THE company that currently runs Business Link in Wiltshire has insisted it will be "business as usual" following major changes to the service next spring.

Daphne Milner, chief executive of Swindon-based Great Western Enterprise, has dismissed claims that firms in south Wiltshire will receive an inferior service after the closure next April of the Business Link office in Salisbury.

She has also been unable to say how many redundancies will result.

In September the Journal posed a number of questions about the future of the £6m-a-year service and it was at the end of November that these questions were addressed.

Ms Milner and Andrew Stainer, director of marketing & sales at Business West, explained that, from next April the three organisations delivering the Business Link service in Gloucestershire, Bristol and Wiltshire - Business Link Gloucestershire, Business West and Great Western Enterprise - would come together to form a new company called Northern Arc.

The three organisations would continue to exist, the new company providing the Business Link service for the whole region.

The Business Link service in the south west is funded by the South West Regional Development Agency and, Ms Milner said, it wanted to "improve efficiency and services to ensure that more businesses benefit".

"It's about value for money and how to get more services to more businesses," she said.

"Businesses will not see any differences from this change and staff are being transferred.

"I cannot say we will have no redundancies, but we are aiming to give as many staff as possible as many jobs as possible.

"Our aim is to keep redundancies to a minimum."

Northern Arc, whose head office will be in Bristol, will retain two offices, one in Swindon and one in Cheltenham, but the offices in Salisbury and Trowbridge will close.

Ms Milner said the company had to "take costs out of running offices".

Over the next three years the aim was to expand services and the 20-strong team of business advisers.

"We want to double the number of businesses we work with," she said.

Negotiations were taking place to provide a service for rapidly growing businesses and a supplier matching service - a database of organisations supplying services to businesses.

The Business Link telephone number, information service and website would remain the same, and the business advisers would adopt "flexible working", being based at home.

The Train to Gain business training service would continue, being delivered by Northern Arc, as well as the programme of events and seminars.

And, Mr Stainer added, talks were on-going with Salisbury College about its holding the business start-up courses.

  • A fuller version of this interview and an account of Ms Milner's speech to the South Wiltshire Economic Partnership's winter forum will appear in the New Year issue of Journal Business magazine.