Business Mentors To Assist New Government Programme

The Minister for Enterprise and Commerce Max Bradford has announced that Business In the Community's (BITC) Business Mentor Programme has become a key part of the Government's new BIZinfo service.

The BIZinfo service was launched this week, and replaces the business development programme established by Labour over eight years ago.

BIZinfo will offer a freephone, backed up by an information database with access to the latest information available to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs).

Mr Bradford said BITC's Business Mentor Programme had been working at the coalface with SMEs since 1991 and had assisted over 2900 businesses in the last year.

"The management systems BITC has in place, its nine years experience of working with SMEs and its track record of customer service makes it an ideal ready-made network to work along side the BIZinfo programme.

"BITC is substantially funded by the private sector, but the Government has decided to assist the mentoring programme with a grant of $100,000 a year for two years," Mr Bradford said.

BITC chief executive Alison Quesnel said the marriage between the mentor scheme and BIZinfo provided two-way benefits.

"The new BIZinfo service is an excellent tool for our mentors and clients alike as it will expand and enhance the depth of both services.

"The call centre we set up last year received an enormous number of calls from small businesses on a vast range of problems and challenges, many of which were not part of the service we provide," Ms Quesnel said.

Mr Bradford said the BIZinfo service would deliver information to help solve what small businesses told the Government last year were the real barriers to their growth.

"Also the old scheme reached only 1 per cent of small businesse so it was of extremely limited benefit," he said.