as too risky or without the track record to secure other funding. This has been successful, and they are now ready to launch the sixth round of funding.
During the pandemic, Staffordshire have also founded a half a million-pound emergency grant fund for microbusinesses, to support them with grants of up to £1000, for any business that was struggling to pay a bill as a result of the pandemic. The scheme launched in June 2020 and has supported businesses across the county which have not met government support criteria.
Finally, the county has also set up a support scheme for those who have been made redundant to help them to start a business. This has so far supported 182 people, of whom 57 per cent are female, while 42 per cent are under 30. This support scheme includes confidence building courses and information for launching a business. The scheme has helped over half to start trading, or to be prepared to start trading. The council is now considering a second cohort of people to support.
However, there is still a challenge in reaching out to microbusinesses which do not engage with any of the support offered by the Council or business support organisations within Staffordshire. While the county has been able to engage with up to a third, through various activities such as newsletters, the county still has ambitions to take this further, and are planning sessions to engage with those hard-to-reach businesses through workshops.
Key Message: A council which understands its business base and the support organisations in the area can act in a convening role to ensure that the council can provide support which is best tailored to the needs of microbusinesses.
Key Learning: Frequent collaboration and discussion between business support organisations can generate opportunities for cooperation and a greater understanding of the needs of microbusinesses.
It is challenging to reach large numbers of microbusinesses, even where they would benefit from support the council provides.
Kingston-Upon-Hull
The City of Kingston-Upon-Hull, in Yorkshire and The Humber, has a sizable proportion of microbusinesses, with 82.9 per cent of total enterprises having less than ten employees. The economy team in the Council have worked extensively to support microbusinesses and are now embarking on a process of consultation for a new strategy to support them.
The provision by Hull includes grants through the John Cracknell Youth Enterprise Bank. Focussed on young people up to the age of 21, this offers grants of up to £1,000 for individuals or groups to support the development of their ideas. This has benefitted over 450 young people during the fund’s existence, in a range of different areas, from computing to hairdressing equipment. The scheme has won a number of awards for its offer.
During the pandemic, Hull have also supported microbusinesses where there is no existing provision. This has been particularly focussed on microbusinesses which do not qualify for government support grants, and is aimed at sustaining the business, and in some cases for the business owner. This has provided a total of 128 grants, 85 focussed on business while the rest are focussed on the social stability of the business owner. The issues which these grants cover are extensive, but can be as simple as supporting the purchasing of internet data where businesses cannot afford to do this.
In addition, the pandemic has enabled them to better work with their existing contacts. For example, there has been a more informal atmosphere over online meeting software, but this has enabled them to better understand the businesses priorities and to meet the needs of young people. This has highlighted the need for additional help for the wellbeing for sole traders and small microbusinesses.
They have also put in place policies to reach out to microbusiness owners across the area. They have run a series of engagement events, where they invite owners to present their business, and the audience, which includes a range of young people and professionals who can bid to help the microbusiness through their time or through a financial contribution. They have also run events in shopping centres, Sure Start centres and many other places. Further, they have actively engaged with voluntary community groups and others, both before and during the pandemic.
Hull are now developing a new strategy for engagement with microbusinesses to help the development of the priorities of the new Hull and East Yorkshire LEP, and for the planned “One Yorkshire” devolution. Within this, they are prioritising all microbusinesses, expanding their support from young people to encompass business across the whole spectrum.
They are also creating a charter for microbusinesses within Hull, for the whole of the business landscape including the Council, which is being developed from grassroots engagement. This will give them a firm foundation for moving forward and provide an effective lobbying force for further supporting microbusinesses within the LEP.
This is being developed currently through a first round of consultations with 100 individuals either from a microbusiness or from a business support organisation, with the split being roughly even. They are intending to go through another couple of rounds of consultation for the work to get genuine buy in from microbusinesses and support organisations.
This consultation aims to understand the needs of microbusinesses and to understand what support they need in the future. Early findings indicate that many they have struggled to access funding, and that a combination of grants and loans is likely to be of most benefit. The strategy is also taking into account other support provision and is ensuring that there is no duplication.
While the new strategy is being developed, Hull is continuing to maintain its current support offer focussed on young people. Once the strategy is developed, the team have bold ideas on how to expand support further to disenfranchised communities, ensuring they have access to support to set up a microbusiness.
Key Message: A council which has a history of providing specific support to young people starting microbusinesses which is now focussed on expanding the support it provides and contributing to the priorities for devolution and the new LEP.
Key Learning: There are opportunities for councils to be agile in providing support to microbusinesses in areas which have been identified as having no existing support, particularly during the pandemic.
In consultation with business support organisations and microbusinesses, the council is beginning to understand the specific issues which impact on them across Hull.
Leicester City Council
Leicester, like many areas across the country, have seen the number of microbusiness enterprises outgrow the overall rise in businesses in the past decade. The number of businesses in the area have grown by 62 per cent between 2010 and 2020, whilst businesses with an employment size band of 0-9 employees have overseen a 67 per cent increase. The creative and cultural sector are considered to be important priority sectors in Leicester, and Leicester’s Economic Action Plan refers to opportunities for strong growth especially in regard to the growing cluster of creative industries centred on St George’s Cultural Quarter - one of four Leicester Business Investment Areas to help accelerate growth in priority sectors.
Building on previous successes in running European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) funded creative enterprise projects within the area, Leicester City Council (LCC) delivered an additional ERDF funded project in the form of the Creative Enterprise Hub (CEH) in 2010. LCC developed the CEH to build on the success of past ERDF funded projects by providing an offer in the Cultural Quarter on top of the workspace offer at Phoenix Square and Makers’ Yard, and the established offer at Leicester Creative Business (LCB) Depot. This hub was established to help provide comprehensive business development programmes to the creative industries in Leicester - of which a large proportion are micro-sized. An evaluation of the CEH programme found that the most common type of businesses supported by the project were microbusinesses, with 70% of respondents employing only one person, including themselves.
The CEH programme was split into two core elements: the first focused on pre and early start businesses, whilst the second was concentrated on developing existing creative businesses in Leicester. Having identified the creative industry as a growth sector in Leicester, LCC recognised that creative businesses needed particular focus and provided this via the CEH. This offer included: face-to-face support, 1-2-1 coaching, mentoring, tailored management and growth workshops, supply chain networking events, and signposting to other relevant organisations.
The evaluation found the programme to be hugely successful as it has supported creative entrepreneurs to begin trading and establish themselves, and many pre-existing businesses have flourished as a result of the support received, overcoming barriers, and entering new markets that the entrepreneurs felt they would not have overcome without CEH support. The programme was also found to have provided creative businesses with confidence to get started; confidence to grow and expand; support with revenue and cashflow; and has helped develop business networks within the Cultural Quarter. The development of networks amongst businesses has allowed them to form partnerships and share good practice and learnings with each other. As a result, the area now has a thriving creative business network, with many examples of collaboration between firms, and of businesses wanting to be located in the Quarter to participate in these networks and access the talent and expertise of these businesses.
This particular example highlights where a council successfully identified their priority area before providing bespoke support. The Council has also been able to support microbusinesses during the pandemic by partnering with their local growth hub to provide a host of webinar programmes, including one on setting up a website to help designer-makers get online which proved to be very successful and led to the webinar being repeated multiple times. The LCC also identified the development of networks to have helped with spreading of information regarding support offers available within the area amongst creative businesses, alongside the existence of a council-wide newsletter for creative businesses.
Whilst the CEH programme has been highly beneficial for creative businesses in Leicester, there is a need for a coordinated approach to build on the success of the current workspace provision and of similar projects to retain this activity in the Cultural Quarter. The council understands that to ensure this continues to grow, any successor project would need to include the mentoring and face to face support that CEH provided – which were the most subscribed support services.
Key Message: Councils can support the growth of priority sectors, such as the creative industries in Leicester, by providing space, advice, and workshops to microbusinesses.
Key learning: There is a need to identify specific priority areas, so support can be tailored towards the needs of microbusinesses within those sectors.
The success of a tailored support programme can generate considerable returns, including collaboration and networking between businesses, and encourage more businesses to engage with the programme.
Build on this approach, and similar approaches, to ensure that the success of these types of projects are secured in the long term.