During the unprecedented situation facing businesses across Herefordshire it has identified that there is a need to provide additional tailored 121 business support to businesses, especially as current Business Support Staff are focussed on delivering Covid-19 Business Support Grants.

The council have conducted a procurement exercise to form a framework of suitable suppliers of business support to deliver the service to businesses across the county. Given the expected high demand for the service it was decided a framework approach would provide more capacity rather than a single supplier.

The procurement exercise concluded that three companies had the required skills, experience and staff capacity to undertake the commission and could be included within the framework.

The funding for this framework has been provided by the Marches LEP via the existing Growth Hub project. The LEP has agreed that the funding should only be made available for the provision of these advisory services.

The service will be promoted via the Marches Growth Hub and the council, both organisations will promote on their website and social media channels and will produce suitable publicity.

Businesses applying to the service will be allocated a supplier on the basis of supplier capacity and the nature of the business requiring support, this will give businesses the most appropriate advice for the nature of their enquiry.