business advisory service lewisham and...

GLE oneLondon BAS LS – Interim Evaluation

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Business Advisory Service

Lewisham and Southwark

Interim Evaluation - October 2012


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Table of Contents

Table of Contents ................................................................................................................ 2

1 Introduction ............................................................................................................ 4

1.1 The Evaluation Brief ...................................................................................................... 4

1.2 Evaluation Approach/Methodology ............................................................................. 4

1.2.1 Desk-based research ................................................................................. 4

1.2.2 Key Staff Interview .................................................................................... 5

1.2.3 Beneficiary Survey ..................................................................................... 5

1.3 Structure of Report ....................................................................................................... 5

2 Overview of Project .............................................................................................. 7

2.1 Rationale for project ..................................................................................................... 7

2.2 Logic Model ................................................................................................................... 9

2.3 Aims and Objectives .................................................................................................... 10

2.4 The Offer ..................................................................................................................... 11

2.4.1 Support residents across the boroughs to start up in business and become self-employed. ............................................................................................................. 11

2.4.2 To support the survival of existing businesses ........................................ 11

2.4.3 To support local businesses in becoming 'fit to supply' .......................... 12

2.4.4 Innovation ............................................................................................... 12

2.4.5 High Growth SMEs ................................................................................... 12

2.4.6 Develop Innovative and sustainable methods of delivery, including the potential for fee-paying services for specific client groups ................................................. 13

2.5 SME Journey ................................................................................................................ 14

3 Profile of Funding and Expenditure ............................................................. 15

4 Gross Outputs Achieved .................................................................................... 16

4.1 Start-up Approved output .......................................................................................... 16

4.1.1 Statistics on Start-Up Clients Supported ................................................. 17

4.2 Micro Business Approved Outputs ............................................................................. 19

4.2.1 Statistics on Micro Businesses Supported ............................................... 21

5 Key Achievements ............................................................................................... 25

5.1 Outreach and Marketing ............................................................................................. 25

5.2 Website ....................................................................................................................... 25

5.3 Source of Referral – SME’s .......................................................................................... 27

5.4 Advocacy ..................................................................................................................... 29

5.4.1 High Streets ............................................................................................. 29


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5.4.2 Industrial Areas ....................................................................................... 29

5.4.3 Social Enterprise Support ........................................................................ 30

5.5 Procurement ............................................................................................................... 32

5.5.1 Engagement ............................................................................................. 32

5.5.2 Accolades for the tendering and procurement service strand ............... 36

5.5.3 Innovation ............................................................................................... 37

5.5.4 High Growth Businesses Advised ............................................................ 37

6 Business impact evaluation ............................................................................. 39

6.1 Responses to questions .............................................................................................. 39

6.1.1 How SMEs heard about the service ........................................................ 39

6.1.2 Service accessed by SME’s ...................................................................... 40

6.1.3 Impact of BAS LS services on those SME’s .............................................. 43

6.1.4 As a result of the BAS LS service SME’s have achieved the following: .... 44

6.1.5 Does the Business Advisory Service provide you with any type of support which you cannot access elsewhere? ............................................................................. 45

6.1.6 Paying for and recommending the BAS LS service .................................. 45

6.1.7 How much would SMEs be prepared to pay for the service they received45

6.1.8 Tendering and procurement Service: ...................................................... 45

6.1.9 Overall satisfaction of the impact BAS LS service had on SMEs: ............. 45

6.1.10 Service Improvement suggestions .......................................................... 46

6.1.11 SME’s requiring further information about the services ........................ 47

7 Conclusions ........................................................................................................... 48

7.1 Performance against contracted requirements ......................................................... 48

7.2 Overall perceptions of the support ............................................................................. 48

7.3 Lessons learned ........................................................................................................... 48

7.4 Remaining challenges ................................................................................................. 49

7.5 Conclusion ................................................................................................................... 50


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1 Introduction

1.1 The Evaluation Brief

In September 2011 GLE was awarded the contract for the Business Advisory Services in Lewisham and Southwark (BAS LS) which included conducting this interim evaluation.

The brief for the evaluation required GLE to conduct a formative and summative report of BAS LS. The aims of the interim evaluation are to:

Assess the original rationale for the project and whether it is still valid

Examine the achievements of the project against its initial targets and objectives

Look at whether the project is meeting beneficiary needs and addressing the barriers and challenges that it was designed to overcome

Identify what has worked well and what has not, and for whom and under what circumstances

Assess the effectiveness of the project delivery including management, the project partnership, administrative and delivery mechanisms and operational characteristics

Identify any potential improvements in project delivery that could be implemented for the remainder of the project

The final report will also include:

Economic impact evaluation of the project

Contribution of the project to the London economy and how it has complemented existing London programmes and initiatives/strategies

Strategic added value

Value For Money assessment of cost effectiveness in terms of input/output per unit

Gross Value Added

Exit strategy

1.2 Evaluation Approach/Methodology

The methodology was agreed at project inception and was designed to provide GLE with a robust evaluation at both formative and summative stages.

Mixtures of techniques were used to inform the formative evaluation report, which included quantitative and qualitative techniques, including:

Desk-based research

Interviews with stakeholders

Beneficiary survey

1.2.1 Desk-based research

A review of relevant documentation which included policy documents and documents received from GLE. This was carried out in order to establish the evaluation framework and set out the foundations for the evaluation.

GLE Documents/Internal Sources

Original GLE submission

Delivery plans for GLE


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Marketing strategy

Remedial Plan

Monitoring and report information

Business Support Services in Lewisham and Southwark –Specification of Services.

Lewisham and Southwark Economic Development Strategy

1.2.2 Key Staff Interview

All key staff took part in semi structured interviews designed to capture both quantitative and qualitative information to inform the evaluation.

These interviews were conducted to find out details on the delivery of the project, the effectiveness of partnership work; added value of the project; best practice and also to inform any improvements to the end of the project.

1.2.3 Beneficiary Survey

In order to look at the performance of the project a questionnaire was designed in partnership with the boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark consisting of a combination of open and closed questions. It was designed to capture indicators of performance when measured against the aims and objectives.

The analysis of the data from the survey provided us with information to build on earlier work and on: how clients perceived the project; how it benefited them; value added; how they engaged with the project; and how they think the project could be improved.

For the interim report 58 responses were received and analysed; an example of the survey used can be found in the appendices 1. The responses represent a 10% sample across each of the support strands of the project.

1.3 Structure of Report

The structure of this evaluation report follows the format below:

Overview of Project

Profile of Funding and Expenditure

Gross Outputs Achieved

Key Achievements

Business impact evaluation

Conclusions

Appendices

The introduction provides a background to the evaluation and includes what the evaluation aims to achieve and the methodology set out to achieve this.


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Section 3 gives an overview of the BAS LS project including the rationale, the aims and objectives of the project and how GLE sought to achieve this. A logic chain to underpin this and a typical journey of a beneficiary involved in the project are also included.

Section 3 shows the expenditure up to September 12. The final expenditure will be shown in the final report at completion of the project.

The following section shows the approved outputs targets of the BAS LS project and achievement to date. Section 4 looks at the achievements of the project in terms of the beneficiaries involved. This was constructed from analysis of interviews and surveys.

The next section ‘converting gross outputs to net outputs, impacts and value for money’ will be included in the final report.

Conclusions of the interim evaluation are provided in section 7 which also includes details of the key strengths and weaknesses of the project, lessons learned and information that can inform the remainder of the project.


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2 Overview of Project

2.1 Rationale for project

Lewisham and Southwark are neighbouring boroughs located in central and south-east London. The boroughs share some similarities, such as the diversity of their communities and contrasts in socio-economic factors across their areas. However, there are notable differences too. Southwark has a significantly higher active enterprise count, with 13,500 companies compared to Lewisham’s 7,735. Further analysis of the figures indicates that Lewisham may have a stronger entrepreneurial culture, with a slightly higher proportion of residents in self-employment. It is important to gain a wider perspective on the challenges faced by these boroughs by reviewing the market failures in each as stated in the Tender Specification.

Some of the noted market failures in Lewisham are:

A relatively small economy with only 41 jobs per 100 people of working age compared with a London average of 90

A GVA ranking of 30 out of the 33 London Boroughs

Jobs in Lewisham grew by only 4.9% compared with a London average of 10% between 1998 and 2008

New businesses find it harder to survive or grow than elsewhere in London with only 58.9% still trading after two years

Percentage of small businesses showing year on year growth in employment is smaller than in any other London borough

Lewisham has lost the majority of its major private sector companies in the past 30 years, which account for the majority of private sector employment typically in retail chains, smaller retailers and the business services sector

34% of employment in Lewisham is in the public sector - the sharp reduction in public spending expected between 2011 and 2014 is forecast to lead to significant job losses in the public sector

Lewisham Council’s Regeneration Strategy includes a key objective to ‘Strengthen the local economy by providing support and advice to potential new and established local businesses to enable them to thrive.’

Some of the noted market failures in Southwark are:

The number of businesses per 1,000 adult population in Southwark (55) is lower than the London average (63) and considerably below the Inner London average (88)

Self-employment rate is relatively low in Southwark (8%) of the working age population compared to Inner London average (10%) and the London average (11%)

Business density is particularly low, and growth should be encouraged and supported in areas such as Camberwell and Peckham

Younger people, women and BME groups are particularly underrepresented in business start-up data

The revised Economic Development Strategy has three key priorities for enterprise:

Supporting existing businesses


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Developing key business districts and town centres Increasing business start-ups

In response to these key priorities set out by the individual boroughs to address common and borough specific needs, changes to central funding by the LDA and reductions in local funding, the London boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark have come together to jointly tender business support services.

The expectation is that the joint tendering of services will generate savings by achieving economies of scale and allow for a greater amount of business support to be made available than if the boroughs commissioned such services independently.


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2.2 Logic Model

The following logic model describes the rationale and contextual conditions, the theory of change, input and activities and expected outputs, outcomes and impact:

CONTEXT The Boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark have a strong entrepreneurial culture. However there are some businesses (Small to Medium Enterprises (SMEs)) and start-up businesses (in particular BAME and Women), which may find difficulty in progressing in the labour market. There is a strain on the local economic prosperity and businesses lack the range of skills they need to take full advantage of opportunities of growth within the workplace.

The boroughs’ objectives from their economic strategies 1) cross cutting themes of self-employment and pre-start support, 2) critical support for smaller businesses and 3) procurement and supply-chain provision as contributors towards growing a thriving business community, creating more jobs and generating higher incomes for local residents – however due to a number of market failures there are a significant number of disadvantaged and underserved residents across the boroughs with little access to support.

Local council regeneration departments provide funding to support business growth, develop key business districts and town centres and increase business start-ups to create sustainable economic growth.

Theory of Change BAS LS aims to provide a range of services which will help residents to start-up and support businesses develop their capabilities to create sustainable businesses through Innovation and Procurement.

Inputs

A £433,000 budget, made

up of £230,000 in Lewisham

and £203,000 in Southwark.

12 staff, Specialists and Experts involved in delivering Start-Up, Advocacy, Innovation, Procurement and IT advisory services.

Activities

diagnostic reviews

one-to-one mentoring

workshops in start-up

finance, procurement,

innovation and

diversification

support completing

tenders, PQQs and

Business Plans

IMPACTS

Objective A – To support residents to start up in business and become self-employed

Objective B – To support the survival of existing businesses (particularly small businesses), increasing their robustness, and capacity to adapt and innovate

Objective C – To support local businesses in becoming ‘fit to compete’ for public and private sector contract opportunities

Gross Outputs Gross Outcomes

A1 18 A2 30

B1 350 A3 20

B2 1,172 B4 176

B3 22 B5 78

C1 186 C4 26

C2 196 C5 £6.4m

C3 62


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2.3 Aims and Objectives

The BAS LS project aims to address the identified market failures and support residents and businesses to develop by increasing their robustness, capacity to adapt, innovate and become ‘fit to compete’ for public and private sector contract opportunities.

Objective Activity Measure

A) To support residents across the boroughs to start up in business and become self-employed

o Seminars on business planning to residents interested in business start-up and self-employment

o One to one advice on business planning

o Preparation for unemployed residents who are seeking to benefit from the new Enterprise Allowance scheme (NB: dependent on timetable for introduction of scheme)

o Contribute towards maintaining / increasing the rate of self-employment

o Contribute towards maintaining / increasing the business registration rate.

B) To support the survival of existing businesses (particularly small businesses), increasing their robustness, and capacity to adapt and innovate

o To identify potentially vulnerable firms which can be targeted with support

o Deliver a programme of support including:

- Financial health checks

- Assessment of clients’ present strategy and business plan

- Provide best practice advice and guidance on the development of business plans

o Seminars and workshops to businesses

o Contribute towards maintaining / increasing the active enterprise count

o Contribute towards reducing the de-registration rates

o Increase business survival rates

C) To support local businesses in becoming ‘fit to compete’ for public and private sector contract opportunities

o Needs analysis of local SMEs, including sector analysis and access to markets

o Training on e-commerce and tender readiness

o Brokerage of buyer and supplier relationships

o Meet the buyer events

o Referral mechanisms with other supply chain projects operating locally and regionally

o Identify areas of opportunity for consortium development

o Build consortia by bringing suppliers together and identifying common ground and support needed to develop relationships

o Provide support in formalising consortium arrangements

o Increase the number of SMEs who are ‘tender ready’

o Increase the number of SMEs who complete PQQs

o Increase the number of SMEs who submit tenders

o Increase the amount (£) of contracts won by SMEs

o Number of consortia submitting PQQs, ITTs, or securing contracts


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Objective Activity Measure

D) To enhance the delivery of services by coordinating support and developing joint working and referral mechanisms with local, regional and national providers of business support.

o Identify key relationships with other providers

o Develop joint working protocols / referral mechanisms

o Increase the number of referrals between the service to other service provider

E) To develop innovative and sustainable methods of delivery, including the potential for fee-paying services for specific client groups.

o Develop model for charging for services, with options for full-cost recovery and cross-subsidy for other services

o It is expected that the fee paying service will generate outputs which are additional to the outputs detailed in section 9 below

o Increase the take up by businesses and residents of fee paying business support services

2.4 The Offer

2.4.1 Support residents across the boroughs to start up in business and become self-employed.

Targeted outreach undertaken allowing direct client engagement from hard-to-reach groups engaging with the programme including:

A series of engagement events will be run across the boroughs in or close to those areas to enable clients to feel comfortable and aid engagement

A series of business training workshops and seminars One-to-one support from the appropriate Start Up Specialist New start businesses will also have access to lead advisers in Procurement,

Innovation, Technology, Growth and Finance as appropriate

2.4.2 To support the survival of existing businesses

The programme will contain a large element of interventions to raise awareness of the services offered through visiting:

high street businesses working with business centres to raise awareness of the service offering local targeted advertising to raise awareness amongst home-based businesses retail areas outside main shopping thoroughfares

The project provides advocacy and a rapid response service to any existing business that recognises that it may require immediate assistance to aid survival.

This support includes best practice advice to:

develop new business plans, marketing and sales initiatives Looking at pricing policy. VAT / PAYE Reviewing rates relief / appeals and lease / rent negotiations with landlords.


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Deliver a set of general business workshops across the borough at times and venues that fit around their day covering key subjects such as:

Getting paid on time Marketing and sales Using social media Making the most of your website E-commerce Intellectual property

2.4.3 To support local businesses in becoming 'fit to supply'

This strand of the service is delivered by specialist procurement advisers.

Businesses will complete a pre-assessment with the adviser and then undertake training to ensure that they are fit to compete prior to attendance at any events aimed at meeting contract providers.

Provide a series of training events to aid their readiness including e-commerce workshops from specialist IT Advisers.

Link clients to Lewisham’s Local Labour and Business Scheme and Southwark Procurement to provide details of opportunities.

Deliver Meet-the-Buyer events not just locally but also integrating them into pan-London and regional initiatives.

Form a networking group especially for these clients – a procurement club. Support all clients throughout the programme at all stages to aid them to become

'fit-to-compete'; from training and development through to completion of PQQs, ITTs and tendering documents.

Set up an alert system for opportunities that can be quickly disseminated to all 'fit-to-compete' businesses that are on our database.

Enhance the delivery of services by co-ordinating support and developing joint working and referral mechanisms with local, regional and national providers of business support.

2.4.4 Innovation

Cutting across all the themes for supporting businesses will be innovation.

We shall be working with all sustainable businesses to shape their innovation strategies and embed best practices and processes. The innovation support will cover new business ideas generation right through to mentoring for change to ensure that we build capacity within the business, create new routes to market and look at all environmental issues. This will also include productivity, planning and marketing with additional workshops delivered covering aspects of innovation planning, including using technology as an innovation driver.

2.4.5 High Growth SMEs

A number of businesses accessing the service will be identified as High Growth, we shall work with these through advocacy, finance readiness and fit-to-supply elements of the programme to ensure that they benefit from the new market opportunities available through the programme and with contractors both across the region and nationally.


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2.4.6 Develop Innovative and sustainable methods of delivery, including the potential for fee-paying services for specific client groups

Test pilot a range of additional services where short interventions to address very specific needs are required that are outside the scope of the programme and where businesses may not wish to engage with a full programme service. The paid for service will be a time-based intervention model with payment on a per hour basis.


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2.5 SME Journey

Specialist

Procurement

Added Value Support

Start-Up Businesses – Access to NEA Mentoring & Loan Services and Work ProgrammeExisting Businesses – Business Tendering Alerts, Tendering Specialist, UKTI international trade

support. Finance Readiness commercial support and business strengthening.

Referral Mechanisms – 0800 telephone and Micro Website

Raising awareness of enterprise and self-employment opportunities and enterprise through

activities including, marketing, networking and local networking activities.

Business

Growth

Market Research

Costs and Sales Viability

START UP to 12 MONTHS

Support for businesses established within their sector.Primarily focuses on helping businesses to understand their sector and overcome

common pitfalls in their first 12 months of trading.Outcomes: Business Survival – Business Plans

Support for those individuals starting a business.

Primarily focuses on implementing the business plan and applying the knowledge gainedthrough the group work and seminars.

Diagnostics are carried out and service level agreements are drawn up.

INCUBATION SUPPORT

Lewisham & Southwark / Programme Delivery Flow Chart

Starting in

Business

Outlining the

Business Planning process

Business

Governance and Taxation

VAT, Tax, and Assessing Business

Viability.

Sector Specific

Workshops

Creative

Retail Media Construction

Knowledge Businesses

Specialist

Finance

Collaboration

Networks •Meet-the-Buyer

Events•Supply Chain Round

Table Events

•B2B Networking

Specialist

InnovationSpecialist

Advocacy

REFERRALREFERRAL

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3 Profile of Funding and Expenditure

SUMMARY Sep 11 - Dec 11

£

Jan 12 - Mar 12

£

Apr 12 - Jun 12

£

Jul 12 - Sep 12

£ To date

£

All Staff Cost & Overhead 84,508 96,092 44,393 37,662 262,655

Marketing Cost 2,604 3,850 10,405 6,720 23,579

Events Cost 2,605 2,080 5,222 3,283 13,190

Beneficiary Cost - - - - -

Total Costs 89,717 102,022 60,020 47,665 299,424


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4 Gross Outputs Achieved

The project aims to support 30 residents to start up in business and become self-employed; with 20 of them surviving 12 months. The first 12 month survival outputs will be reported post September and confirmed in the final evaluation. 350 businesses will be provided with mentoring support to assist with the survival of existing businesses (particularly small businesses), increasing their robustness, and capacity to adapt and innovate. Each business will receive a minimum of 3.5 hours of support and up to a maximum of 23 hours. 22 businesses will receive knowledge transfer via workshops and seminars. 176 businesses will receive support to write business plans designed to help raise finance, diversity a business idea, structure the business to achieve growth and as a road map for the way forward. 78 businesses will benefit from 10% growth via access to new market opportunities. 196 businesses will be supported to complete Pre Qualifying Questionnaires for procurement opportunities in both the private and public sector. 186 businesses will be supported to be fit to supply in order to be able to qualify for procurement opportunities. 62 businesses will work with Procurement Experts to assist them with writing tenders for both public and private sector opportunities, resulting in 26 businesses winning contracts to the value of 6.4m

4.1 Start-up Approved output

Code Activity Target

Year 1&2

Claim Period Achieved To Date

To Be Achieved Dec-11 Mar-12 Jun-12 Aug-12

A1 Start Up Courses

Lewisham 10 13 7 20

Southwark 8 7 7 14

A2 New Businesses Started

Lewisham 16 11 6 17

Southwark 14 5 9 14

A3 Number of Businesses Surviving Beyond 12 months

Lewisham

Southwark


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4.1.1 Statistics on Start-Up Clients Supported

Male , 32%

Female, 68%

Pre-start Clients by Gender

26%

15%

14%

14%

12%

8%

2%

2%

1%

1%

1%

1%

1%

1%

1%

0%

0%

Prefer not to say

Black or Black British Caribbean

White – British

Black or Black British African

White – Other

Black or Black British – Other

Mixed - White & Black Caribbean

Other

Mixed - White & Black African

Mixed - Other

White – Irish

Asian or Asian British – Indian

Asian or Asian British – Other

Chinese

Mixed - White & Asian

Asian or Asian British – Bangladeshi

Asian or Asian British – Pakistani

Ethnicity - Pre-start Clients


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17 - 32 31%

33 - 42 25%

43 - 52 20%

53 + 7%

PNTS 17%

Pre Start by Age Groups

26%

23%

16%

13%

10%

6%

3% 3%

OtherServices

Wholesaleand retail

CreativeIndustries

Food, Drink& Tobacco

Health &EducationServices

Construction ProfessionalServices

Textiles andclothing

Busienss Start by Sector


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4.2 Micro Business Approved Outputs

Code Activity Target Year

1&2


To Be Achieved Dec-11 Mar-12 Jun-12

Aug-12

B1 Businesses Receiving in Depth support

Lewisham 186 5 67 40 24 136 50

Southwark 164 5 47 39 15 106 58

B2 No. of days of 1-2-1 advice provided to businesses

Lewisham 623 17 157 134 308 315

Southwark 549 20 118 119 257 292

B3 Specialist Training

Lewisham 12 1 1 7 9 3

Southwark 10 4 2 5 11

B4 Developing New Business Plans

Lewisham 93 7 8 10 6 31 62

Southwark 83 13 4 18 6 41 42

B5 Number of high growth SME benefiting

Lewisham 42 10 6 16 26


C1 Number of SMEs supported to be fit to supply

Lewisham 99 16 21 9 46 53

Southwark 87 7 21 18 5 51 36

C2 Number of SMEs Completing PQQ

Lewisham 104 12 15 1 28 76

Southwark 92 4 5 2 11 81

C3 Number of SMEs Submitting Tenders

Lewisham 33 1 4 10 2 17 16


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Code Activity Target Year 1&2


To Be Achieved Southwark 29 1 3 3 2 9 20

C4 Number of SMEs Winning Contracts

Lewisham 14 2 7 9 5


C5 Amount of new contracts secured

Lewisham 3,400,000

288,492 904,564

1,193,057 2,206,943

Southwark 3,000,000 420,000

458,457

878,457 2,121,543


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4.2.1 Statistics on Micro Businesses Supported

Lewisham, 56%

Southwark, 44%

SME's Registered by Borough

2%

5%

9%

9%

7%

3%

6%

2%

5%

6%

9%

9%

9%

5%

8%

3%

4%

1%

Bellingham

Blackheath

Brockley

Catford South

Crofton Park

Downham

Evelyn

Forest Hill

Grove Park

Ladywell

Lee Green

Lewisham Central

New Cross

Perry Vale

Rushey Green

Sydenham

Telegraph Hill

Whitefoot

0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8% 9% 10%

SME’s Registered from Lewisham Wards


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The balance of business premises within the wards is reflected in the above percentages:

Lewisham: The greatest level of assistance has been provided to businesses in Catford South, New Cross, and Lewisham Central, which are areas of greater business density.

Brockley, Crofton Park and Lee Green contain larger proportions of independent small businesses, which often require higher levels of assistance in the current climate.

The lowest take up is in Telegraph Hill and Bellingham, which both have a lower density of businesses than other wards in the borough. Both of these wards have been visited and leaflets distributed to the accessible businesses and Advocacy advisors will continue to engage with these businesses over the remainder of the programme.

Southwark: The greatest level of assistance has been provided to businesses in the north of the borough such as Grange, South Bermondsey and Cathedral, which all have a significant number of independent businesses both retail and within business centres.

Surrey Quays and Brunswick Park have low levels of business activity along with College Ward which is an area of low density and high disposable incomes.

The engagement from Peckham, Camberwell and Walworth is lower than anticipated and the programme is already working closely with associations such as Camberwell Business Network, with the aim of working in collaboration to support businesses through their forum. Discussions with a number of networks setting up in Peckham have begun to roll out similar complimentary models. As the proposals for Peckham Rye Station take shape we would anticipate further enquiries seeking support and advice from affected businesses.

1%

4%

7%

7%

4%

4%

4%

4%

12%

7%

3%

4%

4%

1%

8%

4%

7%

3%

6%

2%

Brunswick Park

Camberwell Green

Catherdrals

Chaucer

College

East Dulwich

East Walworth

Faraday

Grange

Livesey

Newington

Nunhead

Peckham

Peckham Rye

Riverside

Rotherhithe

South Bermondsey

South Camberwell

The Lane

Village

0% 2% 4% 6% 8% 10% 12% 14%

SME’s Registered from Southwark Wards


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Male , 60%

Female, 30%

No Majority, 10%

SME Owner by Gender

44%

29%

13%

5%

4%

3%

1%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50%

White

Black

Prefer not to Say

Asian

Mixed

Other

Chinese

Ethnicity - SME Owners


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20%

14%

12% 11% 11%

8%

6%

4% 3% 2% 2% 2% 2%

1% 1% 1% 1%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

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5 Key Achievements

5.1 Outreach and Marketing

Outreach activities from September 2011 – March 2012 (Q1 & Q2) were primarily focused on promoting the holistic service across the borough to ensure that both pre-starts and existing businesses within Lewisham and Southwark were aware of the service offering.

The website www.basls.co.uk was developed and launched as a portal for the advice and delivery of the programme. This site offers information on events, the various aspects of the programme, tools helpful to businesses and details of our stakeholders and partners.

5.2 Website

The aim of the website is to provide online marketing for the Lewisham & Southwark Business Advisory Service, including:

clarify and simplify the service offer from Lewisham & Southwark

raise awareness of the BASLS branding

provide resources to strengthen SMEs’ knowledge and understanding of product offering

central point of reference for events

www.lewisham.gov.uk

www.basls.co.uk

www.southwark.gov.uk

http://www.basls.co.uk/


26

Branding for the programme was developed in collaboration with the boroughs and new marketing materials were launched with each individual aspect of the programme having its own marketing materials to ensure that the service was personalised to individual needs.

Telesales staff promoted the branding and the service offering by sending information on the service by both e-mail and text to each business every day for a week to ensure that the recognition of the service was achieved. Where we had details of business owner’s mobile telephone numbers we used text message to alert them to the service and followed this up with phone calls to book clients on to workshops or arrange appointments with business advisors. This reached over 4,500 business addresses in our records.

The project identified key champions, such as community groups, that could help it to engage the target groups. It also made use of doctors’ surgeries, schools, housing associations and libraries to promote the project. This was underpinned by an outreach worker and two business advocacy advisors that were based in Lewisham and Southwark who helped to publicise the service through door-to-door delivery of marketing literature to ensure that the awareness raising reached all likely participants and businesses.

The programme has achieved a high visibility particularly with high street retail businesses and made use of a number of avenues to raise awareness of the programme including: press advertising, website, marketing to existing data, purchase of new data, outreach within the community, attendance at networking events, organising networking opportunities and meet-the-buyer events.

Additionally, it has outreached across both boroughs through direct support to the high streets reacting quickly to the LSBAS disturbance recovery agenda. In this respect over 61 riots-damaged businesses were visited and benefited from awareness raising and support in accessing the various funds that were set aside for them following the riots; including grants from both local authorities, the High Street Fund and The Capital Community Fund.

An analysis of the Marketing and Outreach activities conducted in Q1&2 identified that referrals across the start-up and advocacy services were successful. However there was a need to increase activities focused on the ‘procurement’ strand of the programme due to conversion rates from existing procurement databases being lower than anticipated.

A full outreach programme and promotion of procurement was rolled out from April to date – full details under ‘Procurement’ below.

In addition to continuing with the marketing activities rolled out in Q1 and Q2, the programme focused on addressing the barrier of reaching those businesses that work from home (unlikely to be identified by advocacy work). This included leaflets and posters being placed in outlets including cafés, pubs, builders’ merchants and local plant hire firms.


27

5.3 Source of Referral – SME’s

GLE continues to work in partnership with other organisations such as local council taskforces, Chambers of Commerce and local providers of support to ensure that clients are aware of the range of services available to them within the borough. It is however recognised that capacity for partners to be able to support in the recruiting of clients to the BASLS programme is severely reduced due to the impact of the cut in resources in most organisations. Therefore the capacity to delivery added value activities not directly relating to their own service is limited. The BASLS has complementary links to and from partners websites in order to ensure that the widest range of services are promoted to our client group.

8%

60%

3%

8%

5%

10%

5%

0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% 60% 70%

Networking

GLE outreach

Other Service Providers

Local Authority

Previous Service User

Other

Other GLE Service

0

100

200

300

400

500

600

700

Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug

BAS website Visitors


28

Start Up

The pre-start strand of the programme was delivered between the periods of October 2011 – March 2012 in order to ensure that there was a pre-start service offering in the interim period before the London Councils ESF programme was introduced across the two boroughs.

Its key objectives were to provide a series of Introduction to Enterprise and Business Planning workshops followed by one-to-one advice

19 Introduction to Enterprise workshops were delivered with 179 attendees; this was 17% below the target. However, 15 business planning courses were delivered against a requirement of 8 in the contract, with 107 attendees. This was 48% above the target.

This demonstrated that there was a high demand for the project with a 1 in 3 conversion rate from those people attending the Introduction 2 Enterprise workshop proceeding on to the business planning courses (53 attendees) as predicted in the contract. A further 56 start-up clients fast tracked straight to the business planning course.

For those accessing the Start Up strand, the reasons for which participants accessed the project

varied ranging from a need for general advice about running a business to more specific advice

about getting VAT registered, marketing, cash flow and legal issues. Client backgrounds ranged

from those already established and knowledgeable in their area of business to those who were

seeking clarification on how to trade officially.

30 businesses were started during September 2011 and March 2012, with 21 businesses still trading in July 2012. 12 month Survival figures will be collected from October 2012.

“It is of great value to start up business that

there is a place with competent people that you

can come to with your problems and

challenges and you know their advice and

support are impartial and free”

“Fantastic 1-2-1 business advice

and encouragement from Shane”


29

5.4 Advocacy

This strand of support is client driven and addressed whatever immediate issues faced the business in their day-to-day operations. The help provided is practical and deals with the everyday challenges of running a business in a shrinking economy; rent, rates, utilities and bank charges all featured heavily in discussions. The aim is to increase liquidity / cash flow and to support the survival of existing businesses increasing their robustness, and capacity to adapt and innovate in order to create and safeguard jobs.

The programme offers an Advocacy Expert and Specialist who have worked geographically across the boroughs to focus on developing relationships with key business areas; however businesses have been able to access support from either Advocacy advisor depending on the specialisms required. Businesses are also referred to the other strands of the programme where needs are identified in Procurement, ITC and High Growth Finance.

The aim of the advocacy advisor is to become a recognised expert to the local business communities and develop relationships with those businesses most in need of support to help them tackle the barriers and market failures that prevent them from achieving their full potential.

The Advocacy Advisors have broken down the business communities into three key areas and offer bespoke advice in order to address business needs and track the emerging themes of support required by these different types of businesses.

5.4.1 High Streets

Area of significant intervention: Catford, Bellingham, Sydenham, Lower Sydenham, Forest Hill

Walworth Road, Elephant & Castle, East Street, Old Kent Rd, Peckham, Camberwell, Nunhead

The common barriers that businesses face, and need support in order to identify ways of responding to are related to Business Rates and renewal/ renegotiation of rents as these represent a significant percentage of their fixed costs. Naturally, they are keen to reduce these when they cannot grow sales or pass on increases in costs to their customers in the current climate. An increase in the multiplier used from April 2012 means increased Business Rates and therefore businesses need support to review and seek to revise these as well as education on how it is calculated.

As the economy has moved into a double dip recession, many businesses continue to experience static sales and require rapid support to help them develop new business plans & marketing strategies; including reorganisation of staff resources and Discounts/Loyalty schemes.

5.4.2 Industrial Areas

Areas that the Advocacy advisors have focused on giving significant interventions include: Lewisham Southwark

Creekside New Cross

Evelyn Street Old Kent Road

Bellingham

Surrey Canal Road


30

Advocacy advisors have supported the procurement strand through outreach into industrial estates to increase engagement onto the programme. The common reasons for local businesses not engaging with procurement programmes include:

lack of confidence in council providing contracts lack of policies and procedures lack of knowledge of how to access opportunities skills of the management in preparing for tendering opportunities

The programme has responded to this by:

(1) developing breakfast clubs where businesses who are working on publicly funded projects champion their experiences

(2) capacity building workshops have been set up by the procurement team to help businesses develop policies and procedures

(3) opportunities database and client management relationship system set up to alert businesses to suitable opportunities

(4) businesses signposted to Procurement Experts to help them complete tender documents

5.4.3 Social Enterprise Support

In the current economic climate the social enterprise sector is one that has seen a significant reduction in core funding and a number of businesses need to refocus their activities and behave more commercially. The common areas of support that the Advocacy team has provided mentoring to senior management include:

(1) Advice and assistance to consider new markets – This service looks at how the current business model can be innovated so that it can be sold commercially. Many projects provide support within their own funded sector through education, training and arts based programmes. The service has raised awareness of the commercial application of their service through selling to corporate bodies and extending the service beyond current borough boundaries. This service has enabled some borough specific activities to market the same service across the whole country.

(2) Recognising a social enterprise – This service has assisted a number of clients to review their overall business model. Having been established as a for-profit business initially they have diversified into providing community benefits and have been funding these services through their commercial activities. Business diagnostics undertaken have identified with the clients that their business model has a social aim and that has opened up potential new funding streams to enable the business to grow. In this case the business has been assisted in the preparation and completion of all paperwork necessary to convert their existing business or create a new social arm.

Overall, the programme has supported 20 Social Enterprises to date with £75K being raised thorough grants and interest free loans

In addition to the above services, an underpinning activity of the advocacy work is to work in collaboration with the councils on projects designed to respond to business needs or alternatively promote opportunities set up by the boroughs.

Key projects that the Advocacy Advisors have worked in partnership with the local boroughs are:


31

1. Riot Support – across the two boroughs all businesses affected by the civil disturbances were visited by an Advocacy adviser. In Lewisham visits were made to over 50 businesses with a further 30+ businesses in Southwark. Support included:

o Raising awareness of the business support service

o Raising awareness of the funding opportunities available specific to the riots

o Completion of documentation to access finance available

o Liaison with council and funders on behalf of businesses affected

o General support in planning the way forward for the business post disturbances

2. Lewisham Business Awards Panel – Recommending and assessing applications for the four tranches of the awards to date.

3. Social Enterprise Support – Conducted fact-finding meetings and assessed four social enterprises that approached Lewisham Council for finance. This support involved interviewing the clients and offering recommendations to the council with regard to the likely repayment of the loan and viability of the business.

4. Nunhead – Survey of over 30 businesses in collaboration with the council to gauge interest in the programme “Putting the Village Back into Nunhead” and frame the support programme associated with it. A programme of ongoing assistance for the area has been agreed that will augment the physical improvements planned for the area.

5. ILRE – continued engagement with Southwark’s ILRE areas and direct support for the businesses both pre and post physical improvements to the area.

6. Peckham Rye Station – engaged with over 20 businesses potentially affected by CPO in the area and offer of support given. This proposal is in its early stages and we would anticipate greater support being required for these businesses in early 2013 as plans evolve.

The support by the Advocacy Advisors has been very successful at engaging the target group and offering tailored individual support to clients at times and places convenient to them. The expertise of staff and the individual support has proved to be invaluable in providing support that was both relevant and useful; the importance of the projects’ focus was highlighted by a number of beneficiaries who commented:

The best support I’ve had in over 30 years in

business." (Sue, Spendloads)

Thank you for your quick response. I can sleep now." (Pamela, Red

Carpet Boutique)

Thank you for all your support and sorting out my riot payments. It’s nice to know that people care." (Allan , Alton-Electro)

Fabulous! Thank you! Gosh you guys are amazing, I'm so glad I got in touch with you in the first place, you have been so fantastic helpful! Not sure how I would have got up and running if it hadn't been for the initial push of help you guys


32

5.5 Procurement

The business support offer is primarily focused on the procurement theme of the programme which engages with businesses most likely to benefit from this strand of support. This has been achieved through a programme of engagement activities, one-to-one interventions with specialist procurement tools, workshops and meet-the-buyer events.

5.5.1 Engagement

Engagement through relevant partners: A bespoke campaign of procurement support through CompeteFor is a good example of partnership co-operation carried out, this has occurred during Quarter 2 and as a result it identified that over 60 businesses required both support to build their capacity to understand the tendering process via workshops and intensive one-to-one support for those businesses in a live tender.

Engagement through telesales: The programme has in place a telesales officer who supports

the procurement strand of the programme. LSBAS data has indicated that this approach has

worked very successfully and the engagement data reflects that this is an effective tactic to

Support

Workshops

1-2-1 Meetings

Outputs

Fit to supply

PQQs

Teders submited

Contract won

Opportunities

Boroughs

CompeteFor TendersDirect

Colaborative working

Engagement

Advocacy

Telesales and Outreach

Opportunities


33

promote the service benefits to specific business sectors. A good example of this being 36

construction and facilities management companies now both engaged in the programme and

made Fit to Supply by the service.

Business Intelligence: Has now developed a significant amount of data outlining the sectors,

size and suitability of business. A reasonable assumption from the interim evaluation would be

that this intelligence will result in an improvement to the comprehensive nature of the service

offer.

Engagement through workshops: It was noted during the first two quarters of delivery that

many of the local businesses needed capacity building in order to reach a level where they

could successfully engage in the procurement process. The procurement team responded to

this by developing additional capacity building workshops in Quarter 3. Early indications are

that these workshops succeed in helping local businesses overcome barriers.

Engagement through Procurement Breakfast Clubs: Procurement breakfast clubs have been

an additional channel in introducing and promoting the programme to prospective clients.

They consist of a case study with supported businesses outlining the scope and success of the

project and a presentation on a relevant topic. This is focused at attracting businesses who

have limited knowledge about procurement in order to demonstrate the benefits of

implementing a formal structure in order to take advantage of local procurement opportunities

and motivate them to participle in the programme.

Engagement from tendering opportunities: Working in partnership with Lewisham Councils’

Local Labour and Business scheme and Southwark Council, the procurement team have

constructed a portfolio of local businesses that have become part of a nascent supply chain of

the local council public sector programme. Over 20% of the businesses in this portfolio have

been supported in becoming fit to supply through the programme. Furthermore, the team has

provided numerous extra tendering opportunities to local businesses by:

extensive research on various procurement portals and buying organisations to identify

tender opportunities across both boroughs which have been disseminated to

appropriate local businesses

engaging with GLE’s list of buyers and encourage them to provide the team with current

tendering opportunities for dissemination within registered relevant businesses

Businesses participating in the Tendering and Procurement strand of the service

143 businesses across the boroughs of Lewisham and Southwark are working with the

procurement team in order to develop their capacity to successfully tender and win contracts.

An example of this is type of support is work carried out with construction companies which included the development and use of a comprehensive diagnostic specifically developed for the programme. The Diagnostic allows the advice team to make a considered evaluation of the business’ position in any prospective supply chain. This prognosis is then used to fit the correct


34

procurement support package to the clients and improve the areas of the clients business that create the greatest impact on tender scoring.

169 attendees have received capacity building through attendance at workshops designed to coach them through the different stages of procurement. Attendance numbers at workshops have varied with an average of 7 attendees per Introduction to Procurement, 8 attendees per writing successful bids and tenders, 14 attendees per business club and 7 attendees per capacity building workshop for small tenders and quotes.

Although the number of attendees per workshop is lower in most cases than the 11 indicated in the bid, an additional 8 workshops have been delivered and the original overall target of 132 attendees has been exceeded by 28%.

Engagement with Buyers Through the buyer engagement, the team has worked closely with

those buyers involved in redevelopments within the boroughs of Southwark and Lewisham.

These include Barratt Homes and McLaren Construction in Southwark; working with their

procurement schedule and doing bespoke research to identify potential local suppliers for their

procurement needs. Within the borough of Lewisham we have worked with Continental Drifts

and Fusion as well as a series of buyers managed by the London Borough of Lewisham Local

Labour & Business Scheme (LLBS) such as The Oakwood Group, Buxton and Pelikaan. The team

is working closely with the organisations responsible for two major developments in

Southwark, Elephant & Castle by Lend Lease and London Bridge Rail redevelopment by NRTL,

planning awareness raising events to engage with potentially interested local businesses.

The team have organised a Meet the Buyer event in Southwark working with the contractors

involved in the “Warm, Dry, Safe” programme, A&E Elkins, Breyer, Keepmoat and Saltash, as

well as McLaren Constructions. Implemented a bespoke buyers-led version of Meet the Buyer

where meetings are arranged by buyers’ selection thus providing warm leads to the local

businesses selected. The team is organising a Meet the Buyer event in Lewisham together with

30

57 58

20

4

Introduction totendering and wining

contract

Writing successfulBids and Tenders

Business Clubs Capacity Buildingworkshops

Enviromental Policy& Efficuent Resource

Use

Number of attendees


35

the Borough and the main contractor, Fusion, to inform and prepare local businesses

potentially interested in tendering for the café operator service at the new flagship leisure

centre, Glass Mill.

As ‘additional’ activity, the team organised two other Meet-the-Buyer events involving buyers

already working with GLE oneLondon such as Accenture, Berwin Leighton Paisner, Mace and

Glaxo Smith Kline and two roundtables, one with Deloitte and another with Ernst & Young, The

City of London Corporation and the Chartered Institute of Purchasing and Supply (CIPS). The

team has started to receive actual opportunities from buyers such as The City of London

Corporation and Accenture.

Buyers Suppliers

Saltash Construction BCM Scaffolding

Berwin Leighton Paisner CRT Construction

Accenture L&D Services

Mace Masher Brothers

Glaxo Smith Kline Saltash

A & E Elkins The Old Southern Forge

Barratt Homes PJS Building

Breyer Group Hornimans Cafe

Keepmoat, Hand Made Food

Lend Lease

McLaren Construction

Network Rail (NRTL)

Fusion

Continental Drift

97 businesses across the boroughs have become fit to supply through the support of the

programme which has resulted in

39 PQQs submitted

26 tenders being written and submitted

10 contracts awarded

contract value £2,071,514


36

5.5.2 Accolades for the tendering and procurement service strand

National Enterprise Network Enterprise Impact Award

Tendering and Procurement Service LSBAS

The service strand has beaten all the enterprise agencies in the country to win the competitive

and coveted enterprise impact award.

A quote from the Press release:

“A rather competitive category was the Enterprise Support Impact Award, which went to GLE

oneLondon for their buyer/supplier support programme. A clear demonstration of the impact of

the programme was one business with an annual turnover of £150k won a new sale of £262k

through the project’s support, more than doubling their annual turnover.”


37

5.5.3 Innovation

The programme has embedded innovative processes within businesses by supporting them

with:

Growth change and capacity building elements – These are addressed in the capacity building

workshops and one-to-one meetings with specialist advisers; support includes process value

engineering and business structure issues.

Innovative route to market – The programme has identified that Procurement is the innovative

route to market for companies. The programme is designed to support businesses that have

never tendered or developed quotes for work. Businesses are encouraged to explore

diversifying their business through business breakfast clubs and Introduction 2 Tendering

workshops before attending master classes in procurement.

The change management – The programme supports businesses to address proportionality

issues; this is measured in tender scores through the weighting mechanism in the tender

method statements. These criteria are identified in the procurement diagnostic resulting in

prognoses that are addressed in PQQ workshops.

Environmental Policies – 38 businesses have drawn up environmental policies as part of the

capacity building through the support of workshops and one-to-one advice.

Environmental Management Systems (EMS) – 12 businesses in conjunction with drawing up an

Environmental Policy have also gone on to implement an EMS within their business through

mentoring support from the procurement team.

Competitive edge, Open Innovation – This is key to establishing and demonstrating value in

tenders, Procurement Advisors provide mentoring to businesses to help them to test their

business against the criteria of value engineering and commercial benchmarking.

Technology and e-procurement – These are now key elements to both completing and winning

tenders. The programme teaches and demonstrates the procurement model now mandated by

most public sector buyers. The website is now considered a key element that needs to be

professional and compelling and is considered by many buyers as the ‘fifth’ policy essential in

demonstrating product and / or services. The programme has supported 26 businesses with

making improvements to their websites and 11 to build new websites in order to support them

with tendering for new contracts.

5.5.4 High Growth Businesses Advised

The programme has supported 45 businesses that have the ability to demonstrate growth

within their business by 10% or more in the next 12 months. This has been achieved through 25

businesses growing through innovation by developing new ways of doing business and

diversifying activities to attract new customers. This is predominantly through developing new

marketing and sales strategies together with implementing new methods aimed at increasing

customer retention.


38

Five businesses have moved to new premises that will result in increased sales and / or cost

savings.

12 businesses have worked with Advocacy advisors to reduce costs through renegotiating long-

term commitments such as rent and also ensuring that they have claimed all entitlements in

terms of business rates plus looking at providers of utility services.

Three businesses have been supported to complete Finance Ready Business Plans which have

resulted in £70,000 of new funding being secured.


39

6 Business impact evaluation

Impact evaluation of the BASLS service was conducted in September 2012 where 10% (42 SMEs) who received support from the programme were randomly selected and contacted to complete the impact assessment. The responses received from these assessments are below:

6.1 Responses to questions

6.1.1 How SMEs heard about the service

Response SME %

Internet search 3 7%

Telesales 1 2%

Visit from GLE business adviser 16 38%

Referred by Lewisham or Southwark Council 7 17%

The BAS website www.basls.co.uk 1 2%

Advertising 1 2%

Networking event 4 10%

Referral from another business 4 10%

Other (please specify 5 12%

7%

2%

38%

17%

2% 2%

10% 10% 12%

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

How did you hear about us?


40

6.1.2 Service accessed by SME’s

Some businesses have accessed more than one service, please see below table:

Number of Services Accessed 1 2 3 4 5 6

Total number of SME’s accessing the service 7 20 5 5 3 2

Type of services accessed by the SME’s

Type of Service accessed Total SME %

One to one business advice 35 83%

Tendering and procurement advice 13 31%

Advice with business growth or sustainability 13 31%

Finance planning 12 29%

Innovation or website support 8 19%

Advice and support relating to statutory business rates, leases or planning obligations

10 24%

Tendering opportunities 10 24%

The business start-up service 8 19%

83%

31% 31% 29% 19%

24% 24% 19%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Which service or services have you accessed


41

Comments client made above services they received:

The service was delivered in a professional manner. It would be good if you can find more people like Ash to deliver such a wonderful service

The advice received has really focused my attention

Advice made me re-consider my business. I was spending a lot of time trying to win contracts with local council but did not realise that I was doing a good job until Maurice mentioned it

Maurice has explained a number of things to me which will help me to expand my business and grow

Enjoyed every minute of support and has helped me win £12k contract

I have benefited from tendering and procurement workshop/ advice offered by GLE. I'm pleased to say we have now secured funding of £70k from Lewisham Council

All services have been worthwhile and added value to my business

I am grateful beyond words, your Adviser is an Angel and thank you for help

The advice I am getting now I should have been getting a year ago. Also I would have like to get advice on my lease and business rates

Had problem with Landlord. Good advice given - Moved out

GLE provide an excellent service

Finance planning service that I received was very professional and excellent

Helpful, Informative

Helping to review current employees within the business

100% helpful in the advice received

Very good source

Very good website advice

The services I received from GLE were very supportive and helpful. They helped through a whole load of things, even giving me a call to see how things are going. I went to a few of their programmes and found it very useful

It was a great boost to our company to have the support and confidence of GLE at a time when we felt quite weak/ vulnerable. We really acted on their advice and it meant that our company kept going rather than stalling

Fantastic 1-2-1 business advice and encouragement from Shane

It is of great value to start up business that there is a place with competent people that you can come to with your problems and challenges and you know their advice and support are impartial and free

Liam Hickey is currently helping me in finding tender opportunities in the region. He has also helped in finding out information about the lease

The services were helpful in illuminating the area of approaching the local council for work and allowed our company to take stock of our position and adjust accordingly to be in a more competitive position. Although there was a great deal of overlap in the courses they were still really helpful

Liam has assisted in ensuring that our business has been able to continue trading pending its sale

Liam has assisted and continues to assist with all lease and rent matters acting for me in negotiation with the council

The 1-2-1 support comprised one initial meeting

We have secured a rates reduction to nil and will be acquiring the lease

Liam ensured that my rent increase was manageable at £750 instead of £4000 proposed by Council


42


43

6.1.3 Impact of BAS LS services on those SME’s

Impact Number of SMEs

%

We have received a service that has improved business performance, led to cost savings or business recovery

22 52%

We have a received a service that has improved cash fluidity in the business leading to growth

10 24%

We have benefited from a service that led to new contracts being won 8 19%

Without this intervention a job would have been at significantly at risk of being terminated

15 36%

A job was created as a result of this intervention 8 19%

We have received a financial support advice service that led to a loan, grant or investment benefit for the business)

6 14%

*some SME’s have indicated more than one impact as a result of the service provided

52%

24%

19%

36%

19%

14%

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

Improvedbusiness

performance, ledto cost savings or

businessrecovery

Improved cashfluidity in the

business leadingto growth

Led to newcontracts being

won

Job Safeguarded A job wascreated

Financial supporthas led to a loan,

grant orinvestment

benefit for thebusiness)

Impact of BAS services for the business


44

6.1.4 As a result of the BAS LS service SME’s have achieved the following:

Achievement Number of

SMEs Value

Accelerated their business growth 11 £1,566,800

Tendered and won contracts 8 £2,121,280

Financially benefited from business rates advice 6 £32,000

Achieved increased cash fluidity as a result of business advice 8 £187,500

Found commercial partners or customers 8 £700,500

Applied for funding or loan finance for working capital 4 £50,000

Received a grant or loan to support their business 6 £68,700

Increased growth space 4 £12,000

Registered for VAT 2

Other

This includes:

Resolved issues with council

Searching to find other businesses we could offer our service to

Re-branded business and improved business model

Clean up my credit file

Confidence to approach Police Sergeant

Other contingency plan policy coaching

7

Additional comments clients have provided on the above:

I am waiting to resolve couple of issues relating to my credit report before applying for a loan from my bank

Maurice has helped to advise on our credit position

We managed to gain new stream of funding for a small piece of work in partnership with other organisation

The answer to most would have been Yes, but the support and advice has come too late

Having helped me to prepare the business plan it would be most helpful if your service were to include sourcing of appropriate finance

Accessed by current staff within the business - moved from two part time employees to one full time employee. Also, close on finding a freelance sales person to concentrate on bringing in more UK business

Thank you for your help, I received last year rates and don't have to pay this year which really helps me in these hard times


45

More alerts more meet the buyer events

I have re-branded and therefore back at the start up stage

Increase the level of clientele and a growth within client base - Inside Gym

More alerts more meet the buyer events please

The tendering workshops and alerts have made me aware of opportunities and more willing, and hopefully able to bid. The web technology workshop provided a good overview and advice. The 1-2-1 was encouraging but there was no follow up

This service gave us focus and confidence

6.1.5 Does the Business Advisory Service provide you with any type of support which you cannot access elsewhere?

16 SMEs (38%) said yes

6.1.6 Paying for and recommending the BAS LS service

26 SMEs (62%) said they are prepared to pay for this service, if it was unavailable free of charge

30 SMEs (71%) said they would recommend our paid services to others?

6.1.7 How much would SMEs be prepared to pay for the service they received

SMEs responded with different prices they would be prepared to pay and this ranged from:

a. £30 b. £25 - £50 c. £50 - £100 d. £200 e. £300 f. £500 - £800 g. £1,500

*some SMEs have indicated the price they would be prepared to pay will depend on how tailored the service is to their business need

6.1.8 Tendering and procurement Service:

SMEs were asked if they received tendering and procurement service from BAS LS service whether they would be interested in receiving further alerts, or will be tendering in the next 6 months or will need additional tendering support. The responses were:

a. 12 SME’s (29%) are still interested in receiving alerts b. 9 SME’s (21%) will be tendering in the next 6 months c. 11 SME’s (26%) indicated they will need additional tendering support

6.1.9 Overall satisfaction of the impact BAS LS service had on SMEs:

37 SMEs responded to the overall satisfaction


46

6.1.10 Service Improvement suggestions

The following are suggestions from SMEs surveyed on how the BAS LS service could be improved

Banks are not lending money to businesses so it would help businesses if Councils were to make loans available to businesses like mine

Support small businesses to access financial grants

More follow up calls and on-going Mentoring or industry links

Implement a timed, 1 hour monthly meeting to continue the good work

More contracts from Southwark council

Possibly finance

Provide more feedback on business plans (existing businesses)

Direct introduction to more Lewisham buyers

Think there could be a couple of hot desk with internet connection available, not to waste meeting room charge and Adviser's time. Then if you need to fill out something or do some work in between advice it would be more fluent

We found the service to be very informative and helpful for where we were at the time of your help

There were a great deal of people from different industry and sectors, which led to some parts of the course being irrelevant to some and relevant to others. I recommend that the course needs to be split by sector / industry, thus allowing more specific course detail for those on the course

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90% 81%

14% 5%

0% 0%

Overall Satisfaction


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Opening the City of London 'meet the buyer' event to Lewisham businesses and matching businesses (like my own) with local/ regional medium to large enterprises that could be potential clients whether through forums or other channels

We are very new to this and would like to answer this in 6 months. We are happy with this so far - we also are aware we need to put / make use of the service

Be more positive towards people who want to open their own business and listen more

6.1.11 SME’s requiring further information about the services

20 SME’s (54%) indicated would like further information about any of our services


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7 Conclusions

7.1 Performance against contracted requirements

The Southwark and Lewisham local economic strategies highlight the importance of supporting start-ups, helping businesses to sustain and grow through innovation and maximise local procurement opportunities in order to safeguard and create jobs. The programme helps contribute to these factors hence the rationale for this type of intervention in the current climate is still valid.

7.2 Overall perceptions of the support

The feedback gained from beneficiaries was on the whole extremely positive.

81% of clients were extremely satisfied with 95% of clients being satisfied with the service provided and 54% indicating they would like further information about the programme.

Another commented “The services were helpful in illuminating the area of approaching the local council for work and allowed our company to take stock of our position and adjust accordingly to be in a more competitive position. Although there was a great deal of overlap in the courses they were still really helpful.”

83% of businesses have accessed one-to-one support from the programme with 31% of the businesses seeking support in procurement, 31% in Growth and Sustainability and 24% being actively engaged in tendering opportunities.

52% of the businesses supported felt that the service they had received from the programme had led to cost savings or business recovery. 36% felt that without the intervention of business advisors’ support a job would have been at risk.

24% of the businesses supported have received a service that improved cash fluidity leading to growth with 19% creating new jobs.

11 businesses indicated the impact of the service resulted in growth with a total financial value of £1,566,800, 8 businesses have indicated that they have won contracts to a value of £2,121,280 with 8 businesses having found commercial partners and customers valued at £700,500.

*Business Mentor will follow up with these businesses to ratify that these values are actuals and, where appropriate, collect the appropriate evidence in the following quarter.

38% of businesses indicated that they were unable to find the type of business support from any other source.

7.3 Lessons learned

Some key strengths of BAS LS.

In terms of approaches and activities aspects, fieldwork analysis has suggested that there are features that are working well and should be kept in place for the remainder of the project:

1. The type of support offered to clients is flexible and has meant that local businesses are able to access a broad support package; the one-to-one aspect has also meant that advice is specialist and tailored to the business, something that SMEs do not usually have access to.


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2. Adapting the service offering to meet local council initiatives as they arise, which in some cases has allowed for a rapid response to specific challenges faced by local businesses such as the riot damage follow up work.

3. The matching service is a critical element of the programme in order to both engage with businesses and support them in taking advantage of opportunities both in the public and commercial sectors which in most cases businesses wouldn’t have the resources or expertise to identify themselves.

4. The quality of the portfolio of businesses looking to be involved in supply chains and the matching service is a product that buyers find attractive. This is resulting in an increased number of buyers collaborating with the project. Buyers are now proactively sending their schedule of procurement opportunities to the team in order that they can identify suitable businesses from the local boroughs.

5. The bespoke design of the meet the buyer events has proved to be successful and received very good feedback from both buyers and suppliers.

6. The partnership working with the local boroughs recognised that some of the original evidence requirements of the targets did not align to the success of delivering the service offer. Agreement to make appropriate adjustments to these evidence criteria’s has enabled the programme to adept delivery in order to meet businesses need.

7.4 Remaining challenges

Some of the opportunities that are made available by buyers are too large for local businesses. The programme is now working with buyers where appropriate to breakdown the opportunity into smaller lots in order for businesses to participate in the tendering process. The national barriers to raising finance from mainstream providers that currently affect the economy are reflected in the project performance in developing finance ready business plans. Lenders are reluctant to lend and clients are reluctant to take on new borrowing with interest rates high despite the low base rate. This is further exasperated by the lack of alternative funding made available by CDFI due to the cuts in public spending and changes in European State Aid legislation restricting loan models. In seeking to address this, the project continues to look for innovative ways of engaging with finance providers and new methods of raising the finance that businesses need.

The economic crisis has continued to affect the ability of businesses to make available budgets for training and mentoring and in most small businesses these budgets have been slashed in order to make necessary savings in order to survive. The success of this programme to date demonstrates that businesses still believe that training and mentoring are important in order for their businesses to sustain and grow. However, businesses are seeking cost free solutions such as those funded by this programme to address their barriers rather than paying commercial rates. This is reflected in the lack of take up of the commercial service offer attached to the programme. GLE are looking at gaps in funded programmes which can be addressed by offering a subsided service paid by clients.


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7.5 Conclusion

The project provides invaluable support to individuals who are starting up or looking for

support to sustain their businesses in the current climate. In an economic climate of recession

and increased public spending cuts, this support is of greater importance in providing more

tailored and accessible support to a target group recognised as harder to engage. The projects

address the absence of mainstream business support and meet the aspirations of both the

economic strategies and the bespoke support required by local businesses. The ability to work

closely and create momentum with buyers offering tenders opportunities matched to the

tailored support designed to engage and take the service directly to local suppliers ensures that

as many barriers as possible are removed in order that they can take full advantage of

opportunities available that enable them to sustain or grow during these challenging times.

The project has successfully met most of the targets set to date and in several cases exceeded targets. For those that have not yet been achieved (finance ready business plans and commercial services), the relative success of the delivery team needs to be viewed within the wider context of the economic downturn and increased pressures both on businesses and lack of services that are currently available to support them. The programme will continue to be flexible in order to adapt to the evolving state of the economy and seek to identify solutions in order to address the remaining challenges over the next six months of the programme.