With the confirmation that the UK Shared Prosperity Fund (UKSPF) will cease, and the introduction of the Local Growth Fund (LGF) focused solely on selected Mayoral Combined Authorities, many places now find themselves facing a fundamental question: How do we continue to support enterprise, growth and productivity when the rules, and the resources, have changed?
The Whitepaper explores the landscape for business support in 2026, including changing funding models having a variety of impacts on the delivery of programmes in local places.
The UK Government has placed increasing emphasis and expectations on the role of local places over recent years in driving and achieving growth. The Government has committed to Growth Hubs, including funding settlements for the core operation of local Growth Hubs (the delivery partners in England of the Government’s Business Growth Service), however, the funding of wider programmes and support delivery is now mixed throughout the country.
At GC Insight, we are the UK’s largest profit-for-purpose social enterprise providing economic advice and analysis. We work with local places across the UK to develop strategy and deliver business support, empower informed decision-making through our Growth Flag data
platform and build powerful business benchmarking tools. We’ve independently developed the whitepaper to reflect on the context surrounding business support right now, and, based on our experience, to summarise some key principles for reimagining business support and delivering more positive impacts in a post-UKSPF world.
You can download the whitepaper for free at gcinsight.co.uk/reimagine
Published: 4 March 2026
