A YORK accountancy firm has seen a boost to productivity in its sister office following a £3,000 government grant to assist with access to high speed internet services.

Garbutt & Elliott, which has a turnover of £5 million and employs more than 100 staff across its two sites in Monks Cross and Leeds, received the funding from Superconnected Leeds Bradford towards the installation and connection costs of a new fibre optic line to its Park Place offices in Leeds.

The new line has doubled broadband speeds from 10mbps to 20mbps, and has boosted the firm’s productivity and response times to clients, while enabling flexible working via cloud-based services.

Richard Green, partner at Garbutt & Elliott with responsibility for IT, pictured above right, said: "The difference the upgrade to high-speed broadband has made to us as a business is phenomenal.

"Everything is so much faster than on the old connection and now that we have shifted to working on the cloud, we have instant access to files and resources that could previously only be reliably accessed from the office, wherever we are working.

"As most of our client organisations are growing businesses like ourselves, we are also spreading the word among them so they can also take advantage of the connection voucher from the Government and experience all the business benefits of moving to superfast broadband."

The voucher awarded to Garbutt & Elliott is one of more than 450 received by firms in Leeds and Bradford so far under the scheme, which launched in February.

So far more than £900,000 has been paid out to cover the costs of hardware and internet connectivity installation to Leeds and Bradford-based businesses by the Government’s Superconnected Cities programme, which closes at the end of March 2015.

Phil Cole, head of business support at Superconnected Leeds Bradford, pictured above left, said: "It’s encouraging to see the difference that moving to high-speed internet can make to an organisation like Garbutt & Elliott."