New network launches to support growth of local businesses

A new organisation to champion local businesses across the UK and support the work of local business support organisations has been launched.

Business Board Network has been set up following the previous government's decision to end funding for Local Enterprise Partnerships in England, and transfer their business support functions to local councils and combined authorities through the establishment of business boards.

In a letter to local council chairs in April 2024, the former government said:

"The government supports the principle of maintaining a network that continues to represent the local business voice to help strengthen the aims of devolution and economic growth, and to that end hope you will support the evolving Business Board Network."

Guidance provided to local authorities said business boards should:

• Act as strong independent business voice embedded in decision-making - an eligibility requirement for some HMG programmes.

• Strength local economic strategies and interventions.

• Be a strong vehicle for leveraging match funding for public sector programmes and developing effective partnership to support growth.

• Provide challenge and insight on business impact of public sector initiatives.

• Add delivery expertise, pace and market credibility.

• Shape business, trade and investment support around local business needs.

Mark Bretton MBE, chair of Business Board Network, said:

"Our mission is simple - connecting local growth and building local economies. The new Business Board Network goes live just as we start working with the new government on their core priorities.

"The bread-and-butter work of business boards, and of the Business Board Network in supporting them, is to help deliver Local Growth Plans, applying a modern industrial strategy and infrastructure strategy to the benefit of local regions, and achieving local net zero ambitions.

"We'll also be supporting the valuable Growth Hub network as the "go to service" for local small businesses, and working with other business representative organisations and the British Business Bank, especially in overcoming the biggest barrier for growth to SMEs - access to finance."

Members of the Business Board Network are:

• Berkshire

• Buckinghamshire

• Cambridge & Peterborough Combined Authority

• Dorset

• Enterprise Cheshire and Warrington.

• Enterprising Cumbria

• East Midlands Combined County Authority

• Gloucestershire County Council

• Greater Manchester Combined Authority

• Hertfordshire Futures

• Hull and East Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Lancashire County Council

• Leicester and Leicestershire

• Lincolnshire County Council

• Liverpool City Region Combined Authority

• Norfolk County Council

• North East Combined Authority

• Oxfordshire County Council

• Solent Partners

• Staffordshire County Council

• Suffolk County Council

• Swindon and Wiltshire

• Tees Valley Combined Authority.

• West of England Combined Authority.

• West Yorkshire Combined Authority

• Worcestershire

• York and North Yorkshire Combined Authority