Supporting Scotland’s Practitioners

Scottish Business Week, 3-7 October

Back for 2022, Scotland’s business support agencies, including Business Gateway and Scottish Enterprise, are running a wide range of bitesize virtual events open to anyone running or advising small businesses. These will cover everything from advice on international ecommerce to market research.

Join as many, or few, short sessions as you like; find out more on the registration page.

What the UK mini-Budget means for Scotland

While some of the Chancellor’s recently-announced tax cuts will not apply to Scotland, the plans – and particularly details on government, spending due to be in a UK Budget in late November – undoubtedly have implications for the Scottish Budget.

The Scottish government, which has responsibility for setting bands and rates of income tax, is due to set out its plans for income tax (and other devolved taxes, including the Land and Buildings Transactions Tax) in its draft Budget in early December.

However, the acting Cabinet Secretary for Finance, Deputy First Minister John Swinney, has announced that an emergency Budget review will report in the week beginning 24 October. This is expected to provide further details on how the Scottish government will address a predicted £500m shortfall in spending, as well as addressing the ‘cost-of-living’ crisis.

Barclays launches Eagle Lab in Glasgow

Adding to facilities in Edinburgh, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock, Barclays has now launched its latest Eagle Lab facility at the new Barclays campus in Glasgow. Eagle Labs offer SMEs with scale-up ambition access to mentoring, growth programmes and funding advice. Find out more.

Late payment discussion with Scottish MPs

Carrying on our work on the impact of poor payment practices for small businesses, we are undertaking a roundtable discussion in Westminster with MPs and the Small Business Commissioner in late October. Got feedback on worsening payment times? Let us know your feedback ahead of the meeting. Drop a line to susan.love@accaglobal.com and respond to our short survey.

Scottish SME funds update

• Additional £4m of finance added to the Business Loans Scotland SME fund: provides loans ranging from £25,000 to £100,000 (and, in exceptional circumstances, up to £250,000) to eligible businesses
• UMi Debt Finance Scotland (part of the Scottish Growth Scheme): offers loans of £25,001 to £250,000 to eligible businesses
• Techstart Ventures Equity Finance: offers equity finance of up to £2m for eligible businesses
• Foresight Scottish Growth Fund: provides equity finance of up to £2m, in rounds of up to £10m, for eligible businesses.

Keep in touch

We really need your feedback, so please sign up on our member survey platform or drop Susan a line at susan.love@accaglobal.com.