The UK-funded MBA-style scale-up programme for small and medium-sized enterprises created by the previous Conservative government has enrolled more than 10,000 owner managers, helping its survival under Labour.
Some 10,635 people had enrolled on the Help to Grow Management Course as of the end of September, according to figures published this month by the Department for Business and Trade.
This is a third of the target set by Rishi Sunak when he launched Help to Grow as chancellor in 2021 in a push to improve the UK’s poor record on productivity.
But it means the 12-week course — which offers 50 hours of in-person and online training, 10 hours of mentoring support and alumni networking to managers of companies with between five and 249 employees — has surpassed in scale comparable private sector initiatives.
Some 2,300 small business owners have completed Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Small Businesses scheme (GS10K) since it launched in 2010, although it boasts an alumni network of more than 53,000 employees and twice as much teaching time as Help to Grow.
The investment bank’s programme is open to established companies with at least £250,000 turnover and between five and 50 employees.
Rachel Reeves has been impressed enough by the Help to Grow data to give the scheme backing. In her October Budget, the current chancellor pledged to continue covering 90 per cent of the fees, meaning it will cost each participant just £750, for another 12 months.
On its launch in 2021, the scheme’s original target was to reach 30,000 businesses in three years. But initial struggles to attract participants eased after the government listened to feedback from employers’ groups, said Tina McKenzie, policy chair at the Federation of Small Businesses.
“Running a business often doesn’t leave much time for other things,” she said. “Many business owners who would benefit from Help To Grow just weren’t able to take part, due to the time commitment involved.”
Mark Hart, professor of entrepreneurship and enterprise policy at Warwick Business School, said funding for marketing Help to Grow had been a major constraint on demand,
“We could have got to 30,000 [participants] easily if we had had the marketing budget,” said Hart, who has also been involved in the GS10K Small Business programme. “The scheme was handcuffed from the start.”
The latest cohort at King’s Business School in central London look nothing like the investment bankers, consultants and FTSE 100 company directors that are the usual intake for MBA programmes.
They include Naved Siddiqui, operations director at Pacific Seafood, which is about to double the size of its hub in south-west London thanks to a £4.7mn bank loan he helped secure while taking Help to Grow.
Siddiqui also credited mentoring he received on the course for helping him restructure reporting lines inside the company to get more done.
“We have got 35 people, but all of them were coming to me,” he said. “I realised that the people were there to drive the business to the next chapter, but I had become a bottleneck.”
Julian Glyn-Owen, an executive fellow in leadership responsible for various executive education programmes at King’s and leader of the current cohort, said Help to Grow was reaching people with ambition who would normally struggle to access formal education to improve their skills.
“They are real business owners dealing with 360-degree challenges, normally with two or three other leaders in the business, and this is having an impact,” he said.
Some 62 per cent of owner managers who have completed the Help to Grow programme reported increased sales, according to Ipsos research cited by the Small Business Charter, which has accredited 68 business schools for their work with SMEs. Ninety-one per cent reported higher awareness of factors that drive productivity and growth.
Alexandra Charles, SBC vice-chair and associate dean at the University of Derby’s business school, said Help to Grow had also helped provider schools, through support with research and apprenticeships, hiring graduates or providing office space on their campuses.
“There is an opportunity that didn’t exist before,” she said. “We are not just providing management and leadership training, we are opening the door for all these other research and development opportunities.”
A crucial factor that will guarantee Help to Grow’s survival beyond 2025 is if it can produce evidence of real productivity improvements through better management and strategic decision making.
Reeves set new targets for productivity in the public sector in her maiden Budget, although recent drops in output have hit Labour’s ambition to boost economic growth.
Hart at Warwick said he was confident that Help to Grow would play a key role in the UK hitting its target to be the fastest-growing economy in the G7 by the end of this parliament. But he added that the impact of Help to Grow on the macroeconomic picture, and in particular productivity figures, would take several years to feed through to official data.
“There is no negativity within the Department for Business and Trade,” he said. “It is whether they can get enough money out of the Treasury to keep it running.”
The Treasury said: “At Budget we confirmed over £200mn in funding for wider small business support across 2024-25 and 2025-26, including funding for Help to Grow to continue in 2025-26. Any future funding decisions will be confirmed at the conclusion of the multiyear Spending Review.”
