Putting it all back together again
Times are undeniably hard – and getting harder. So what has the government actually done which may make a difference for Hampshire's struggling businesses?
One of the most tangible moves has been the decision to make sure all contractors working for public sector bodies are paid within 10 working days of receiving an invoice.
This standard has been adopted by central government departments to help small and medium enterprises get hold of much-needed cash, and is being extended to agencies such as Seeda, with letters also going out to NHS trusts and councils nationwide to encouraging them to adopt the practice.
Portsmouth NHS Trust confirmed it had received a letter and was considering the proposals, and Mike Hancock MP, business chief at Portsmouth City Council, said he expected to see it brought into force at the council 'within weeks'.
He said: 'I think that's essential, and if we can do that we should. I can see no reason why not, and I think the authority has a duty to pay its debts in a timely fashion. One of the big problems is you've often got a premier contractor, and then a series of subcontractors, and sometimes the subcontractors would be lucky to be paid within 60 days.
'A lot of small businesses have serious cash-flow problems. Say you're building a ship with a premier contractor, and then they employ lots of smaller subcontractors. There's a chain. And what we need to do is to make sure the first link in that chain is paid on time.'
At a meeting of The Business Panel at lunchtime on Thursday, other plans to take the pressure off Portsmouth's 6,600 SMEs were laid out.
The first was a 'soft loans' scheme. 'Say they need 30,000,' said Mr Hancock. 'If they can find 10,000 themselves, the bank can find 10,000, then we'd loan another 10,000. Some of the banks are finding it difficult to fund things, and that's one of the things businesses have been raising with me.'
The council also wants to offer rent discounts for businesses moving into council-owned business premises such as Victory Business Centre in Fratton, Challenge Enterprise Centre, Anchorage Road, and Portsmouth Enterprise Centre, Quatremaine Road, for the first two years.
A further proposal is for a rapid-response team to help get redundant workers back to employment.
Mr Hancock said senior council officers were now working on these proposals, and he hoped it would be 'days or weeks' before they could be implemented.
Other measures being rolled out nationally include a 350m boost to the Train to Gain programme, run by the Department for Innovation and Skills.
Train to Gain has been running for two years, and subsidises vocational courses for employees. It intends to use the lump sum to fund courses for small businesses, and has changed its rules allowing it to fund small, bite-sized modules instead of full-blown courses.
The rules for the 30m Leadership Management Programme have also been bent. Previously only businesses with more than 10 staff could apply for subsidised management training, but now firms as small as five can use the scheme.
The government is also slashing the number of publicly-funded business support initiatives from 3,000 to just 30, with many schemes merged. Details on this are available on www.berr.gov.uk/whatwedo/enterprise , and by clicking on the 'Simplifying Business Support' link.
To contact BusinessLink, which can put you in touch with support programmes, call 0845 600 9006.
To contact Train to Gain to find out if you can obtain funding for a skills course, call 0800 015 55 44.
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Sunday 12 February 2012
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