News

As Scotland’s national business advice service celebrates ten years since its delivery passed to Local Authority control, figures show businesses supported by Business Gateway created over 100,000 jobs over the last decade.

With 99,004 businesses started with support from Business Gateway since Local Authorities took on delivery in 2008, 108,904 jobs have been created*.

Figures for the annual period ending March 2018 also show that Scotland’s business community continues to use Business Gateway in significant numbers.

Throughout last year, Business Gateway provided support to 53,008 individual customers. This included people thinking of starting a business and existing businesses looking for support. The number of new businesses set up last year, with support from Business Gateway, was 9,129 with almost half (47%) being led by women.

The number of clients projecting significant growth, e.g. by taking on new employees, increasing their sales or entering new international markets, is 3,166. These companies receive support from a Business Gateway Growth Adviser and are able to access additional support from the Enterprise Agencies.

84% of people who have used the service said they were satisfied, with 85% saying they would recommend it to others.

The DigitalBoost programme, which recently received additional funding of £1.7m from the Scottish Government, has seen Scotland’s SMEs embrace digital technology. Throughout the year ending March 2018, 617 businesses received valuable 1:1 support to make improvements to their digital footprint, 2,483 digital healthchecks were carried out by businesses and 7,941 training guides were downloaded. The number of online tutorials undertaken was 2,923.

DigitalBoost is aimed at helping Scottish SMEs capitalise on the ever-changing area of digital technology. The programme provides a range of digital training including online tutorials, practical guides, 1:1 support from a digital expert and local workshops on topics including social media, cyber resilience, data analytics, digital marketing strategy and e-commerce.

* The employment calculation is based on the Scottish Government’s Jobs to Enterprise Ratio used within its Businesses in Scotland 2017 report.