Snapshot of Annual Report 2009

Over the last 12 months we experienced the first full year under contract with Business Link West Midlands and were one of its best performing contractors.  The number of new business starts increased slightly over last year with 236 in total.  These are clients who have received help from us before they started to trade.  However. we also had in excess of 35 individuals asking for business support within their first month of trading and our advisers supported over 20 existing businesses with the Staffordshire Moorlands Grant application.  Significantly, 153 clients confirmed that they had survived their first year of trading.

This year has seen continued high demand for our training, with 290 people attending 34 courses.  As part of our Early Entry to Enterprise Programme we offered extended tarining over 13 weeks to help clients develop their business ideas.

New Deal for Self-employment also continued apace this year although the numbers going into self-employment at the end of their 26 week test trading period was disappointing at 54%, mainly due to the number of high dependency clients on incapacity benefits.  This programme has just finished in September 2009 and will be replaced by Flexible New Deal.

NVQ Level 3 in Staring a New Business Enterprise commenced in December 2008 following a further successful bid to the Coalfields Regeneration Trust.  20 applicants gained certificates in March 2009 and a further 30 are planned to acheive later this year.

Early Entry to Enterprise Programme created 51 new jobs and over 90% of these businesses continue to trade.

Leonardo da Vinci - Be Your Own Boss Programme - a major project over the last two and half years. Business Initiative has been working with our European Partners to develop a training framework for disadvantaged groups, translated into seven languages, for use across Europe.  This was a flagship project, concluding successfully with a keynote conference in Brussels in September 2008 and will continue following further Partnership funding.

IF YOU WOULD LIKE FURTHER INFORMATION OR WOULD LIKE TO RECEIVE A COPY OF THE FULL ANNUAL REPORT FOR 2009 THEN PLEASE DO NOT HESITATE TO CONTACT US EITHER BY TELEPHONE 01782 202222 OR E MAIL info@business.org.uk