Two Oxfordshire organisations dedicated to supporting small businesses have had key funding cut.

Business Link has withdrawn a grant worth up to £15,000 from the Cowley-based Ethnic Minorities Business Service and a similar sum from Oxfordshire Business Enterprises, which has an office in Banbury.

The Government-backed body said it was channelling the money into a new programme of workshops in the county, which would be accessible to far more would-be entrepreneurs and start-up businesses.

But Shaila Srinivasan, chief executive of the EMBS, said she would have to reduce help to the increasing number of people from ethnic minorities who were looking to start their own businesses.

And she claimed the new service, which is being run by the Milton Keynes Chamber of Commerce, would not be accessible to many of her clients.

She said: "Large organisations such as this will work in areas where they feel comfortable - they're not going to come and work here.

"The people I deal with don't access mainstream business support services, which is why organisations like the EMBS were started."

About 1,200 people contacted the EMBS last year for advice on running their own businesses.

Ms Srinivasan said she would now be forced to stop providing business counsellors and offering grants to entrepreneurs to help them get started.

David Hill, training and operations manager at OBE, said he was not sure of the exact amount of the Business Link grant to provide start-up support services in Oxfordshire, Milton Keynes and Buckinghamshire. But he added that it was "a lot".

He said: "The funding has had an impact on us and we have had to reorganise to keep our service going, although we have not cut back at the moment."

Mr Hill said OBE had always had a "good relationship" with Business Link and councils, although it was "early days" as to whether more cash would be available from the local authorities.

Business Link sales and marketing director Elaine Whittaker said contracts with the EMBS and OBE had been withdrawn to achieve "economies of scale".

Instead, up to 300 free workshops will be provided across the region, for about 3,000 people. She said: "The overall amount of cash being spent on this service remains the same, it's just being distributed in a different way.

"One of the provisions we made was that funds must be available to ethnic minorities and women."