After all the cuts, now comes the Government’s drive to help stimulate business growth. There are going to be a minimum of 500,000 job losses in the public sector, so the Government is banking on private firms to pick up the slack.
It has duly published a document, entitled Backing Small Business, which details its plans for encouraging entrepreneurship. These include improving access to finance and making it easier to do business with the public sector.
Among other measures, the Enterprise Finance Guarantee (EFG) is to continue for the next four years, making around £2 billion available to viable small companies without a credit history or collateral. A further £200 million is to be made available to Enterprise Capital Funds supporting equity investments in the highest growth potential businesses. That is on top of the £1.5 billion Business Growth Fund which is being run by the banks.
When it comes to tendering for public sector contracts (a pot of business worth some £236 billion), the Government has pledged itself to a target of awarding a quarter of all government projects to SMEs.
Hopefully, these actions will make a difference, but, even so, it is likely to remain tough for smaller firms that are looking for growth capital. If you would like any expert assistance in putting together a funding request, be it from your bank or an alternative source of investment, we would be more than willing to lend our help.
For more information contact Bernadette Gibson at bernadette@jackross.co.uk or visit our Contact Page.