Business & growth

Contracts Finder: The Prime Minister has launched the Government’s Contracts Finder, a new online tool that displays details of all new procurement opportunities, tender documents and contracts for central government over £10,000.

Debt advice: The future of the face-to-face debt advice programme has been secured with £27 million of funding for the next year, the Government has announced.

Higher education

Access to HE: Universities wanting to charge over £6,000 for their courses from 2012 will have to work much harder to recruit students from disadvantaged backgrounds. The Government also announced details of the National Scholarship Programme that will provide students from disadvantaged backgrounds help with the cost of attending university.

Enterprise & regions

New LEPs: New local enterprise partnerships for York and North Yorkshire and Enterprise M3 were approved by Minister for Business, Mark Prisk and Decentralisation Minister, Greg Clark. Mr Prisk has also published details of how Regional Development Agency assets and liabilities will be sold and transferred over the coming months. 

Regulation

Employment Agency Crackdown: Employment agency enforcement teams have completed a series of operations in the Exeter region, carrying out 39 visits on 25 and 26 January 2011.

Get involved

The department currently has 6 consultations open. These include:

• Resolving workplace disputes
• Repeal of the Property Misdescriptions Act 1991
• A new approach to financial regulation: Consultation on reforming the consumer credit regime