ARTS AND CRAFTS

Crafts Council

This is a useful organisation for anyone going into crafts and/or thinking about opening up their own workshop. Like Business Link and others, if it can’t help you it’ll probably be able to find you someone who can. The Crafts Council is an independent body funded by the Arts Council England (there are sister organisations in Scotland and Wales), and its job, in its words, is to promote contemporary crafts and to provide services to craftspeople and the public.

It has a useful database and resource centre which offers advice on legalities, funding, availability of studios and so on. An example could be a stone mason calling up to check his position on public liability insurance. Some of the straightforward research is free, otherwise there’s a small charge.

The council doesn’t usually offer specific business and/or start-up advice unless you receive one of its grants or awards, though it does occasionally organise training events.

Grants, loans and business support

The Council’s funding packages appear to be comprehensive and wide-ranging for those lucky enough to receive them. Many grants and loans have a short life, but the Crafts Council’s Development Award (previously the Setting Up Scheme) has been around for more than 30 years so should be good for another few yet.

The Development Award offers:

• a general grant (£2,500 in November 2004)
• an equipment grant of up to £5,000 (you have to pay half) – a third of this can be used to buy marketing equipment such as cameras or computers
• one-to-one support from a Professional Development Officer

• access to a creative mentor
• a residential course in business training, aimed specifically at the small creative traders and concentrating on marketing, PR, intellectual property and financial management
• one thousand free postcards
• two studio visits by their designated Professional Development Officer who’ll assess equipment, workshop suitability, and offer advice on work, direction and sales opportunities
• inclusion on the Crafts Council’s Photostorea (sic), a visual database available to groups like architects and the media.

The Crafts Council claims excellent results for this scheme. According to its research among recipients, 100 per cent are still in business after four years and 50 per cent after six years much better, it says, than for start-up businesses generally.

The Council also runs a scheme called Next Move. At the time of writing (November 2004) its funding isn’t as secure, but the Council says it hopes to continue something along these lines. Next Move is aimed at designer-makers, i.e. people who design and who are also involved in the making or manufacturing process. Broadly, the scheme aims to give arts and design graduates a head start in launching their businesses. It provides work space, equipment, grants, training and promotion opportunities in a host college. In detail:

• rent-free studio space in a college department
• a maintenance grant of £6,000 (November 2004)
• a business equipment grant of £1,000
• in-depth support and business training
• access to specialist equipment.

There are also other types of grants and loans available. The Council will also help you track down other funding which may be regional or local to you.

Website: www.craftscouncil.org.uk

AGRICULTURE/FARMING

There’s a whole separate support and funding network out there for anyone who works in farming or agriculture-related businesses. Not surprisingly, many are linked to Defra, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.

This book is not about farming: there are plenty of those around already. However, if you are considering an intensive polytunnel operation, smallholding or livestock rearing business, then there are a couple of places where you could start.

Once again, some organisations are concerned only with policy and with overseeing and co-ordinating the work of other groups, so it’s important you identify where you can get direct help and support.

Rural Enterprise Scheme

This comes under the wing of Defra and is a wide-ranging scheme. It does lean towards helping farmers diversify and adapt to changing markets, but there are many other projects or businesses it will get involved in as well. Certainly if you’re a rural trader, local craftsperson, or even working on a local community project, then it’s worth speaking to them.

Here are some examples of what the Scheme will support:

• Encouragement for tourist and craft activities. Projects could include the marketing and promotion of local tourist initiatives or helping to provide on-farm visitor attractions.
• Diversification. Here this covers helping farmers or landowners move into new or non-mainstream crops or the conversion of farm buildings to new and non-agricultural uses.
• Conservation of rural heritage. This is about promoting the revival or expansion of local artisan crafts (thatching, hedge-laying, stone masonry, wood carving) and the renovation of historic village buildings or the promotion of village museums.

Any eligible project has to be sustainable and not have any negative impact on the environment. The scheme is available across England except in the Objective One areas, which are Merseyside, South Yorkshire, Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, which have their own arrangements (see below).

Famously, many grant applications can take months to be approved. However, according to its website, there is a Rural Enterprise Scheme (RES) fast track system. Smaller projects that have applied for grants of up to £15,000 will get a decision within a month. All the usual criteria still have to be met though: the forms still have to be completed, a formal business plan submitted, and the applicant or project still has to meet the eligibility criteria.

Farm Business Advisory Service (FBAS)

This is a useful support service for farmers and some other growers which unfortunately may not exist for much longer. At the time of writing its future was not secure after the spring of 2005. Though it may not continue in its current form, a similar service could replace it so it’s worth checking if you think you may benefit.

FBAS (pronounced eff-bass) is funded by Defra and managed through Business Link. While it is aimed mainly at farmers, other growers may still find themselves eligible. You have to spend at least 75 per cent of your time working on the land, be a farmer or grower in England and have an agricultural holding number. Even if you meet these conditions you may still not benefit. FBAS doesn’t have a bottomless pit of money or time and does have to prioritise. Basically if you farm 300 acres or have 15 acres of intensive polytunnels you’re more likely to get help than someone with five acres and a flock of hobby sheep.

FBAS offers what it calls an on-farm diagnostic service to provide a ‘health check’. In English, it means it’ll send someone along with a fresh eye to have a look at what you’re doing and to help you put together a business strategy for the future. This could include:

• suggestions on improving business methods
• possible diversification
• or, ominously, ‘Exit Routes’.

A typical visit will last about four days and is free. It’s particularly useful because you get the benefit of some detailed, expert and independent free advice which in industry would cost tens of thousands of pounds in consultants’ time.

Website via: www.businesslink.gov.uk
Tel: 0845 600 9006

HOW TO IMPROVE YOUR CHANCES OF GETTING A GRANT

While potentially there is a lot of money out there you can’t expect to rely on handouts, either to get started or to bail you out of trouble. You have to be seen to be doing a lot of hard work yourself first: basically, the more effort you put in, the more likely you are to get something. Remember that, as in life, you never get anything for nothing.

You can dramatically increase your chances of getting some money by applying as soon as possible. Most pots of money are not bottomless and it’s usually first come first served. So find out how and when the money is allocated: is it decided at the beginning of every calendar year, every financial year, every quarter or only at the beginning of a scheme? Either way, get your application in fast.

There are two principle types of funding you can apply for:

• Grants. You are given a sum of money, effectively a gift, which you don’t have to pay back. Don’t get too excited though: grants will often be for relatively small amounts, the application process can be exhausting and there may be tough conditions attached.
• Loans. You borrow money, either interest-free or at a preferential rate (known as a ‘soft loan’), and pay it back at some stage in the future when your business is earning more money.

Every grant or loan application is different, but on the whole expect to do at least one of the following:

• Fill out a lengthy application form, but don’t be put off if the end justifies the means.
• Submit an up-to-date business plan, including a sales forecast.
• Hand over your latest accounts.
• Prepare a formal proposal and/or presentation.

• Attend an interview.
• Be prepared to match whatever funding you’re hoping for. For example, if you’re applying for a £500 grant to buy a computer, you may have to show you have your own £500 to put in.

Other points to take into account:

• Many grants will only be given for specific items. You’re more likely to be able to use a loan to put into the general pot of money you need to keep your business afloat.
• Don’t expect ever to receive 100 per cent of the cost of doing something. If you are successful in your application, you’re likely to receive between 15 and 50 per cent.
• Be prepared to wait. The decision-making process could take some time. Business Link warns that some government grants can take several months to be approved. If you’re desperate, then you need to look for alternative sources of money in the short term.
• Business-related grants and loans are a hugely complicated area and can change almost daily. If you do see something that suits you, don’t hang around, get your application in fast. Equally, if you can’t find anything, then it’s probably worth looking around again a month or two later.

Applications can take days to prepare: a scribbled sheet of A4 won’t get you anywhere. So weigh up the benefits of the grant or loan against the time it’ll take you to prepare your submission. If you spend 12 hours or one and a half working days preparing an application for a £50 grant towards the cost of a photocopier, are you actually better off using that time to work on your business? Of course you are.

With probably the only honourable exception of the J4B site, you’re generally better off looking for organisations that will help you with grant application forms. They’ll help you identify the grants suitable for you in the first place and then check to make sure you meet the eligibility criteria, which can often be robust. In other words, most organisations are very fussy about who they give their money to.

ORGANISATIONS THAT HELP YOU INDIRECTLY

Of the various government departments, the Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) and Defra have the most responsibility for small businesses, so it’s worth looking at their websites for general background:

Websites: www.dti.gov.uk and www.defra.gov.uk

The Countryside Agency

This is a good and worthwhile organisation but of absolutely no direct help to the small trader just starting up. The Countryside Agency is a public body funded by Defra. Its main roles are to make suggestions and advise the government on its policy for rural areas, and to act as a co-ordinator and facilitator for the countless smaller groups which work in this field. In short, it produces advisory papers, reports, surveys and research papers by the score for the benefit of other bureaucrats. It’s not there to help you write your business plan, advise you on the best delivery van to buy or show you the most effective way to lay out a market stall. But the Countryside Agency is at least batting for you. One of its other principal roles is to make sure the countryside receives at least as much help and support as urban areas.

So if you’re interested in policy or the wider picture then its website is worth reading, if only because it shows which way the government of the day is likely to be thinking. While you’re getting started and struggling to find premises, your first suppliers and worrying about cash flow, government policy will probably seem irrelevant. But national policies do affect the chances of your business succeeding, and if there are any nasty surprises coming up, then it is better to at least be warned.

Website: www.countryside.gov.uk

Small Business Service

The Small Business Service (SBS) (part of the DTI) is at the time of writing the parent or overseer of Business Link in England. It is another body that looks after policy and regulation and again is not really the place to go if you have specific questions about your fledgling home ironing service. But its website is however written –by the government’s standards – in fairly plain English and is quite useful if you are interested in the wider picture.

Website: www.sbs.gov.uk

OBJECTIVE ONE AND TWO AREAS

Objective One and Two funding is money from Europe that is designed to help the economic regeneration of poorer areas. As a general rule, individual small traders won’t benefit directly: the money is usually funnelled through larger businesses and organisations and is then spent to benefit the community.

Conceivably, if you’re going into tourism or planning to bring lots of jobs to one of the designated areas, then you may possibly get something. But it’s far more likely you’d benefit indirectly. For example, grant money is often spent on improving local environments or establishing new facilities. These in turn bring more people to an area, make it more attractive and therefore in theory increase your number of potential customers.

Generally, Objective One and Two status is positive news for a region because it does mean that millions of pounds is pouring in. But also remember that a region had to be poor and economically deprived in the first place in order to benefit.

Objective One areas are the poorest and therefore receive the most money. They are: Cornwall and the Isles of Scilly, South Yorkshire, Merseyside, West Wales and the Valleys. There are nine Objective Two areas in England, one in each region which contains a government office. Both programmes run for seven years, 2000–06.

OTHER SOURCES OF HELP AND ADVICE

The National Rural Knowledge Exchange is, at the time of writing, a recent consortium of 14 universities and colleges whose aim is to promote the development of the rural economy by providing web-based and physical access to sources of technology, innovative ideas and business advice. Its linked website, www.nationalrural.org, is due to be fully up and running by mid-summer 2005.

Other sources of advice include the obvious ones which can easily be overlooked. Check out your bank manager and your bank’s small business adviser, solicitor, accountant, the Inland Revenue, Customs and Excise and the Health and Safety Executive.

There are two schools of thought about advice from these types of sources. The first is that they’ve probably had years of dealing with other small businesses and will have built up a huge reservoir of experience and wisdom on which to draw. The counter view, reported by some small business people, is that bank managers and the like have no direct first-hand experience of business (’cushioned by a salary and safe pension’ is how one put it), and don’t have any idea of the harsh economic realities in the real world.