The New Entrepreneur Scholarships Programme (NES) helps people living in disadvantaged areas to start in business. People from disadvantaged areas and backgrounds often have the ideas and ambition to succeed in business, but many say they find it hard to find support and finance relevant to their needs.

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NES, which is funded by the Learning and Skills Council, aims to overcome these difficulties by providing a comprehensive package of support, mentoring and funding in order to encourage and support the start-up and growth of new businesses.

The NES course has given me a thorough grounding in business and I am now much more aware of how to promote what I do.

The best bit though was mixing with others like me, sharing exasperating moments as well as successes. We learned a great deal, and got lots of inspiration from meeting people who had been in business for years and were still enthusiastic about it.
Anna French of Fizgig Glass, NES Scholar

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All business ideas within reason are supported, and social enterprise ideas are particularly welcomed.

Programme flexibility

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We realise that every person starting NES is different, therefore a ‘one size fits all’ programme is not the most effective form of support. Flexible session times, programme content, methods of teaching and types of qualification all allow individual scholars to get the best out of the programme. If you have any special needs we will do our best to accommodate them on the programme.

Long-term support

NES is different to most other programmes in that it doesn’t just provide support as you prepare to start-up, or when you are ‘up-and-running’ – NES provides support throughout the whole process.

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Following part-time (two evenings a week OR one day a week) business support training lasting three months, each scholar moves on to a less intensive ongoing business support stage lasting nine months. This stage provides further assistance in preparation for start-up or support for businesses that are just being started.

Financial Assistance

The business support phase of NES helps scholars develop all the skills needed to run a business, but these skills aren’t of much use if you can’t raise the money needed to start-up.

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Many NES scholars say that despite of their NES training, finance was still a major stumbling block to them starting their own businesses.

All NES scholars that complete the programme and finish their business plan are eligible to apply for up to £2,000 of start-up support to help them purchase essential items.

In many cases NES funding has helped scholars secure funding from banks or other sources otherwise unavailable to them.

Targetted

NES wants to raise awareness of enterprise and encourage applications to the programme from groups who have traditionally found it difficult to access business support; including:

• Women
• Ethnic minorities
• Those with physical and/or learning difficulties
• Ex-offenders
• Unemployed or underemployed
• Those with low-educational levels
• Those with literacy or numeracy difficulties

The flexible nature of NES can also help people who would not normally have been able to participate in this kind of programme. Features of early programmes have included:

• A small expenses budget to reimburse costs of using public transport or using childcare.
• Loan computers available to scholars who are unable to travel to partner facilities.
• Sign language interpreters for hearing impaired scholars.
• Large print materials available for visually impaired scholars.
• Publicity materials in a number of languages.
• Women only sessions.
• Saturday sessions.
• Assistance with finding and completing short adult education classes.