I would like to wish all visitors to this blog a very prosperous and enterprising New Year!

As we look ahead to 2008, I think it would be useful to first look back at 2007. I have provided below a mainly quantitative review of activity last year under some of the main CEB performance indicators under our 2 main Measures of support:

Measure 1: Grant-aided Projects

We received a total of 37 applications for grant-aid in 2007 (compared to 38 in 2006). 32 (or 86%) of the applications received were approved, 4 were refused (mainly on the grounds of being ineligible for financial assistance, lacking commercial viability or posing a risk of displacement) and a decision on 1 had been deferred pending receipt of additional information at year end.

Again as reported in a previous blog, we receive many more enquiries for grant assistance, but because of the extremely selective nature of the financial assistance we provide, the majority of these prove to be ineligible for support and therefore do not proceed to application stage.

The Kilkenny CEB has now provided grant assistance to almost 650 business projects since its establishment in 1993.

We awarded a total of €441,569 (compared to €425,370 in 2006) in grant-aid to the 32 projects approved, last year. The average grant of circa €13,850 demonstrates the relatively small-scale nature of the projects that we support (i.e. involving overall capital expenditure averaging between €25,000 to €30,000.)

10 of the projects grant-aided in 2007 are local services, 19 are manufacturing operations, 1 has the potential to become an Internationally Traded Service (ITS) and 2 are tourism projects.

23 of the projects are promoted by men, 8 are promoted by women and 1 project is promoted by a co-operative organisation. Some 24 of the projects supported are start-ups, and the remaining 8 projects have been assisted to expand their operations. 

The 32 projects approved have the potential to create an additional 60 full-time and 25 part-time jobs when fully implemented.

Measure 2: Information & Advice, Mentoring, Enterprise Training & Management Development Support (Soft Supports)

We invested circa €400,000 in soft supports in 2007, ranging from the provision of information, business advice and training through to mentoring, technical assistance and management development supports.  

A total of 58 Enterprise Training & Management Programmes were organised and delivered last year, amounting to a total of over 1,000 training days. Over 530 people participated in these Programmes and a further 210 clients received mentoring or technical assistance.   We also launched a very successful Enterprise Week from 1st to 5th October last year, which helped raise the profile of entrepreneurship and small business in the region.

For the first time ever, all 16 second level schools in County Kilkenny registered to participate in the Student Enterprise Awards competition for the 2007/2008 academic year, with almost 500 students participating in setting up businesses.

So as you can see from this brief account of activity, we were busy last year and we hope to continue the trend in 2008. So if you are in business or thinking about starting one, get in touch with us to see how we can help you.

Sean.

www.kceb.ie