Service Overview

Introduction

The Small Business Advice (sba) Service provides free and confidential business advice and guidance to anyone planning, starting-up or running a small business - self-employed or with fewer than 10 employees.

 

The service provides access to a library of up-to-date business information and a number of down-loadable tools including business planning guides, business planning models (Excel spreadsheets), reference documents, checklists, links to other external information sources and services - all facilities aimed at supporting you and your new business!

When an enquiry is submitted, the service automatically routes it to the most appropriate adviser, based on the enquirer's post code. This routing process ensures that responses benefit from adviser local knowledge for instance local authority policies, development grants etc - to provide best value responses.

Business Advisers send enquiry responses back to the sba service where they are free-associate with the enquirer details and the response forwarded from the service to the enquirer's email address. This technique ensures that visitor and Adviser email addresses are protected and enables complete confidentiality if required.

Confidentiality

This sba service is confidential. All emails between advisers and visitors are routed via the service, ensuring visitor and adviser anonymity. No email addresses or other user details are passed to any external agencies.

All enquiries and responses are recorded and reviewed to maintain service quality.