Are you in the business of helping businesses get more efficient, more profitable or perhaps greener? If so, we want to hear from you.
We are looking for business support providers for a series of projects designed to offer businesses of all shapes and sizes here in Plymouth extra advice and support in particularly testing times.
There were 6,965 enterprises in Plymouth in 2022. At 411 per 10,000 working age population, this is significantly lower than the UK average of 697. A number of target groups are more likely to be economically inactive including women, people from an ethnic minority background, people aged over 50 and those with long-term sickness. Only 6.5 per cent of working-age females are self-employed in Plymouth, considerably lower than the average for the South West at 8.7 per cent.
The Council has been awarded funding through the UK Shared Prosperity Fund to commission a range of support for local businesses all designed to make new business more confident as well as encourage entrepreneurial spirit in underrepresented groups.
The projects cover four themes:
Start-ups – free advice and support for new business start-ups
This scheme will aim to understand of the needs of specific target groups and help address business issues essential to successful start-up including compliance, governance, appropriate business models and regulatory information, business strategy and planning, finance, idea development, market research and market understanding, customers and selling, managing and running a small business and employing people.
General business support including scaling up, innovation and ways to retain staff
This programme aims to provide free support to businesses in all stages of growth. It will provide guidance on attracting investment and talent. It will also provide guidance on what a viable business proposition is and how to stand out from the crowd.
Social enterprise/cooperative advice
Free advice for new start and existing social enterprises to help maintain sustainability, secure growth and create new jobs. This project is expected to include financial management, marketing, organisational health checks, strategic planning, growth and new product/service development, community share issues for co-operatives.
Net zero – Free Net Zero business support
This scheme will encourage businesses to be more environmentally conscious as they grow, looking at ways to decarbonise and provide information, tool and resources. The programme aims to support businesses in their journey to net zero and should include easily accessible online presence, 1:1 support for a targeted number of businesses including an audit and the development of a decarbonisation plan.
If it sounds as though your organisation could help with any of these, get in touch for more details of the project you are interested in running.
You have until mid-September to apply and we are looking for the programmes to go live in October.
See our procurement portal to apply:
- General Business Support: 25251 - General Business Support (due-north.com)
- Start-up Business Support: 25257 - Start-up Business Support (due-north.com)
- Social Enterprise Business Support: 25258 - Social Enterprise Support (due-north.com)
- Net Zero Business Support: 25259 - Net Zero Business Support (due-north.com)