As many, next week, begin to return to regular working patterns following the summer break, businesses are being encouraged to sign-up to OxLEP's annual event, which hopes to offer inspiration, guidance and support to the county’s business community, whatever stage of their respective business journey they are on.
The conference – which will take place on 30 October at the Oxford Belfry, near Thame – is all-set to bring together dozens of Oxfordshire business leaders, entrepreneurs and those working within SMEs, with OxLEP ready to reach out to organisations it has previously engaged with, or those who are new to Local Enterprise Partnership support.
On offer to delegates at the event will be the opportunity to speak with business advisors who can offer support, tips and guidance across a number of key areas, including issues and opportunities around growth, leadership and managing finance, as well as ‘people-focused’ areas, such as apprenticeship provision within businesses.
Visitors to the event will also be able to benefit from a range of ‘taster sessions’ – led by OxLEP teams – to better understand the type of ongoing support offered to businesses who engage with programmes on a more regular basis.
In addition to better understanding OxLEP’s business support offer, OxLEP will also highlight some of the key projects and programmes it has recently-delivered, producing significant impacts for the county’s business community, as well as wider Oxfordshire communities too.
A look back at our 2022 annual event at The Curzon, Westgate Oxford.
During the past 12 months, OxLEP has successfully supported Oxfordshire businesses in numerous ways, via projects that make a positive impact across several business ‘touch points’.
This includes hundreds of Oxfordshire businesses continuing to receive bespoke business support plans via OxLEP’s online business support tool.
Further specialist support has been provided to the county’s business community through a number of additional schemes, including its Visitor Economy Renaissance Programme – itself, providing over £600,000-worth of support to tourism-focused companies in February this year via the programme’s visitor economy grant scheme.
This, as well as the longer-term support that was offered through OxLEP’s European Regional Development Fund-backed programmes, eScalate and Innovation Support for Business (ISfB).
Collectively – across the lifetime of both programmes – eScalate and ISfB generated close to 12,000 hours of business support to Oxfordshire organisations, before they closed in early-summer.
Meanwhile, OxLEP continue to play a critical role in enhancing apprenticeship provision in the county thanks to its Social Contract programme.
The Social Contract has, to-date, secured over £1 million-worth of apprenticeship levy pledges from large Oxfordshire businesses, ensuring small businesses can in-turn access funding for their own apprenticeship provision.
This has so far included SMEs creating apprenticeship openings a variety of sectors, including in engineering, construction and health and social care – opportunities which would otherwise be lost to the county, with levy funding returning to the Treasury.
More widely, OxLEP’s £107.5 million Local Growth Fund programme is set to see 9,700 jobs created for Oxfordshire by 2030 through its collective projects, whilst – in- turn – supporting 2,800 new learners and enabling a further £850 million of funding.
Over the last year, OxLEP have also looked to engage business leaders – and those looking to get into business – via a number of new methods too, including the launch of its first podcast series, OxTalks.
OxTalks has already engaged thousands of OxLEP social media followers with episodes focusing on topics such as apprenticeships, innovation and the changing face of the workplace.
OxLEP’s annual event will take place from 9.30am to 2pm on Monday 30 October at The Oxford Belfry.
