County support for Staffordshire business

Staffordshire’s business support fund has now helped business expand and safeguarded hundreds of jobs…

Nine months ago we launched the Staffordshire Business Support Fund to help businesses of up to 50 employees with loans of up to £50,000.

It was part of our Manifesto commitment developed in the hope it would boost Staffordshire’s economy in the absence of help from banks.

As a Conservative I want business to get on with being business and wouldn’t normally subscribe to local government duplicating what banks, as finance providers, do already.

But, and it’s a big but, good and viable businesses are being prevented from expanding and thriving because banks have pulled down the shutters on new borrowing and in some cases are actually removing borrowing or reducing it for less than logical business reasons.

That’s up to the banks as businesses I guess. And as central government is finding, getting banks to do things they don’t want to do is just about impossible… even when we as the public own some of them!

So in this particular situation we decided the County must intervene to help fill a gap where banks are clearly failing to support the Staffordshire economy.

I’m pleased to see that the original policy decision is bearing fruit and has resulted in one of those rare occassions where we can see that a policy has directly led to clearly identifiable and positive results on the ground… in the form of economic growth and jobs.

The first million pounds we’ve provided is all but used and we’ve just agreed a further half million because of the success of phase one.

And for anyone who is concerned, believe me, the criteria and security around the public money is every bit as strong, if not stronger, than banks would require. To ensure that, we’ve commissioned the financial sector to administer the scheme on behalf of the County.

In reality, with interest and fees it will be of minimal cost to tax payers in Staffordshire. With the successful outcomes so far I believe it is excellent value for money and the gap filling and market stimulation nature of this policy is just what local government should be doing.

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