At the beginning of last year the government announced the £30m Growth Voucher scheme as part of an experiment to find out the impact of advice on small business growth.
Despite how useful they are for small businesses, time is almost up with businesses having to apply for them by the end of the month.
Worth up to £2,000 they must be match-funded by the small business.
To be eligible the business must have been running for a year, have fewer than 50 employees, and have not paid for strategic external advice in the past three years.
The successful applicants are chosen at random by the Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Cabinet Office’s Behavioural Insights team.
The vouchers are redeemed through a marketplace developed and run by small business network, Enterprise Nation. The platform allows business owners to select the right adviser to address their specific business issue.
Small businesses pay the supplier direct and can claim back up to £2,000 from the government.
With advice on the following topics: finance and cash flow; recruiting and developing staff; improving leadership and management skills; marketing, attracting and keeping customers; or making the most of digital technology, they are extremely useful.
The scheme has been running for the past 15 months aimed at helping the government to gauge whether state-backed business support should be made available to small businesses in the long term.
To apply is very simple via the HMRC new Gov.Uk website http://www.greatbusiness.gov.uk/growthvouchers/
There is no business case justification and you have a 75% chance of being awarded!
We at AIT Accountants urge businesses to act now. You may only have limited funds available for this, but that investment could give you the opportunity to look at your business in a way you hadn’t previously thought of.
Good luck.