The government recently launched the GrowthAccelerator scheme to help as many as 26,000 of the country’s brightest small businesses.
The government has partnered with the private sector to encourage business experts to work with companies and help them identify the barriers that are preventing them from growing and showing them how to overcome them.
Among the problems the scheme hopes to tackle are securing finance, developing leadership and management capabilities and commercialising innovation.
Vince Cable, the business secretary, launched the programme at cloud collaboration company Huddle. At the launch, Cable said that the UK has plenty of vibrant SMEs that could be household names in the future. GrowthAccelerator will give entrepreneurs the targeted support they need to take their business to the next level.
In addition to the coaching element, the scheme aims to fast track clients to trusted business advisor’s, such as angel investors and UK Trade and Investment.
Mark Prisk, the business and enterprise minister, welcomed the scheme saying the UK economy needs successful entrepreneurs if it is to grow and GrowthAccelerator will help them to realise their full potential. Furthermore, his department is starting up a network of thousands of business mentors and the government is just about to launch a start-up loans scheme so that young people can access business advice as well as a small amount of funding.
The government has been very proactive in setting up schemes to help new businesses, but are they really working? There has been an increase in the number of people turning to self-employment in recent months, but is that because they truly want to run their own business, or simply because they are unable to secure salaried employment?
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