Business: Government Assistance
Business, Innovation and Skills
Written answers and statements, 12 October 2009
Michael Ancram (Devizes, Conservative)
To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many small businesses in England have received assistance from his Department in the last 12 months.
Rosie Winterton (Minister of State (Yorkshire and the Humber), Department for Communities and Local Government; Doncaster Central, Labour)
Business Link is the Department's main channel of support businesses of all sizes. In the 12 months to end June 2009, advisers helped over 930,800 businesses, with over 76,000 receiving intensive one-to-one support. The businesslink.gov.uk website attracted around 11.2 million visitors in the same period.
Examples of other specific assistance received by small and medium sized enterprises from BIS and its predecessors include:
In 2008/09, UK Trade and Investment activities assisted 20,700 individual companies to exploit opportunities in overseas markets.
The Enterprise Finance Guarantee, which up to
The Technology Strategy Board has supported various collaborative R&D projects and knowledge transfer activities:
Nearly 1,000 SMEs have received grants for collaborative R&D projects worth over £25 million in the 12 month to June 2009.
Over 760 SMEs have received support for Knowledge Transfer Partnerships totalling over £18 million in the 12 months to July 2009.
In addition 57,000 are members of our Knowledge Transfer Networks of which a proportion are SMEs.
Skill support to SMEs through Train to Gain. Provisional information for 2008/09 shows that within the academic year 100,000 SMEs have had an employee start a Train to Gain course.
The annual reports for BERR and DIUS describe the other forms of business support provided more fully in 2008/09.
Business Link is the Department's main channel of support businesses of all sizes. In the 12 months to end June 2009, advisers helped over 930,800 businesses, with over 76,000 receiving intensive one-to-one support. The businesslink.gov.uk website attracted around 11.2 million visitors in the same period.
Examples of other specific assistance received by small and medium sized enterprises from BIS and its predecessors include:
In 2008/09, UK Trade and Investment activities assisted 20,700 individual companies to exploit opportunities in overseas markets.
The Enterprise Finance Guarantee, which up to
The Technology Strategy Board has supported various collaborative R&D projects.