Schemes to help small businesses

Two initiatives have been created to help small businesses in west Cornwall.

They involve mentoring for firms with a lack of experience and setting up a partnership to make tendering for contracts easier.

The mentoring programme offers the opportunity to receive professional, ongoing support from an experienced person with specialist skills.

The second scheme is designed to make bidding for public sector contracts much easier for very small companies.

The tendering partnership will act as an umbrella organisation, allowing a group of small firms to submit a joint tender for a public sector contract.

This could help keep the money for such contracts in Cornwall rather than the jobs being won by big companies out of county.

The projects are the work of the West Cornwall Business Network.