Agenda item

Finance and Economic Development – (C-068-2020-21) - This reports on the Council’s economic recovery programme and underpins the Council’s digital outreach to, and support of, businesses in Epping Forest District.

Cabinet noted and endorsed:

1)         the progress in development of a corporate business database to assist the council to engage with and support local businesses; and

2)         Plans to develop an online, monthly economic newsletter, sent directly to local businesses, including information on grants and other support, new initiatives, surveys etc.

The Finance and Economic Development Portfolio Holder introduced this report.

In July last year members approved a series of measures to assist economic recovery in the district. The development of the database and new methods of communication were a key element underpinning this process.

There were in excess of 8,000 businesses in the Epping Forest District. 92% of these were categorised as micro (0-9 employees), with a further 3% defined as small. Epping Forest businesses have, like so many other businesses in the UK suffered severe disruption with the effects of COVID and needed support and advice from the local authority. To assist the Council to effectively engage with local businesses, a database had therefore been purchased from an external company which included contact and email addresses.  A staged approach to further develop the database and Economic Development’s capacity to engage with and support local businesses was set out in the report.

Councillor Patel welcomed the report noting that one of the difficulties the council had was in communicating information with local businesses, this was a welcomed way to overcome this.

Councillor H Whitbread said that this was really good piece of work that she welcomed; it was a useful tool for the local businesses. She noted that Essex County Council had a really good Economic Development newsletter with useful links and information for businesses and asked if it would be publicly available? Councillor Philip said that the current intention was just to send it out to the people on the database, but he would see if they could share it with members.

Councillor Bedford said that he was very pleased with this piece of work and was glad that it was now coming together.

Councillor Janet Whitehouse was please to see this report but was concerned that this seemed primarily concerned with limited companies as the sole traders would also benefit greatly by this database. It was hoped that the newsletter would be shared among the traders, but also, if it could be shared with members, they could share it with the smaller businesses.

Councillor Sunger said that it was good to reach out and it was vitally important that we reached out to local businesses.

Councillor Philip commented that that he would encourage members, that if they were passing the newsletter onto businesses, they would want to get them on the list and get their information on our database. We also know that the vast majority of businesses in our district were micro or small so they making sure they got this across the range of businesses.

Councillor Heap asked how we were informing businesses of this. He was told that was part of the work they were doing at present but if a councillor wanted to assist in this, they should point any business they were in contact with to our Economic Development team.

Decision:

Cabinet noted and endorsed:

1)         the progress in development of a corporate business database to assist the council to engage with and support local businesses; and

2)         Plans to develop an online, monthly economic newsletter, sent directly to local businesses, including information on grants and other support, new initiatives, surveys etc.

Reasons for Proposed Decision:

To support the Council’s economic recovery programme and underpin the Council’s digital outreach to, and support of, businesses in Epping Forest District.

Other Options for Action:

To continue with the current corporate approach and direct mail.