Barclays launches package of business support to help small businesses in Taunton Deane

26 February 2021

Barclays is providing a bespoke support programme to local businesses to help the UK’s economic recovery at a local level. Focusing first in Taunton Deane one of Barclays’ Rebuilding Thriving Local Economies (RTLE) pilot areas, the package offers support to boost growth for local businesses.

The RTLE initiative will provide a range of support to businesses and communities, as Barclays engages with leaders across government, the business community and the education sector to provide practical skills at a local level.

As its first step this year, the RTLE initiative is offering a package of support to businesses in Taunton Deane which includes access to the following programmes:

• Unlocking new growth opportunities A free webinar with Steve Young, Director of high growth Consultancy ‘Winning Pitch’ being hosted in conjunction with Taunton Chamber of Commerce on 10 March 2020. Steve is a specialist in helping leaders to grow their business’ faster and stronger even in these unprecedented times. His workshops and webinars have transformed the growth in thousands of small to medium firms across the country and overseas.
• The Back to Business Programme, created in partnership with Cambridge Judge Business School, is a free, bespoke online toolkit for businesses with over 15 hours’ worth of content, developed especially for small-to-medium sized enterprises. Participants will be able to learn how to assess the health of a business, how to manage cash flow, and how to create a resilience plan for their firm.
• For business owners looking to grow or finance new business lines, the Funding Readiness programme is designed to explain the funding options available to entrepreneurs and provide the skills and knowledge needed to fund business growth.

Taunton Deane is one of four pilot areas in the Barclays Rebuilding Thriving Local Economies initiative. RTLE focuses on understanding needs and opportunities on the ground in pilot sites in different parts of the country: Bury (a metropolitan borough), Kilmarnock (a smaller UK town), Taunton Deane (a rural community) and Great Yarmouth (a coastal town). The Barclays support for business initiatives will be available for up to 1,000 individual businesses across each programme, with firms in RTLE pilot areas encouraged to sign up first.

Graham Austin Head of SME, South West at Barclays, said: “Now more than ever, it’s imperative that we support business growth across the country. We’ve seen the impact of the pandemic on small and medium-sized businesses and now is the time to provide important skills, mentoring and funding advice so that we can support local economies to recover and thrive.”   

The Thriving Local Economies initiative was initially launched in Taunton Deane in 2019, however, as the pandemic has brought new challenges, the initiative has shifted focus to identify how local economies can recover from the effects of Covid and how Barclays can support them in doing so.

The business programmes are the first in a series of packages of support to be announced throughout the year in Taunton Deane which will further aid local businesses, provide access to skills and training and boost the aspiration and confidence of young people in the local community.

Businesses wishing to access the Back to Business or Funding Readiness programmes should visit: – https://www.barclays.co.uk/business-banking/sectors/entrepreneurs/back-to-business-programme/ and labs.barclays/capital-enterprise.