Online teaching in the North East is boosted with government-secured lending
23 July 2009
Neil Moult, Chief Executive of Creating Careers
Working at the leading edge of vocational learning, Newcastle firm Creating Careers, will be able to expand its services to help the next generation of skilled workers get the qualifications they need after it got a government-backed loan.
Offering a series of courses online, Creating Careers enables school pupils and those who wish to expand their skill-set to obtain nationally-recognised vocational qualifications. The company has used a £200,000 Enterprise Finance Guarantee loan to expand its online teaching services to a wider number of users inside school and in the community.
The Enterprise Finance Guarantee scheme supports viable businesses and business start-ups which because of the economic conditions cannot access the commercial finance they need to survive and grow.
Currently, the company works with 260 schools through an innovative online teaching tool, called vision2learn.
Neil Moult, Chief Executive of Creating Careers, sees the potential for his business to continue to grow and to take on more staff beyond the twenty-eight currently employed:
"The process of obtaining the EFG loan was very quick and straightforward with plenty of support from RBS along the way. As a result of the extra funding from the EFG loan, we are developing our vision2Learn for schools vocational qualifications with the aim to expand our share in schools from 4 per cent to 25 per cent in the next three years.
"The scheme has been key in helping us to achieve our business objectives and we’ve been able to take on new staff to help us reach our targets. The loan has been instrumental in enabling us to move ahead successfully with our marketing and business development and we’re now working with four to five new schools a week."
Almost one hundred loans worth over £7 million have been taken up by businesses in the north east. The scheme will support bank lending to businesses with a turnover of up to £25 million who are currently not easily able to access the finance they need. They can apply for loans of between £1,000 and £1 million through the Government guarantee until the end of March 2010.
For more information on the Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme visit
http://www.businesslink.gov.uk/
