In the context of the question posed, ‘business advisers’ have been defined as including face-to-face business (link) advisers delivering services under the Business Link brand; that may include functional/sector specialists but not those operating under other service brands e.g. MAS. Internal/telephone based support or partnership staff have not been included.
From 1 April, skills brokerage for Train to Gain was integrated with the Business Link service, accounting for the significant increase in Business Link adviser numbers this year.
Comprehensive national data can only be provided from April 2008 by which time all RDAs had re-contracted to the current network of Business Link providers. Some of the regional data for prior months was held by former Business Link providers and it would be disproportionate cost to collect this information.
Month Number of Business Link advisers April 2008 747 May 2008 748 June 2008 744 July 2008 776 August 2008 804 September 2008 829 October 2008 830 November 2008 835 December 2008 841 January 2009 854 February 2009 855 March 2009 854 April 2009 1021 May 2009 1030 June 2009 1038 July 2009 1051 August 2009 1160 September 2009 1166