Enterprise support is changing. In the recent Budget, the Chancellor announced that the Government would be scrapping LEPs and instead, working with local authorities to support businesses at a local level.

While the jury is very much out on how this will work (see the latest post from the LEP Network), one unitary authority is already ahead of the curve – Southampton City Council.

We’ve been fortunate enough to work with SCC for the last two years, delivering a digital skills programme for over 100 SMEs, CICs and charities in the city.

Now, after securing SPF funding from the Government, we are now in the process of training their Skills and Apprenticeship team to become a bona fide business ‘hub’.

This is the perfect base from which to build a new type of enterprise support offering. By training up the team and adding in an innovative part e-learning/part CRM platform, it should be possible to support large amounts of business owners.

Over the next two years, we are very much looking forward to helping Jodi Fair and her team to become business support ‘pioneers’ – in the process, making a huge difference to the lives of hundreds of SMEs across Southampton and beyond.