Lloyds Banking Group has joined forces with two of the UK’s leading business organisations to develop a new qualification that will be open to business mentors who wish to further their skills.

The Continuing Professional Development qualification (CPD) is a new training programme designed to allow existing mentors to enhance their knowledge and experience of mentoring, enabling them to provide a higher quality provision of help and support to many UK entrepreneurs.

The qualification has been developed in conjunction with the Small Firms Enterprise Development Initiative (SFEDI) and Business Mentors South West (BMSW), with representatives from both using their background in guiding growing enterprises to develop the content of the course.

The new qualification is part of Lloyds Banking Group’s continued work with SFEDI and BMSW in developing and piloting a series of associated training resource materials and workshops. These are designed to aid the development of the necessary knowledge and skills to not only achieve the qualification but also to demonstrate best practice.

The national mentoring scheme is one of 17 measures pioneered by the Business Finance Taskforce and led by the British Bankers’ Association to help the economy return to sustainable growth by supporting businesses. The scheme aims to train volunteers to work as a mentor, passing on their expertise to nurture and support all types of businesses.

Lloyds TSB has pledged 20,000 hours of time and has an exceptional breadth of mentors from across the company - from senior management to specialist finance departments. More information about Lloyds TSB’s mentoring commitment can be found here.

Once this pilot has been completed, both the qualification and the materials will be made available to a wider network of business support professionals in order to promote and develop the scope of the enterprise mentoring help available to businesses in the UK.

Jackie Jenks, (pictured), enterprise mentoring manager at Lloyds TSB Commercial Banking, said: “Mentoring is becoming widely recognised as an effective way to help support UK businesses and there are many tangible benefits for business leaders working with a qualified mentor. The introduction of the CPD qualification is an important development in furthering the excellent work of mentoring volunteers. It will allow them to improve their skills and provide more effective and relevant guidance to their mentees.”

Andy Copp, director at BMSW, commented: “We are dedicated to helping UK enterprises grow and believe that mentoring is an excellent tool that allows business leaders to learn from established industry professionals. We are thrilled to be able to help develop the modules that will feature on the course and look forward to delivering the programme to as many mentors as possible.”

Ruth Lowbridge, executive chair at SFEDI, added: “In order for business owners to benefit fully from a mentoring relationship, it is crucial that the mentors are trained to the highest possible level and this is what the CPD qualification aims to do. Participants of the scheme will be able to learn from SFEDI and BMSW’s wealth of experience in supporting UK businesses and share this knowledge with all of their mentees.”

Once the pilot is complete the course will be delivered to the wider community of enterprise mentors via SFEDI Awards training centres. If you would like to receive information once the qualification is live, please register your interest at [email protected]