Salford City Council has announced that it will offer free training and grants to local small businesses, freelancers and self-employed business owners to help them improve their cybersecurity. The funding will be awarded to 200 freelance and home-based self-employed businesses and 100 local SMEs.
According to the council, the initiative will help to provide support for businesses that may not have qualified for government funding during the COVID-19 pandemic. Training will involve two courses, delivered by Salford City Council through a partnership with HOST Salford.
The first will be the Cyber Workforce course, a free one-day course aimed at Salford-based freelancers, self-employed workers and business owners who currently or plan to begin trading online. Upon successful completion, participants in the course will receive a £1,000 grant towards improving their business’ cybersecurity. The second is the Cyber SME course, a two-day course combining advanced awareness with training on real-life technical scenarios. Upon completion of the course, participants will receive a £2,500 grant.
The programme is being delivered as part of the council’s Cyber Salford project, which aims to make Salford the UK’s most cyber-enabled city. Funding comes from the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Top Up, set up by the government’s Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) in order to help businesses severely impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic.
Councillor Bill Hinds, Salford City Council’s Lead Member for Financial and Support Services, commented: “The trend towards buying goods and services online has accelerated because of the pandemic and we want Salford businesses to make the most of that.”
“Keeping customer details safe and taking payments online is a huge challenge for some small and independent businesses so we decided to use this funding in a unique way. As a leader in cyber security, we’re proud to share our skills and take an innovative approach to distributing business grants which also brings social value to the city.”
“I’d urge any small to medium sized business, freelance worker or self-employed trader to get in touch to see if they qualify. Places are limited so they need to sign up as soon as possible. We want to make sure we help every business we can.”
