The scheme will offer £2,000 worth of free advice to 20,000 small businesses across the country. 

Speaking at the launch Matt Hancock, enterprise and skills minister, said that as well as helping businesses directly the scheme would help the government to deliver small business policies more effectively in the future.  

“Growth vouchers are going to both directly help but also from analysing what small businesses themselves do with the money, we can learn far more about how the government can be effective in the support of small businesses in the future,” he said. 

The vouchers are available to businesses which have been running more than a year, have fewer than 50 employees and haven’t taken external strategic advice for the last three years. 

The five areas of advice businesses can apply for are: 

• Leadership and management training 
• Making the most of digital tech
• Managing cashflow, late payments and negotiating finance
• Marketing, attracting and keeping customers
• Developing skills and taking on staff

Find out more about how to apply on Gov.uk. 

Businesses with vouchers will be able to access advice through the new Enterprise Nation marketplace. 

Emma Jones MBE, founder of Enterprise Nation, said: “This is an exciting initiative which could help accelerate the growth of thousands of small businesses at a critical stage of development – helping them to build long-term sustainability. 

“At the moment, access to business advice is sporadic and highly variable with no means available to help businesses differentiate the good from bad. 

“We want to address this by building a service that establishes suppliers’ credentials to offer advice from the outset and then continually seeks feedback on the quality of those services for everyone to see.”

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