Scottish Government

Main Findings

• The majority of companies had been in contact with their local LEC or the Business Gateway before signing up to the BLA pilot.
• In most cases, companies had already identified some training needs and were prompted to participate in the BLA pilots because of the funding support available.
• One quarter of companies decided to join the BLA pilot to receive support and advice in terms of what training they should participate in.
• Three quarters of the companies included all staff in the training plan and training was used to upgrade or widen staff knowledge on trade specific or business management skills.
• The majority of companies perceived that the support provided in the BLA pilot was sufficient and there was general satisfaction with the support received to date.
• Some companies perceived that the training was restricted as this was limited to the Learndirect Scotland database.
• There were some indications that more guidance was required on the quality and availability of training.
• Companies would prefer to have courses recommended rather than suggested to them.

BLA pilots

The BLA concept is being tested through four pilots:

• a geographic pilot operating in the Clyde Valley; across the Scottish Enterprise Glasgow, Scottish Enterprise Dunbartonshire and led by Scottish Enterprise Renfrewshire.
• a sectoral pilot focusing on tourism businesses operating across the whole of the Scottish Enterprise area led by Scottish Enterprise Fife;
• a sectoral pilot aimed at manufacturing businesses, again across the whole of the Scottish Enterprise area and led by Scottish Enterprise Lanarkshire;
• and a geographic pilot operating in Ross and Cromarty Enterprise LEC area and led by Highlands and Islands Enterprise.

BLAs offer guidance in assessing training needs, assistance in sourcing training linked to an agreed training plan and up to 50% of training costs. BLAs are intended to fill gaps in the support available to firms _ accounts are only available to eligible firms who could not get funding from elsewhere.

Methodology for the initial evaluation of the BLA pilots

A series of face to face interviews were conducted with the Scottish Enterprise's programme manager, the Local Enterprise Company (LEC) manager of each of the four BLA pilots, Learndirect Scotland's executive responsible for BLAs, and a representative of SE's Business Development Team responsible for Business Gateways. In addition twenty telephone interviews were conducted with companies involved in the pilots (five companies from each of the four pilot schemes). All the companies were required to have completed their training needs analysis and had started the process of selecting relevant training.

The fieldwork for the initial evaluation stage was conducted between May and June 2004 and was intended to reflect the early stages in the development of the BLA concept. In a number of cases the stakeholders had began to develop aspects of the delivery programme and further changes have been implemented since the fieldwork was completed.

Company eligibility

A few companies expressed an interest in the BLAs but were rejected. In the geographic pilot the main reasons for ineligibility are the size and involvement in IiP but some were rejected because they were lifestyle businesses. The tourism pilot also rejected individuals on the case of IiP involvement, in addition to the size of the company. Whereas, in the manufacturing pilot there was a pre-referral eligibility telephone interview. The use of such a eligibility interview is faced with issues of defining manufacturing and the level of manufacturing required to be considered as eligible.

Companies' awareness and engagements with BLAs

Most of the companies were aware of the different support mechanisms and most had been in contact with their LEC or Business Gateway before signing up to the BLA pilot. They had contact through a range of initiatives. Previous involvement with the support mechanisms included business start-up and high growth support, other general business development support, participation in specific initiatives and general networking events.

The majority of companies were alerted to BLAs through the LEC. A quarter of companies were alerted through the Business Gateway. Other sources providing information on the BLAs were local training providers, local initiatives, local tourist boards and through 'word of mouth' from other companies.

The main reason for being prompted to take part in the initiative was because of the funding support available, although a quarter of companies engaged with the BLA programme to obtain advice and guidance on the types of training.

Companies' involvement in training

Most companies already provided training for their staff and had identified some of their training needs. However, only two of the twenty companies had a written training programme and only a minority of companies had a dedicated training budget. Some companies reported that the extra funding allocated through the BLA had enabled them to offer higher levels of training to more of their staff.

Almost all companies interviewed found the training needs analysis (TNA), a helpful process which provided a holistic and formalised approach, prompted a review of neglected areas of business operations and demonstrated to senior managers where training is needed and what benefit would be gained from this.

Initial advice and guidance

Beyond the development of the TNA, the main support of the BLA adviser was to provide general advice and 'sign posting' on locally available training courses. This information included a list of training providers, details of the courses and price information. The BLA advisers also provided support in training needs analysis, as well as setting the main objectives, structure and timeframe for the training plan.

Company satisfaction with BLA support

Companies were generally satisfied with the level of support offered in the BLA pilot but one third of companies suggested improvements for the scheme, including: having more training providers and courses outside those provided by Learndirect Scotland; providing more information on the quality of course; more support for in-house training; and making the process quicker.

Conclusions and lessons learned

Overall the feedback from the BLA pilot scheme was positive. However, a few issues and concerns were raised. These issues could be grouped into three categories: typical 'teething problems'; issues relating to the operating context facing each pilot; and implementation issues.

Subsequent learning points have emerged from the feedback provided in the review during the early implementation stage:

More clarity is needed over the rationale for the programme

More thought should have been given to the precise definition of concepts in the pilot at the design stage

Additional SE LEC staff resources were required to implement the pilots on time due to their more complex operating environment.

Greater clarity regarding the roles and responsibilities of the various stakeholders would develop a wider sense of ownership of BLAs.

Within a target driven environment, competition for new blood companies is intense and this is a disincentive for business support organisations to refer client firms to more appropriate support.

BLAs have underwritten the development of the training needs analysis (TNA) tool which SMEs appear to like.

These learning points should be considered in later implementation stages of the BLA pilots, as well as providing some insight into the perceptions of companies towards the BLAs. The findings from this initial review need to be explored in greater depth. The next stage of evaluation will involve 40 case studies with companies who have completed their BLAs. The findings from these second stage interviews, alongside a telephone survey of all participating businesses, will provide a more robust and detailed analysis of the impact of the BLAs on companies.