Business Link
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Abbreviation | BL |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1993 |
| Legal status | Not for profit company |
| Purpose/focus | Business support in England |
| Location | England, in nine regional offices |
| Region served | England |
| Website | Business Link |
| United Kingdom |
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Business Link is the Government funded business support service. This is delivered both online and also via a regional network of business advisers. The departments in charge of this programme are BIS (for the regional network) and HMRC (for the website).
Contents |
[edit] History
The concept was set up by Michael Heseltine, the then President of the Board of Trade, in December 1992 when in charge of the DTI. The first six were originally called the One Stop Shop, when in the pilot-stage, and expanded during 1994. In September 1993 the first Business Links opened. Around £3m was spent by the government on the programme in that year, however only three were open by the end of the year. The first three Business Links were in Birmingham, Congleton, Leicester with fifty four being initially planned. Leicester was the first to open, which opened on 27 September 1993. Whilst chambers of commerce (also known as boards of trade) allowed co-operation and social interaction amongst local companies, Business Links were offering business support, and education, as well with government funding. Howver some chambers of commerce also ran local Business Links. By 1997 the network was complete with 89 Business Links at that time. In 1997, around 10,000 businesses were using the service each week. The 89 Business Links had around 650 Personal Business Advisers. Business Link was aimed at companies with personnel of between 10-200.
[edit] Outside of England
Early business support in Scotland was called Scottish Business Shop. in Wales it was Business Connect, and in Northern Ireland it was called Local Enterprise Development Unit.
[edit] The Website
The Business Link Website, www.businesslink.gov.uk was launched in its current form in May 2004 as part of the Transformational Government programme – a larger initiative aimed at rationalising the hundreds of government websites that exist and bringing them together into fewer, larger more usable sites. Businesslink.gov.uk is intended to ultimately be the only website that hosts official government information for businesses. The timeline for this is relatively short with all convergence of information from all government websites due to happen by March 2011. At the minute, three “super-sites” are planned for business, health and general information.
[edit] Website sections
Support on the Business Link site is broken up into “themes” – groupings of relevant information for new, established or potential businesses. The current themes on the site are:
- Starting Up – information for people who are, or who are thinking of, starting a business
- Finance & Grants – information on managing business finances and also on what support is available
- Tax, Returns & Payroll – all essential business tax information
- Employing People – information of hiring & firing, handling disputes, minimum wages, flexible working and other relevant information for any business with employees
- Health, Safety & Premises – information on regulations relating to business premises and health & safety
- Environment & Efficiency – information and advice on environmental regulations and how to make businesses greener
- Exploit your Ideas – advice and guidance on all areas of research, development and intellectual property
- IT & eCommerce – information on getting the right digital infrastructure for your business
- Sales & Marketing – information on how to market businesses on and offline, and relevant regulations
- International Trade – information on how to trade overseas, including commodity codes etc
- Grow your Business – advice & guidance on how to grow businesses
- Buy or Sell a Business – information on how to correctly buy or sell a business, including franchises
- For Professional Advisers – information for intermediary professionals such as accountants, tax advisers, HR officers etc
- Your Business Sector – specific information for business types such as farming, transport etc
Information on the site comes in the form of guides (pages of text information), interactive tools (in which businesses can get personalised information) and transactions (in which businesses can for example, calculate their VAT). All content is developed by sector specialists from within government and business support organisations such as the Chartered Institute of Marketing.
[edit] The Regional Network
Business Link’s face-to-face service operates on a region by region basis across England and funded by the relevant Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). These regions are:
[edit] Personal support
Face to face support uses an IDB&T model – Information, Diagnostic, Brokerage and Transaction to advise businesses based on their individual needs.
Regional Business Links also usually run various events and workshops on topical issues and general business skills.
[edit] Regional variation
Business Link only operates in England. Sister-services in the other countries in the UK are Business Gateway in Scotland (run by Scottish Enterprise), NI Business Info in Northern Ireland and Flexible Business Support in Wales. These countries provide their own regional networks as well as a rebranded version of the Business Link website.
[edit] Sponsorship
It sponsors the UK Startup Awards.
