I want to ensure that small and medium sized businesses in all parts of the UK are supported to emerge stronger from the COVID-19 pandemic, driving innovation, growth and job creation. As such, I am writing to you to ask for your support in communicating the opportunities of the government’s Help to Grow business support programmes to your members.
The two Help to Grow programmes – Help to Grow: Management and Help to Grow: Digital – aim to boost productivity and drive growth among the UK’s small and medium sized businesses with over half a billion pounds of funding.
Help to Grow: Management has been running since July 2021, providing business leaders with 90% subsidised management and leadership training from UK business schools, to help them learn new skills and boost profits. The Office for National Statistics has found that even small changes to management practices can yield an almost 10% increase in business productivity. Businesses across the country have reported greater confidence and expectations of growth after attending the course.
Launched in January, Help to Grow: Digital offers businesses free and impartial advice and the chance to apply for a financial discount worth up to £5,000 towards the costs of purchasing approved, productivity enhancing software, with the initial focus on digital accounting and customer relationship management. The scheme can help businesses save time and money, so boosting their performance and growth by becoming more innovative, more competitive, and more profitable. Research by the Enterprise Research Council and the Office for National Statistics has found that adopting digital technologies is linked to business productivity increases of 7-25%.
The programmes are open to businesses with 5-249 employees. Both will continue to develop and scale – the scope of technologies covered by the Help to Grow: Digital financial discount will expand and Help to Grow: Management will be rolled out to more business schools.
You can find more information on the benefits of Help to Grow via our communications toolkit, which contains promotional messaging and videos for the Management and Digital schemes to share on your social media channels and in newsletters to your networks and members.
I also invite you to sign up to an online event where you will learn more about the schemes and how we can work together in promoting the excellent Help to Grow offer. You can register for a place here.
If you have any questions or comments, please do not hesitate to contact the Help to Grow team at [email protected].
Your support is much appreciated.
RT HON KWASI KWARTENG MP
Secretary of State, Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy
RT HON RISHI SUNAK MP
Chancellor of the Exchequer