Originally Posted by AndyBrew
tried the grants/funding route also I or my business was either too old, too young, too small, too big, not enough staff, too many staff I soon realised I could spend my time more productively earning a living rather than giving some arse my valuable time talking about a grant they had no intention of providing me with or made so red tape orientated 99% of real business give up due to not enough time!!!
Yeah I've heard many a similar view from people who've had the same experience.
It sometimes seems some are given massive subsidation while others are just shrugged at and told there's nothing for them.
At a recent KTP breakfast here in Wolves there was a mini revolution of business owners arguing that they had no idea what they were supposed to be entitled to. The organisers couldn't come up with many answers either and proceeded to present a case study that completely missed the point of the project.
However the system will only work as well as it's managed and the staff that work for it. Some of it (like a lot of government run schemes) is far too targets measured and the people involved not commited, not motivated and not even trained properlly. In some cases the system is simply corrupt being milked, especially in organisations like Business Link.
That said there -are- departments and organisations doing very good jobs and really forwarding money into the right businesses. I'll admit that my business has never been able to recieve any direct funding (same story as yourself) despite our ambition to grow but we recently did have success with an employment service called KITS.
But as per my original point, it is out there, billions of pounds that the government is trying to get into the hands of the right people, it's just that those doing it aren't all doing it well. I certainly agree that the West Midlands will be getting a great deal pumped into it at the moment due to Rover.