Council typo delays business support programme

A typo has caused significant delays to a Leeds City Council programme designed to support ambitious tech companies and help create innovative businesses in the city.

The Innovation@Leeds programme was meant to get £175,000 out to small businesses in Leeds to boost the city’s innovation ecosystem in a matter of weeks.

The grants of between £15,000-£25,000 are to fund knowledge-sharing projects that would “encourage world-class innovative thinking and activity by the city’s businesses”.

Applicants had to be a small business or microbusiness registered in Leeds with a track record in providing development support for innovation-led businesses.

Successful applicants must complete their projects by March 28 – just 16 weeks after the December 5 date they had been told that they would hear by – but are still waiting on a decision by Leeds City Council.

The Council told TheBusinessDesk.com that successful applicants will now be told “by the end of this week”.

This will leave the small businesses and microbusinesses just 10 weeks to deliver projects that have meaningful engagement with innovative businesses and entrepreneurs, as the deadline can’t be moved.

The projects are required to provide advice, guidance, mentoring or training. The businesses that are supported by the projects should then be better placed “to deliver cutting-edge products, processes and services that make Leeds a healthier, greener and more inclusive place to live”.

The embarrassing delay was caused by a mistake on the application form which told applicants to send their proposals to an email address that didn’t work.

In a statement, Leeds City Council said: “We did experience a brief technical issue affecting email delivery for some submissions. As soon as we became aware of this we issued notices across our social platforms and website, requesting those who had already submitted to resubmit their applications and provided contact information for support.”

The Council said 40 applications have been received. The funding pool will be shared by up to 11 organisations.

One applicant told TheBusinessDesk.com: “When we sent in our plans we were told we would be given an answer within two weeks, but have been waiting now for nearly two months.

“It’s very frustrating to have submitted a detailed proposal with the expectation of a quick answer only to be left hanging.”

The Innovation@Leeds grants were looking for proposals that would boost the capabilities of innovative businesses working in fintech, legaltech, healthtech or AI sectors, support people from diverse backgrounds who want to launch their own innovation-led businesses, or raise the profile of Leeds as a centre for innovation.

The grants progamme was launched on October 29, with applications to be submitted, reviewed and chosen in just five weeks. Successful applicants would then have had 16 weeks to complete the projects, with a strict deadline of March 28.

The Leeds City Council spokesperson added: “Due to external funding constraints, we do have specific delivery timescales for funded projects and they will still need to be delivered to the same timescales. All projects will need to be delivered and final grant payments made by the end of March 2025.

“We look forward to working with the successful applicants to deliver several high-quality, innovative knowledge-sharing projects which will be of real benefit to innovation led businesses in the city.”

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