BRADFORD Council has joined forces with Barnsley Metropolitan Borough Council, Calderdale Metropolitan Borough Council and North Yorkshire County Council to support and guide local and small businesses in securing work in the public sector.

The Council is working with local organisation Go4Growth to emphasise the importance of developing the local business marketplace and support for the voluntary sector.

Each of the four authorities have recognised the need to provide more support and guidance for these organisations, who find the reality of finding and securing work in the public sector disproportionately harder than their larger competitors.

Collectively, the Council is spending in excess of £1.4bn per year on public services, and currently buys from a large pool of suppliers. Whilst a proportion of these are small and medium-sized organisations, across both the business and voluntary sectors, the ambition is to increase this number.

Go4Growth is a programme designed specifically to help smaller organisations in any sector to enter or grow in the public sector marketplace.

The programme is funded by Bradford Council, so businesses can join the programme and take the support, guidance, tools and resources on offer with no cost to them.

Leader of Bradford Council, Councillor Susan Hinchcliffe, said: “This programme will allow us to support our small businesses and Voluntary, Community & Social Enterprise (VCSE) Sector to grow within the public sector. 

"We already use local companies for work, services and supplies as much as we are able to, and this supports our local economy and local people. 

"It’s not about doing local businesses any favours, they still have to compete fairly with businesses across the country, however we can make sure they are prepared and skilled enough to write bids and tenders to compete with the best. 

"We want every penny spent to strengthen local businesses and social organisations. This is a great way to help our local small businesses get free access to support when they are looking to win new business with the public sector.

"It will hopefully help organisations to grow in confidence and win new work which should help businesses in the district.”

Gillian Askew FCIPS, Co-Founder of Go4Growth, said: “We are delighted to be working with these authorities in Yorkshire to help support organisations to be able to find and secure work in the public sector marketplace.

"This is really important work, which has only increased in priority and urgency in the wake of the Covid 19 pandemic.”

To join the programme head here.