A wide range of help and advice for firms will come to North Yorkshire next year.

This follows Business Link North Yorkshire's successful bid to become one of the Government's new Small Business Service franchisees.

The Business Link partnership, which submitted its outline bid to become one of the new Small Business Service franchisees earlier this year, has been invited to put together a detailed business plan to launch the service from next April.

Business Link chief executive Helen West said: "We are delighted to have crossed this important hurdle. This has been achieved through the hard work by the working group which developed our outline bid.

"It has also involved a massive amount of work and co-operation which has gone into creating a strong partnership between business support organisations over the last four years.

"There is a great deal to do and detailed work will now start in preparing our detailed business plan to create a wide range of innovative new services in time for the launch of the Small Business Service next April."

Small Business Service chief executive David Irwin said: "I would like to offer my congratulations to Business Link North Yorkshire for their success in the bidding process.

"The assessment process has been rigorous and the proposal has been judged against a high standard of customer focus, innovation and cost-effectiveness."

The new SBS will evolve services currently provided by Business Link North Yorkshire.

The organisation has assisted 15,000 businesses since it was launched four years ago, as well as business support services provided by North Yorkshire TEC and the network of local enterprise agencies.

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