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12 Oct 2009 : Column 606W—continued
Business Links: Manpower
Mr. Prisk: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many business advisers have been employed by Business Link in each of the last 36 months. [289829]
Ms Rosie Winterton: In the context of the question posed, 'business advisers' have been defined as including face-to-face business (link) advisers delivering services under the Business Link brand; that may include functional/sector specialists but not those operating under other service brands e.g. MAS. Internal/telephone based support or partnership staff have not been included.
From 1 April, skills brokerage for Train to Gain was integrated with the Business Link service, accounting for the significant increase in Business Link adviser numbers this year.
Comprehensive national data can only be provided from April 2008 by which time all RDAs had re-contracted to the current network of Business Link providers. Some of the regional data for prior months was held by former Business Link providers and it would be disproportionate cost to collect this information.
| Month | Number of Business Link advisers |
Business: Government Assistance
Anne Main: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much lending has been guaranteed under the Working Capital Scheme. [260555]
Ms Rosie Winterton: £2 billion of guarantees have been provided to banks under the Working Capital Scheme to free up regulatory capital for new lending to UK companies. As a result of action by the Government and the regulatory authorities, leading to improvements in the capital position of the UK banking system since the introduction of the WCS, the Government have been able to allocate resource provision for the WCS to other measures to support businesses, including as announced at the Budget 2009 a trade credit insurance top up scheme and a possible new letters of credit scheme in the Export Credit Guarantee Department.
Mr. Ancram: 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. [273299]
Ms Rosie Winterton: 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 21 August 2009 has offered loans totalling over £470 million to over 4,600 businesses.
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 21 August 2009 has offered loans totalling over £470 million to over 4,600 businesses.
The Technology Strategy Board has supported various collaborative R&D projects.
Nadine Dorries: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much funding his Department and its predecessors allocated for the development of small businesses in (a) Mid Bedfordshire constituency and (b) the East of England in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [280099]
Ian Lucas: East of England Development Agency (EEDA) funds a range of services to support businesses in the East of England.
Since 2007 EEDA has invested over £30 million annually on a range of services to support businesses from all sectors across the region. This includes the regional
Business Link service, specific business support schemes and business finance grants for eligible businesses.
The following information identifies funding for these services.
Note:
Not all of these schemes were in place 10 years ago, therefore funding will be provided as far back as possible. EEDA was not created until 1999; and has only been operating significant business support schemes since 2007.
From 1 April 2007 EEDA has provided £32 million of funding to Business Link East to deliver the service across the region. From 2008/09 Business Link has interacted with 108,391 businesses in the East of England of which 1,416 have been in mid Bedfordshire. Since October 2008 around 8,000 free 'health checks' have been delivered in the region.
For the period of 2005-08 EEDA has funded the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) East to the value of £3.4 million and has awarded a further £3.3 million between 2008-11. Bedfordshire businesses, during the period November 2005-October 2008, received £163,680 worth of business support. 104 companies received a basic one-day review through the MAS-east programme. Of these, nineteen companies also received a full implementation programme resulting in 32 projects which generated gross value added of £613,852.00.
EEDA's Take ITon campaign assists businesses to improve use of IT, focused on helping SMEs save cost through IT. Since December 2007 the regional programme has totalled 347 grants, investing £1,105,508.01 to leverage a total of £3,227,784.06. Mid Bedfordshire Take ITon has funded a total of 11 grants, investing £32,440 and leveraging in a total of £99,166.50.
£2.2 million has funded a regional response to redundancy programme which has supported companies across the region and in Mid Bedfordshire.
EEDA has operated a number of business finance schemes since 2003 such as Grant for Research and Development, Proof of Concept funds, Grants for Business Investment. The amounts funded to date for the former county of Bedfordshire are:
| £ | |
For the former county of Bedfordshire funding totalled £20,845,345 which has been matched against further investment of £134,067,981.
In May 2009 EEDA launched an Understanding Finance for Business Programme which provides coaching and mentoring to SMEs.
EEDA launched a £5 million Regional Loan Fund in May 2009, aimed at supporting innovative SMEs in early growth prior to attracting venture capital funding.
EEDA is also promoting Olympic opportunities to businesses through CompeteFor, a web based portal. So far 9612 businesses have registered in the region and of those 573 are in Bedfordshire.
Nadine Dorries: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how much funding his Department and its predecessors allocated to the development of information technology businesses in (a) Mid Bedfordshire constituency and (b) the East of England in each year since 1997; and if he will make a statement. [280100]
Ian Lucas: East of England Development Agency funds a range of services to support businesses from all sectors across the region. This includes the regional Business Link service, specific business support schemes and business finance grants for eligible businesses.
Key examples of funding and support to IT businesses in the region, where possible, broken down by IT sector and location include:
Since December 2007 £76,561 has been provided through the TakeITon campaign for businesses to receive support for enhanced ICT. Of this, £9,980 in Bedfordshire and £1,980 in mid-Beds.
Since January 2001 EEDA has provided £4,305,127 in Business finance grants in the East of England and of this, £508,050 in Bedfordshire.(1)
(1) Some of the above are grants to businesses under either the Grants for Business Investment (GBI) or Grant for Research and Development (GRaD) programmes. GBI, previously known as Selective Finance for Investment in England (SFIE), transferred to EEDA from the Small Business Service (SBS) in April 2002. GRaD transferred to EEDA from SBS in April 2005.
Greg Clark: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what support his Department is providing to UK companies which are developing low-carbon goods and services. [289850]
Mr. McFadden: In July the Government published the Low Carbon Industrial Strategy which outlined the first investments from the £405 million for low carbon industries and advanced green manufacturing announced at Budget 2009. The strategy announced up to £60 million to capitalise on Britain's wave and tidal sector strengths, up to £15 million capital investment in order to establish a Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Centre, up to £10 million for the accelerated deployment of electric vehicle charging infrastructure, a £4 million expansion of the Manufacturing Advisory Service, up to £6 million to construct low carbon affordable homes and up to £120 million to support the development of a British based offshore wind industry. Copies of the strategy are available in the Libraries of the House.
Mr. George Osborne: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills how many businesses have received money from the Capital for Enterprise Scheme; and how much money has been provided in total under the scheme to date. [291223]
Ms Rosie Winterton [holding answer 16 September 2009]: The Capital for Enterprise Fund (CFEF) provides a total commitment of £75 million, made up of £50 million in public funds and agreement in principle to an additional £25 million from the main banks (Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC and RBS).
As from 10 September 2009, CFEF has made 26 offers totalling almost £40 million to 26 businesses. Two of these deals have completed so far with a total value of £3 million.
Adam Afriyie: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what the criteria are for small and medium-sized enterprises to receive funding from the Capital for Enterprise Fund (CEF); when businesses were first able to apply for funding from the CEF; when the CEF made its first payment; what the (a) total and (b) average monetary value of payments from the CEF has been to date; how many businesses have received funding from the CEF; what steps his Department has taken to promote the CEF to small and medium-sized businesses; and what target time has been established for the CEF to determine applications. [291810]
Ms Rosie Winterton: The Capital for Enterprise Fund (CfEF) makes investments of between £200,000 and £2 million of equity and mezzanine finance. The investment is aimed at releasing and sustaining the growth potential of businesses that are over-geared, under-capitalised or both. To apply, all applicants must have their principal place of business within the UK or be able to demonstrate why an investment will be of tangible benefit to the UK. Additionally, all applications must meet the EU definition of an SME.
CfEF was announced as part of the Real Help Now programme on 14 January and businesses were able to register their applications for the fund immediately through a dedicated registration service. Following an appointment process the contracted Fund Managers were able to start processing these in March.
As at 22 September five businesses had received investment from the CfEF totalling £6.15 million at an average of £ 1.23 million per deal. The first investment was completed on 31 July.
The Department has marketed the CfEF to businesses as part of the wider programme of support through Real Help, in particular through Business Link and using national and regional promotional activity which includes sources of communications used by the main business representative bodies to their members. The CfEF Fund Managers have also produced a promotional flyer which is distributed to businesses through their network of professional bodies.
As a commercial fund the investment process for CfEF involves a period of due diligence and negotiation, which involves the fund manager and potential investee company and often existing investors and lenders to the business. The length of time required to complete this can vary significantly in each case and there is no formal target time between an application and investment, although the managers are working to progress investments as quickly as possible.
Business: Regulation
Mr. Hayes: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Business, Innovation and Skills what recent estimate his Department has made of the cost to UK businesses of the administrative burden of regulation. [290233]
Ian Lucas: In May 2005, the administrative cost of regulations was measured using the internationally recognised Standard Cost Model. The measurement exercise included 19 Government Departments, regulators and agencies. The burden was estimated at £13.2 billion annually. The Government have committed to reduce administrative burdens associated with complying with regulations by 25 per cent. net by May 2010. As at December 2008, an estimated £1.9 billion net annual savings had been delivered.
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