EEDA - East of England Development Agency

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What EEDA does for business - responding to the credit crunch

Businesses are the lifeblood of the East of England economy. In response to the current economic climate, EEDA is flexing and reprioritising our budgets and programmes to enhance our support for businesses.

This year, EEDA will:

• invest more than £30 million in business support services
• provide advice and specialist support to over 100,000 businesses in the region 
• create over 1,500 businesses and safeguard or create almost 6,000 jobs
• improve the skills of 30,000 people
• and lever in over £300 million of private sector investment.

In response to the changing economic environment EEDA is flexing and reprioritising our budgets and programmes to enhance our support for businesses, adding additional services where needed.

In August 2008 EEDA announced a £10 million economic support package which included:

• a £4.4 million investment in a new Integrated Specialist Business Support Programme
• a £6.2 million investment in a new skills programme, Beyond 2010
• enhancements to the regional Business Link service
• and additional funding for some of our grant funding programmes.

In addition we have brought forward another tranche of funding to support:

• a £5 million Transitional Loan Fund scheduled to launch in 2009
• a £250,000 Innovation Voucher scheme which launched in January 2009
• an additional £250,000 to support our enterprise agencies.

EEDA support businesses in three key ways:

1. We ensure that access to advice and information is easy to find and use.

• The Business Map, based on an underground map that shows the vast array of publicly-funded business support available in the region and helps businesses find the right advice quickly and easily.  For information visit The Business Map website. 
• Business Link is the gateway to business support in the region. Business Link provides a wealth of advice and support to help people start, maintain and grow their businesses, signposting to specialist support providers as appropriate. EEDA’s £15 million investment in a regional Business Link service has led to over 100,000 businesses a year being supported.

What’s New?
In addition to continuing to promote The Business Map, EEDA is coordinating a regional campaign aimed at increasing the use of publicly funded business support services which kicked off with a mailing to businesses in January 2009. Click here to see a copy of the letter sent by Richard Ellis, EEDA chair.

We’ve made the following changes to our Business Link service:

• introduced free ‘health checks’ to SMEs for early identification of potential problems and support
• made all Business Link events free – waiving the £30 fee and saving businesses in the region around £400,000 per year
• enhanced support for access to finance information and advice with advisers able to spend more detailed time with companies in need of help.

2. We provide high-quality, integrated and relevant business support.

The East of England has a strong and rich knowledge based economy. EEDA provides a number of support services offering expert, tailored advice to ensure businesses remain competitive and innovative. Examples include: (please note this is not an exhaustive list):

• the Manufacturing Advisory Service (MAS) works to boost the productivity of manufacturing companies across the region. Since 2005 MAS has helped over 1,500 businesses and generated GVA growth in the region of £30 million
• East of England International (EEI) provides the support needed to help businesses grow internationally. EEI also work with overseas-owned companies locating in the region and local businesses exporting their services and products
• the Enterprising Women programme has helped over 3,000 women start or grow a business
• ‘takeITon’ helps businesses in the region increase their efficiency and competitive advantage through IT.  240 companies have received funding through takeITon generating an investment of £2.25 million in IT
• 'BizGrowthEast' is an exciting campaign for entrepreneurs in the East of England. BizGrowthEast acts as a simple gateway to all the support, routes to finance and investment advice on offer in the region from EEDA, and is delivered in conjunction with Business Link
• we have a comprehensive innovation offer which helps businesses and institutions that want to compete through innovation. This includes knowledge transfer programmes, business collaboration networks and specialist facilities and environments
• we support i10, an organisation which enables businesses to connect with the universities in the East of England. They also run a number of programmes such as GradsEast which helps small businesses to recruit new graduates.

What’s new?

• £6.2 million in Beyond 2010 - This project works alongside Train to Gain to ensure that businesses can get the skills training that they need. This includes £2.2 million of funding to support a regional response to redundancy programme
• £4.4 million in Integrated Specialist Business Support Programme which provides specialist advice for businesses covering manufacturing, innovation and design. The Manufacturing Advice Service launched in November 2008 with Designing Demand and Innovation Advisory Services due to go live in March 2009
• £2.1 million investment in Resource Efficiency East. This scheme helps businesses to improve their competitiveness by using resources more efficiently
• £750,000 investment in Inspiring Women, a new programme which provides intensive pre-start up support for women
• additional £250,000 of grant funding for ‘takeITon’
• £250,000 to launch an Innovation Voucher scheme aimed at helping small and medium-sized businesses to innovate by linking them with relevant expertise within the region’s universities
• an additional £250,000 to support our enterprise agencies to help them cope with increased demand.

3. We support companies looking to turn their business idea into reality.

• in 2008/09, EEDA will invest almost £10 million to help companies turn their ideas into reality through our Finance for Innovation offer – a package of targeted financial support products
• this investment is forecast to lever in an additional £45 million of private sector investment and secure 450 regional jobs.

What’s new?

• £600,000 provided for two additional rounds of ‘Proof of Concept’ funding for businesses looking to define their market and identify customer needs
• AVAILABLE IN 2009: a £5 million transitional loan fund to help small and medium-sized businesses with short to medium-term cash flow problems is due to launch in April 2009.

Enquiries

EEDA funds Business Link East and agrees their activity. Business Link is the central point of contact for all business support enquiries, therefore please direct business enquiries about any of the above services to Business Link on 08457 17 16 15.

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