Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, what support is available for small coaching and recruitment businesses to bid for Government contracts to provide help for people seeking training and reskilling opportunities after the covid-19 outbreak.

The Government’s online Contracts Finder lets firms search for information about contracts worth over £10,000 with the government and its agencies. Contracts Finder can be used to search for contract opportunities in different sectors, find out what is coming up in the future and look up details of previous tenders and contracts. Interested firms are welcome to use the finder on GOV.UK at: www.gov.uk/contracts-finder. Firms can create an account to apply for contracts, get email updates and save searches. Alternatively, they can search and apply for contracts without an account.

The Government is also taking many steps to increase training and reskilling opportunities available across the UK. We provide grant funding to Be the Business – a business-led independent charity which aims to raise productivity at the firm level – through technology adoption and by promoting best practice management and leadership. Be the Business is delivering executive leadership and management training, expert mentoring, place-based collaborative peer networks and free online advice and benchmarking tools, including around digitalisation, to help smaller and medium businesses (SMEs) identify practical steps to transform their business.

My Rt. Hon. Friend Mr Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Plan for Jobs also provides new funding to ensure more people will get tailored support to help them find work. This includes launching the £2 billion Kickstart Scheme fund and investing £2.9 billion in the Restart programme over 3 years to support and encourage the UK’s labour market. The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) are also doubling the number of jobcentre Work Coaches to provide intensive support for both young people and the newly unemployed.

Further measures include committing £8 million for digital skills boot camps, increasing apprenticeship opportunities, expanding sector-based work academies programme (SWAPs), launching the Job Finding Support Service, and increasing the funding for the Flexible Support Fund by £150 million in Great Britain.