Small Businesses: Government Assistance

Department for Business, Innovation and Skills written question – answered at on 25 September 2015.

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Photo of Lord Taylor of Warwick Lord Taylor of Warwick Non-affiliated

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they plan to take to raise awareness of government projects designed to help small businesses.

Photo of Baroness Neville-Rolfe Baroness Neville-Rolfe The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport, The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills

The Government is already undertaking steps to raise awareness of government projects designed to help small businesses.

For those firms looking to export, UK Trade and Investment provides tailored advice, information and support to small businesses, whether exporting for the first time or more experienced exporters seeking to expand their business into new but challenging markets.

UKTI runs events for small businesses in towns and cities across the country, providing access to support and information locally and discussions with trade advisers. It also works with partner organisations such as the Business Growth Service, Growth Hubs, the major banks, and chambers of commerce to help small businesses export. UKTI delivers thousands of international business opportunities for companies to access online and also runs online exporting webinars with 15,000 companies expected to attend 500+ events this year. Support is also made available through gov.uk/ukti and across UKTI social media channels.

Building on this the Government is launching Exporting is GREAT (part of the award-winning GREAT campaign) during Export Week in November 2015. The Government’s most ambitious export campaign ever, it aims to inspire and support 100,000 new British businesses to sell their goods and services overseas by 2020. Export Week itself will see over 90 events across the UK, attracting over 5000 companies to attend exporting related activities in a single week

For advice on hiring apprentices, the Government works with the Skills Funding Agency to encourage businesses of all sizes to recruit apprentices and trainees through its free online vacancy filling system.

The offer includes the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers, which provides a £1,500 grant for employers with less than 50 staff for each of their first five apprentices aged 16-24, supporting small businesses who want to recruit apprentices in this age group. By joining forces with HMRC more than 90,000 businesses of all sizes are made aware of our apprenticeships offer every month.

We also work with the Federation of Small Businesses and the British Chambers of Commerce to encourage more small businesses to embrace apprenticeships.

For other general business support, we have established a network of regional Growth Hubs which offer support and advice at the local level, as well as the online Business Growth Service, designed to help high growth companies reach their full potential.

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