Employers often fail to consider the possible availability of grants and incentives when they are reviewing strategic or geographic location/relocation options – and those that do often leave it too late. Crucially any grants or incentives need to be approved before you actually commit to any funding on a project, so the first thing to remember is to investigate your options at the very outset.
Please be aware that to obtain outside funding support you must demonstrate some form of reciprocal financial benefit to the funding organisation or body – ‘you don't get owt for nowt' as they say in Yorkshire! But be assured that we will be very pleased to help you investigate the range of options to ensure you don't miss out.
Grants and incentives come in many guises and can be available to ameliorate and subsidise both an employer's capital and revenue costs. Within the UK national and regional grants and incentives are grouped together under the overall banner of Selective Finance Investment (SFI). Not always well advertised or promoted the opportunities often have to be sought rather than being immediately obvious. What's on offer will vary region by region – and even sometimes town by town.
In the case of England the country is divided into Assisted Areas within which relatively low levels of economic activity and high and persistent unemployment exist. Other parts of the UK, as well as areas within the EU, also have their own grant and local incentive arrangements and we will be very pleased to provide information on them if required.
The most common criteria for successful grants and/or incentives being provided are:-
- The launch of a genuinely new business venture
- Modernising, expanding or reorganising your existing business
- Upgrading your business by introducing technological or other innovatory improvements into your manufacturing or other business processes
- Taking a new product, service or process from the development stage to production
To be successful you will need to demonstrate that your venture will not happen unless you can obtain the necessary funding and that expenditure will be needed on fixed assets such as property, plant and machinery. The minimum grant that can be applied for is £10,000 and successful businesses typically receive 10-15% of the projects capital expenditure – though actual percentages vary either side of these figures.
There are also further funding options through the mediums of The Learning and Skills Council, The Small Firms Loan Guarantee and the Regional Venture Capital Funds. And even at a local level it is often possible to obtain discretionary monetary support to cover the recruitment and training of staff.
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