Last months ONS figures show more people are becoming self employed than ever before.

Budding female entrepreneurs are set to benefit from superfast broadband with a new £1m challenge fund, enabling them to work effectively, access new markets and grow their business online.

The fund will be part of the Government’s Superfast Broadband rollout and will help women take full advantage of all the opportunities superfast broadband can bring to business. There are 40 local broadband projects in England, already delivering the programme and they submitted bids to the £1m challenge fund in May 2014.

This forms part of help the Government is already providing to female entrepreneurs, which includes:

• £1.6 million to support women’s enterprise in rural areas;
• access to over 15,000 free business mentors; and
• from next year, the introduction of Tax Free Childcare will mean that, for the first time, many self-employed parents will have access to support with childcare costs.

Are we doing enough to help women in business?

steve@bicknells.net