How do you spend £50k pa on taxis? Join an RDA.....

Something that amazed me when I first moved back to Wales was the reliance on grant based business culture:

Need to put a business plan together? Then there's a grant for that....

Need to a financial review? There's a grant for that....

Need to employ staff? There's a grant for that....

Need to train those staff? There's a grant for that....

Need to media launch your new business? There's a grant for that....

Want to make sure your carbon emissions are low, now or again next year? There's a grant for them both, and you can have another grant every year!

The grant culture is so endemic at times here, that its surprising that anything gets off the ground, and the first thing potential customer companies ask is - is there a grant for that? I recently advised an Ecademist to avoid the training sector in Wales - its so Euro grant reliant, there are three times as many registered trainers in South Wales as there are in the Bristol market, which is twice its economic scale

I had a conversation with a lady in a well know local authorities business development team nine months ago about available office premises in her area. Her response: I'm sorry, I can't tell you what premises are available at present, only because I am instructed to send you a form to apply for a grant, and the consultant you employ can tell you!

I was always impressed by Sussex Enterprise when I lived in Kent, the local merger in Sussex of the RDA, Council and Chambers of Commerce into one business focused agency and club: if you did business in Sussex, it was and probably still is the thing to join. I always wondered until now why Kent didn't have a similar set-up - now I know what went on at SEEDA!

Grants - are they helpful to business culture, or not? I think in theory probably yes, but in application its a kind of pigs feasting breakfast, with poorly defined objectives which are rarely measured.