Backing Your Business: A simple guide to the new Business Growth Service

To mark the launch of the government's Backing Your Business campaign, this blog sets out what the new Business Growth Service actually is and how you can use it as a small business owner.

At a high level, Backing your business: our plan for small and medium-sized businesses is the government's long-term strategy for supporting SMEs.

As part of that plan, ministers have created the Business Growth Service to bring advice, finance and export support into a more joined-up offer, with a big public campaign sitting around it.

Start with a personalised guide on Business.gov.uk

The digital "front door" for the Business Growth Service is Business.gov.uk. This site now pulls together guidance, tools and routes into support across government.

You begin by picking what stage you're at – for example:

• starting a business

• running and growing a business

• selling overseas from the UK

From there, you answer a short set of questions about your location, sector, turnover and experience.

The site then builds a tailored guide that pulls together support into clear sections such as funding, skills and mentoring, HR and exporting.

Talk to a real adviser through the Business Support Service

If you want to speak to someone, the Business Support Service is the helpline behind the Business Growth Service for firms in England.

It offers free, impartial advice by phone, email and webchat on anything from starting up to growth plans.

• Phone: 0800 998 1098 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm, excluding bank holidays)

• Email and webchat options are available via Business.gov.uk

Devolved governments in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland continue to run their own business support schemes, for which there are links on GOV.UK.

Explore finance options with the British Business Bank

Access to finance is a core pillar of the Small Business Plan.

The Business Growth Service signposts heavily to the British Business Bank, which runs a range of tools and schemes for smaller firms.

Its key offers include the following:

• Finance Finder tool – you answer a short questionnaire and receive a list of finance types that could suit your business, from loans and asset finance through to equity and export finance.

• Guides on finance options – plain-English explainers on different types of finance and how they work in practice.

These sit alongside established programmes such as Start Up Loans and the Growth Guarantee Scheme, which are designed to unlock lending to smaller businesses that might otherwise struggle to raise capital.

Get free training and local growth support

The Business Growth Service also pulls together advice and training that already exists but is often under-used:

• Business Academy on Business.gov.uk offers free online courses on digital skills, finance and selling overseas, which tens of thousands of firms have already used.

• Local Growth Hubs across England provide more hands-on support and events, from business planning to access to finance.

The new service is being promoted through a Business Growth Service roadshow that's visiting regions across the UK, working with local Growth Hubs and chambers to bring the "one-stop shop" support offer to more firms.

Support to innovate and bring new products to market

Innovation and R&D funding has always been complex.

Through Backing Your Business, the government is trying to knit together the main routes into support:

• Innovate UK funding – as the UK's innovation agency, Innovate UK runs regular competitions and grant schemes to help businesses develop and commercialise new products, processes and services.

• Horizon Europe – following the UK's association to Horizon Europe, UK businesses can again bid into the EU's €80 billion research and innovation programme, where the average grant to a UK business or researcher is around £450,000.

You access both via the innovation funding finder on GOV.UK, which lists open competitions and lets you apply online.

Export support and UK Export Finance

For firms looking overseas, the Business Growth Service leans on two main pillars:

• The export content on Business.gov.uk, which offers market guidance, training and links into the Department for Business and Trade's export support services.

• UK Export Finance (UKEF), the UK's export credit agency, which provides guarantees, insurance and direct lending so that no viable export fails for lack of finance or insurance.

UKEF has recently reported record levels of support, providing £14.5 billion of loans, guarantees and insurance in a single year and supporting tens of thousands of jobs.

Summary

The Backing Your Business campaign is a reminder that you don't have to figure all of this out on your own.

Between Business.gov.uk, the Business Support Service, the British Business Bank, Innovate UK, UKEF and your local Growth Hub, there's now a clearer route into advice, finance and export support than there has been for some time.

At Enterprise Nation, we're here to help you make sense of it and put it to work for your business.

Over the coming months, we'll be breaking down the Business Growth Service in more detail through our content, events and one-to-one support, sharing real stories from founders and directing you to the schemes that actually make a difference.

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