Business News Round Up (28/05/2024)
Record number of start-up businesses in the Highlands
Grant funding from the Highland Council for business start-ups has helped the area register a record number of new businesses in the last year. Highland Council’s Business Gateway service has supported over 2000 businesses with start-up and growth support in the last year and assisted 358 to successfully start to trade. The Business Gateway service is fully funded with local business advisers from Caithness to Inverness and from Lochaber to Sutherland. The service provides local one-to-one support and online with webinars, tutorials, digital help along with a suite of resources to support businesses, allowing them to be commercially successful and help grow the Highland economy. Chair of the Highland Council’s Economy and Infrastructure Committee, Councillor Ken Gowans said: “The start-up success rate demonstrates that against a backdrop of a challenging environment the Highland area is performing extremely well. We continue to be committed to encouraging and supporting enterprise.”
https://www.scottishfinancialnews.com/articles/record-number-of-start-up-businesses-in-the-highlands
Cuts to skills funding hit poorest areas hardest and put £20 billion of economic growth at risk
Millions of lost opportunities to improve qualifications are holding back economic growth and creating a “great skills divide” as a result of cuts to skills budgets, a new report warns. By 2035, one-in-two adults will hold higher education qualifications. This would leave the UK 10th in the OECD, down from 6th in 2022, as other countries continue to expand higher education. The UK is also on track to make little progress in intermediate skills, leaving one-in-three adults qualified to GCSE or equivalent level, behind many comparator countries. Learning and Work Institute, warns the UK’s skills base risks plateauing mid-table in the OECD at an estimated opportunity cost to the economy of £20 billion a year. The country’s inability to meet skills demand is a contributor to low economic growth over the past 15 years, with average wages now £12,000 per year below what they would be on pre-financial crisis trends.
New programme helping to usher innovation in North East Scotland
A new collaboration between the University of Aberdeen, Opportunity North East (ONE), and Innovate UK is helping the next generation of innovators in tech, life sciences, and energy to explore their research and technologies. The three partners are co-funding the new North East market discovery programme via UK ICURe, the UK’s leading early-stage research accelerator. Ten teams of researchers are embarking on an eight-week journey in the programme and are set to gain market awareness and customer discovery skills. They’ll use insights and tools to explore their innovation’s commercial potential and identify market demand. Over 500 teams across the UK have benefited from ICURe to date, and it’s supported the establishment of more than 200 startup companies. It also serves as a gateway to Innovate UK, connecting startup prospects at an early stage and enabling them to participate in follow-on programmes as they launch and grow their businesses.
https://www.digit.fyi/new-programme-helping-to-usher-innovation-in-north-east-scotland/
Openreach extends full-fibre across Scotland
Full fibre broadband is heading to 28 more Scottish city suburbs, towns, and villages, as part of a broadband upgrade by Openreach. Port Glasgow, Possil in Glasgow, Wester Hailes in Edinburgh, Grantown on Spey in the Highlands, Tobermory on the Isle of Mull and 22 other communities will benefit from the roll-out. Several locations in Fife and South Lanarkshire will be upgraded, while more parts of Aberdeen and Dundee are also included. They join 1.2 million homes and businesses across Scotland who already have access to Openreach’s network. Across the UK, Openreach has published updated plans to build full fibre broadband to a record 517 more locations – covering a further 2.7 million homes and businesses. Robert Thorburn, Openreach partnership director for Scotland, said: “Our rollout of full fibre broadband is a huge infrastructure success story. As far as we know, no company is building faster or further in Europe.”
https://dailybusinessgroup.co.uk/2024/05/openreach-extends-full-fibre-across-scotland/