MD2359 London Growth Hub 2018/19 Programme

The London Growth Hub is one of the 38 ‘Growth Hubs’ across England which were established to bring together public and private sector partners to promote, co-ordinate and deliver local business support and provide a mechanism for integrating national and local business support so it is easy for businesses to access.

The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has committed to ongoing financial support for Growth Hubs over the next two financial years with an indicative allocation of funding for a further two years. Steps are therefore being taken to ensure that the London Growth Hub is supported by appropriate staffing resource, that the web portal is further developed to ensure it is fit-for-purpose, that face-to-face programmes of business support are developed and delivered, and that business awareness of the programme is significantly raised. Steps are also being taken to ensure that harder to reach groups are more proactively supported through targeted programmes and the forming of partnerships with community and grass-roots organisations.

Whilst the online portal will remain as a resource for businesses throughout their journey from pre-start to growth business, the proposed programme of face-to-face activity will see a move to target our support for pre-starts on those that face particular barriers to entrepreneurship. Other support will focus on existing businesses established for 12 months or more and will primarily focus on increasing business productivity and growth whilst ensuring the core principles of economic fairness and good growth are maintained. The programme will therefore play a key role in supporting delivery of the Mayor’s Good Work Standard, both through our face-to-face interactions with SMEs, and through the online resources, which will be developed to include additional content to support good work practices and sustainable business models.

The indicative programme for 2018/19 and 2019/20, endorsed by the LEAP Investment Committee, is detailed in the table below. Any changes to this programme will be agreed in line with the LEAP’s Schedule of Funding Responsibilities and, if necessary, through GLA decision forms.

Mayoral approval is sought for the overall grant funded programme expenditure of £875,000 over two years, noting that individual business cases will be submitted to LEAP for each workstream.

The £875,000 of the London Growth Hub budget will support a series of events, masterclasses and other face-to-face support that will include sectoral and geographical elements such as:

• • Business support to high growth SMEs in key priority sectors of life sciences, tech and digital and advanced urban services and focusing on: 1) business to business support; 2) access to expertise for product validation; 3) finance; and 4) intellectual property.

• • A project will be considered to support emerging Creative Enterprise Zones. The activities will provide creative sector SMEs with business skills that will support them with leadership, supply chains and business development. This project will form part of the ‘Hub and Spoke’ model that would be established if our current GLA funding bid is successful. This element of Growth Hub work will be subject to a separate decision form setting out the detail of the project.

• • Funding to develop a business programme that will provide targeted support for London SMEs pre- and post- Brexit. It is envisaged that some of the support required by businesses, pending the terms of Brexit will be in areas such as visas for specialised workforce, additional requirements for importing/exporting to the EU and taxation. This element of Growth Hub work will also be subject to a separate decision form setting out the detail of the project.

It is likely that an element of this funding will be used to support research that will inform any future delivery of business support activity.

Other programme spend included within the budget is as follows:

• Marketing activity: a marketing campaign that promotes brand recognition of the London Growth Hub as the main source of business support for London will be developed. With increased visibility of the face to face programmes, the London Growth Hub will use the brand name as a catalyst to engage stakeholders, in particular the private sector to support programme delivery.

• Web portal and online content: budget allocation for the London Growth Hub also includes expenditure for maintenance, hosting and support of the web portal and content production (webinars, factsheets, videos, etc). In 2018/19 many of these costs will be met by an existing allocation from the LEAP’s Growing Places Fund.

• Staffing: To effectively deliver programme activities, two-year budget provision has been included to maintain a grade 6 Growth Hub Project Officer post and to create a new grade 10 Principal Policy Officer post, which would lead on business growth policy and programmes.

• Programme Evaluation (2018/19 & 19/20): The evaluation will look at how the web portal is used, through a thorough analysis of traffic data and surveys. There will also be a qualitative analysis of the face to face programme to gauge relevance and depth of the services provided.

It should be noted that additional funds are being sought from the GLA’s budget in order to grow the programme’s face-to-face offer and that any additional GLA funds will be progressed under a separate decision.

Since being established as a virtual (online) business support platform in 2015, the London Growth Hub has gone on to achieve over 100,000 unique users of the web portal, 1,300 Members and over £15m social media engagements. Through a programme of business support pilots, events and pop-up support offers the Growth Hub has engaged with over 13,000 entrepreneurs and SMEs and provided face-to-face business support to over 2,000 of these businesses. Further work is now needed to raise engagement and awareness levels, improve the user experience of the portal, and establish a year-round face-to-face support offer.

The London Growth Hub programme forms a key part of the activity identified to support the Mayor’s draft Economic Development Strategy. Nationally, Growth Hubs feature heavily in the Government’s Industrial Strategy White Paper and will play a key role in delivering productivity growth and supporting London’s core and growth sectors.

All projects that are delivered by external partners will be tendered by TfL to ensure compliance with open procurement processes.

Outcomes for each strand of activity will be developed through the individual business cases submitted to LEAP. High-level outcomes include supporting SMEs to grow their business, preparing them and signposting them to export to new markets, prepare them for Brexit and address challenges that new economic circumstances may bring.

Additional funding is being sought to supplement the core grant covered by this report. If successful in securing additional funding, the project will deliver over 18 months an additional 800 hours of information, diagnostic and brokerage, and 600 hours of one-to-one business support and 45 master classes.

As indicated in other sections of this MD, the Growth Hub has two components, the online tools and the face to face support programmes. Both elements require different type of engagement in terms of equalities.

For the online portal, we are ensuring that all relevant London-based business support schemes are included in the website. That includes specific information and events for women, BAME and other underrepresented groups.

For the face to face support we have developed a range of projects that proactively seek to satisfy the GLA’s public sector equalities duty, namely through addressing underrepresentation of women, disabled people and people of BAME origin. There are a range of example projects under the banner of the Growth Hub that address the equalities duty like: the Access to Entrepreneurship and the Business Support and Leadership project which will target barriers faced by particular groups in entrepreneurship and ensure that local communities are benefiting from capital investment in workspace and business growth.

We are also hosting a range of round tables with BAME, LGBT and disabled women to identify what challenges they face when establishing their business and how we can best support them. The outcomes of the round tables will inform the next phase of the Growth Hub programming.

All the face to face projects we fund under the banner of the Growth Hub have targets for women, BAME and disability. Additionally, the face to face business will be delivered in areas with high deprivation indices.

It is a Government requirement that the delivery of the London Growth Hub is in line with LEAP’s Assurance Framework, which outlines detailed arrangements for the approval, appraisal and delivery of LEAP funded programmes as well as requirements for governance and transparency as well as risk management.

Risks for each project will be identify when new budget approval is sought. But potential risks include not procuring on time, not receiving good quality tenders, projects not recruiting sufficient SMEs. But all these risks will be addressed on individual basis depending on particular project and circumstances.

Mayoral approval is sought for expenditure of £875,000 of the LEAP Growth Hub budget for years 2018/19 (£390,000) and 2019/20 (£485,000), to support the delivery of the London Growth Hub programmes listed under the table in paragraph 1.4. LEAP Growth Hub budget is fully funded by grant received from the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy.

The foregoing sections of this report indicate that:

- the decisions requested of the Mayor concern the exercise of the GLA’s general powers, falling within the statutory powers of the GLA to do such things as may be considered to further, and or be facilitative of or conducive or incidental to the furthering of, the promotion of economic development and wealth creation in Greater London; and

- in formulating the proposals in respect of which a decision is sought officers have complied with the GLA’s related statutory duties to:

(a) pay due regard to the principle that there should be equality of opportunity for all people;

(b) consider how the proposals will promote the improvement of health of persons, health inequalities between persons and to contribute towards the achievement of sustainable development in the United Kingdom; and

(c) consult with appropriate bodies.

In taking the decisions requested, the Mayor must have due regard to the Public Sector Equality Duty; namely the need to eliminate discrimination, harassment, victimisation and any other conduct prohibited by the Equality Act 2010, and to advance equality of opportunity and foster good relations between persons who share a relevant protected characteristic (race, disability, gender, age, sexual orientation, religion or belief, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment) and persons who do not share it (section 149 of the Equality Act 2010). To this end, the Mayor should have particular regard to section 3 (above) of this report.

To the extent that it is proposed that expenditure is incurred on the:

 The award of grant funding officers must ensure that the proposed funding is disbursed in a fair and transparent manner in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and a funding agreement is put in place between and executed by the GLA and proposed recipients before any commitment to the provide funding is made;

 The procurement of works, services or supplies, officers must ensure that the works, services or supplies are procured in accordance with the GLA’s Contracts and Funding Code and that appropriate contract documentation is put in place and executed by the proposed providers and the GLA before the commencement of any works, services or supplies; and

 Staffing costs officers must ensure that they comply with all GLA HR policies and protocols (including HoPs approvals if applicable) in this regard.