Department for Business and Trade- Business Support Service (tendered as ‘Business Information Service 2024’)

The Department for Business and Trade has procured a service to provide information, advice, guidance and signposting for any kind of business, including pre-start-ups, in England. This new service will replace the existing Business Support Helpline. The aim of the Business Information Service is to increase and encourage access to relevant high quality business support, save businesses time and resource, and ultimately help businesses to start, grow and thrive – in particular Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs). The Business Information Service will be expected to provide bespoke, unscripted advice (via telephone, email, webchat, social media, and other messaging services, but not face-to-face) on a wide range of topics including starting a business, accessing finance, and business planning. The service will need to maintain a database of information on business support in England for use by the service’s advisers. This database will also need to be accessible to other users, such as advisers based in Growth Hubs. The service will be demand-led so should be flexible. It must provide capacity to meet at least 50,000 inbound contacts, with at least 10,000 in-depth appointments per annum. It must also be capable of rapidly scaling-up (at extra cost) in response to economic shocks and other pressures. The service will be expected to operate within standard hours, but should have a robust process for out-of-hours contacts. The service is expected to go live on 1 April 2024 – following a minimum three month mobilisation period. We expect the contract to run for up to three years – initially for one year with the option to extend the contract on an annual basis for three more. The initial contract value is anticipated to be up to £2.5 million per annum (including VAT).