A new enterprise agency is aiming to give 3,000 consultations to budding entrepreneurs in its first full year of business.

Oxfordshire Business Enterprise has been launched this month to provide training and advice previously offered by the Thames Business Advice Centre (TBAC) in Oxford and the Banbury-based North Oxfordshire Business Venture (NORBIS).

Chris Carr, former executive director of NORBIS, has been appointed chief executive of the new organisation.

He said: "We will focus on making new business starts more robust and able to survive.

"To achieve this our training must reflect the primary needs of young businesses today which include making effective use of IT and e-commerce as well as courses on business planning, elementary marketing and book keeping."

The new organisation has 16 staff with all the former advisers at TBAC transferring over, although most will be expected to work on a voluntary basis fromJuly.

Last October, Jobs Extra revealed how a shortage of Government funding had led to the move to bring all the county's training and advice services under one umbrella and all TBAC and NORBIS clients are now represented by OBE.

OBE, while still headquartered in Banbury, now has bases in Witney, Wallingford, Thame, Bicester and Banbury and is looking to open offices in Oxford and Abingdon.

TBAC based in Osney Mead, is concentrating on its property portfolio which provides accommodation for small businesses.

Between them NORBIS and and TBAC advised 25,000 individuals over 19 years and helped set up 8,000 successful start-up businesses.

OBE is also looking for more voluntary counsellors to join the agency.