The national model for quality-assured business support
The National Business Support Alliance brings the country’s local and combined authorities into one shared approach. A single Business Support Standard, regulated qualifications, professional accreditation and a verified national register, so everyone who funds, employs or receives business support can be sure who’s qualified to give it.
Led by the sector, for the sector
Led by
- SFEDI — sets and regulates the standard
- National Enterprise Network — the sector membership network
Delivered through
- Academy of Leadership and Management — apprenticeship delivery
- The Alliance’s founding centres — deliver the qualification
A sector coming together, not a single owner.
The National Business Support Alliance is national because it brings the UK's approach to business support into one shared, quality-assured approach. Built from local delivery upward, not handed down.
Led by SFEDI and the National Enterprise Network, the Alliance sets the Business Support Standard, co-develops and reviews the regulations that underpin it, and backs it with professional accreditation, a verified national register and ongoing CPD. Delivered through ALM and a network of centres.
Business support depends on trust. The Alliance is how we build, hold, and prove it.
Business support shapes livelihoods, whether someone remortgages a house, hires their first employee, or keeps the doors open another winter, so the adviser giving the advice must be fit for purpose: competent, current, and accountable to a shared sector standard. For years SFEDI has set that standard, accredited the advisers who meet it, and maintained a directory. The Alliance builds on those foundations, convening advisers, networks, funders, commissioners and policymakers to give business support the modern professional framework other consequential professions take for granted, and to turn "delivered by accredited advisers" from a claim in a bid into a commitment you can verify and trust.
- 01
The Standard & the qualification
The Business Support Standard is the shared benchmark the Alliance sets; SFEDI Awards’ Level 5 regulated qualification (Ofqual recognition in progress) is how advisers prove they meet it, rebuilt for the modern adviser with finance and project management at its core.
- 02
Accreditation
Professional recognition built on the standard, extended with the craft that defines a good adviser — relationships, developmental practice, referral, enterprise context. Earned, and renewed through CPD.
- 03
The Register
A verified national register where commissioners and employers confirm an adviser’s credentials, specialisms and current standing. Launches September 2026 — founding members are on it first.
Built to fit the national front door
The Business Growth Service unified how businesses find support. The Alliance assures who delivers it — an adviser trained to this standard is trained in exactly what the national service, and the authorities funding local delivery, report on.
- Authorities & commissionersBecome a founding member: commit publicly to quality-assured business support and put accredited advisers on the register.
- AdvisersRecognition that travels between contracts and employers. Qualify, accredit, join the register.
- Delivery partners & centresAlready a centre with accredited advisers? Become a founding delivery partner and anchor the register.
- PolicyA national approach built from local delivery upward — open to government and partner bodies as it grows.
Become a founding member of the Alliance
Authorities and centres joining before launch sign the founding charter, shape the Standard and the register, and are the first names on it. There’s more than one way in — put a cohort through the pilot, recognise your existing SFEDI-accredited advisers, or come in as an established centre.