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A decision made on 19 January 2018

Decision Reference: MD-E-2018-0005
Decision Summary Title :	Jersey Business Limited - Annual Grant 2018		Date of Decision Summary:	15th January 2018
Decision Summary Author:	Director of Strategy & Policy Development		Decision Summary: Public or Exempt?	Public
Type of Report: Oral or Written?	Written		Person Giving Oral Report:	N/A
Written Report Title :	Jersey Business Limited 2018 Business Plan		Date of Written Report:	December 2017
Written Report Author:	Director of Strategy & Policy Development		Written Report : Public or Exempt?	Public
Subject: Jersey Business Limited - 2018 Annual Grant of up to £734,000.
Decision(s): The Minister approved an Annual Grant of up to £734,000 to fund the cost of delivering Jersey Business Limited’s 2018 Business Plan.
Reason(s) for Decision: The Minister has approved Jersey Business Limited’s 2018 Business Plan and budget requested to deliver the objectives contained within the plan.
Resource Implications: The 2018 Annual Grant of up to £734,000 has been identified from within the Department’s 2018 budget. There are no further financial or manpower implications.
Action required: The Director of Strategy & Policy Development is instructed to arrange for the 2018 Annual Grant Schedule to be finalised and signed by Jersey Business Limited.
Signature: Senator L J Farnham		Position: Minister for Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture
Date Signed:		Date of Decision (If different from Date Signed)

Jersey Business Limited - Annual Grant 2018

Jersey Business (JBL)

2018 Business Plan re MTFP

2017-2019

Building Business Success in Jersey

Jersey Business

Executive Summary

JBL has evolved from a predominantly ‘Start-Up’ shop back in 2013 into a multi skilled business advisory function with our resources split broadly 50/50 between start-up’s and established businesses looking to grow. As a team of 9FTE, we have more than 200 years of front line senior commercial expertise and have seen a rapid growth in our client base year on year (more than doubling in past 2 years)

We deliver our services 1:1 via dedicated advisers and 1: Many through events and digitally via Web/ Social Media. These services are predominantly ‘reactive’ ie a client comes to us when there is a key moment in their business ‘lifecycle’. Our client feedback continues to go from strength to strength with latest independent results showing a global excellent 55% NPS

As a result of budget cuts (c17% on planned budget) we now have real challenges in delivering BAU services as well as not being in a position to deliver more ‘pro-active’ service in key sectors to drive greater levels of productivity. Through cost efficiencies, we have been able to reduce the non-staff/ property costs from 22% of core income in 2015 to 7.5% in 2017. Despite this, JBL will during 2017 incur c£35k deficit re our existing core services which clearly is not sustainable going forward.

There are, however, no further material efficiencies or cuts that can be made apart from our staff costs and this in turn will mean we will struggle to provide BAU services and not allow for any ‘pro-active’ support programmes to be developed.

As such and after discussion with the Minister for EDTS&C we will be submitting a further bid (in addition to the High Growth) to the EPGDP fund for the i) Tourism & Leisure, ii) Agriculture and iii) Construction sectors with support programmes focussed on ‘pro-active’ services to deliver productivity growth. In addition, we will be seeking additional top up funding to support developing an ‘Evaluation’ capability in Jersey for such programmes (akin to how Scottish Enterprise operate)

Through delivering programmes focussed on productivity improvements in these three sectors in addition to improving average GVA/ FTE this will also assist the population and skills challenge the island faces.

Jersey Business – Financial Analysis

Jersey Business – Financial Analysis (cont’d)

BAU 2018- in view of our application to EPGDP JBL proposes to work to this budget ie the £734k core grant plus utilising £30k of our reserves. This is in line the funding agreement from EDTS&C.

Plan B Budget 2018- If however the EPGDP bid is not approved or materially delayed JBL have the option of invoking the Plan B budget, which would see a balanced budget ie within the core grant.

Jersey Business, 2018-£764k baseline budget ‘Reactive Services’

Key Result Areas		Core Activities	Detailed Activity	KPI’s
Businesses	To directly support businesses to achieve their full potential throughout their lifecycle	Start Up	140 ’Start-Up’ portfolio clients 75 of which receiving detailed 1:1 support at any one time ‘Active’	To be agreed further to additional research/ negotiation
		Strategic one-to-one	250 ‘Trading’ portfolio clients (c9% reduction) 90 of which receive detailed 1:1 support at any one time ‘Active’	As above
		Export	Delivered via High Growth pilot	N/A
		Efficiency	Delivered via High Growth pilot	N/A
Key Sectors	To help drive productivity and sustainability in key sectors to deliver economic growth	Retail/ Tourism Development	Delivered via new Jersey Retail Association No focussed activity possible in Agriculture, Construction and Tourism	N/A
Learning	To stimulate and promote a culture of business excellence and innovation across the economy	Celebrate success Entrepreneurial activity JB Services Awareness Plan	Enterprise Week (reduced funding)	Min 3 Events, with cumulative min 75 business leaders in attendance

Jersey Business, 2016/17- Desktop Evaluation of Advisory Services

Background

The economic return evaluation of ‘advisory’ services for bodies such as JBL is notoriously challenging ie relating a specific future economic value to a specific intervention now, will always have a high degree of subjectivity.

JBL has however not previously been required by EDTS&C to do this, nor do we have the funding that bodies such as Visit Jersey/ Jersey Finance have to fund internal statistics collation and external verification (when required).

We have however liaised recently with Scottish Enterprise who have a dedicated internal evaluation team. To support our future budget requests therefore we propose to seek the assistance of Scottish Enterprise to develop via independent specialists a JBL specific evaluation programme, but this will naturally be forward looking. This will require additional financial support from EDTS&C/ EPGDP Fund.

As a temporary measure though we have conducted a limited ‘desktop’ review of our ‘Active’ portfolio clients, which reveals the following:

Active Start-Up Clients total 75 (From Salesforce Database 31 Dec 2016 and Advisers knowledge of client)

Jersey Business, 2016- Desktop Evaluation of Advisory Services Cont’d

Forecast Y3 Deep Dive Analysis of 11 Active Start-Up Clients (NB as these are clients we have been active with, ie you can’t simply extrapolate this data across the portfolio, but it does give an indication)

Deep Dive Analysis of 5 Active Established Portfolio Clients

Jersey Business, 2018 Proposed ‘Pro-Active Services’

Background

Previous JBL budget bids have included additional funding for planned additional programmes. Based on advice from EDTS&C these will now form the basis of a bid to EPGDP fund.

All of these programmes are totally focused on ‘productivity growth’. Quite simply there are only two ways any body like JBL can influence overall productivity, namely:

Assist High Growth businesses which have GVA/FTE above £65k Jersey average (new to establish and existing to grow). JBL has already applied to the EPGDP Fund and had approved a pilot programme. To date though the drawdown has been delayed due to wider issues raised re JIF and the CAG reports.
Assist established core sectors which have average below £65k GVA/FTE to become more productive by i) assisting new more innovative businesses with potential to be above the sector average GVA/ FTE and ii) directly assist established businesses who have potential to grow above sector average GVA/FTE (both of which will in turn challenge established businesses to become more productive or fail).

Re Programme 2, this will focus on i) Tourism & Leisure, ii) Agriculture and iii) Construction, all sectors which place high demand re jobs and so improving productivity here is critical. Also, the involvement of JBL is recommended in the new Rural Economy Strategy issued by Government.