Sunak's defunct SaaS scheme spent seven percent of budget designed to help 100,000 SMEs
- Reference: 1710324909
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/03/13/sunak_software_scheme_spends_7/
- Source link:
After last week's Spring Budget, officials from the Department for Business and Trade said initial analysis of the Help to Grow: Digital scheme, launched in 2021, estimated total spend to be £31.4 million.
However, further detailed work revealed the actual spending for the three financial years of the SaaS credits program (2021/22 to 2023/24) was actually due to be nearer to £20 million, the Department told us.
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Help to Grow: Digital was [2]launched by Sunak in spring 2021 , while he was serving as the UK's chief finance minister, in a move designed to help boost business growth.
[3]
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At the time, Sunak said: "With the pandemic, many businesses have moved online. This has been a challenge, but we want to turn it into an opportunity. We're going to help small businesses develop digital skills by giving them free expert training and a 50 percent discount on new productivity-enhancing software worth up to £5,000 each," Sunak told the House of Commons.
The government said at the time that UK had relatively low adoption of digital technologies and software compared to international competitors, while UK SMEs are less likely to use formal management practices than SMEs in peer countries.
[5]
In 2021, the government said 100,000 businesses would be eligible for up to £5,000 software discounts each, and the [6]figures in the 2021 budget [PDF] indicated that Help to Grow: digital was forecast to spend £50 million in 2021/22, £115 million in 2022/23 and £130 million in 2023/24 – a total of £295 million.
In the [7]2022 budget , the UK government reaffirmed its commitment to the plan, but later that year it announced the scheme's early closure. In December 2022, it said businesses had less than two months to apply for the scheme, and that discounts for eligible software should be redeemed within 30 days from issue date.
[8]Infosys enjoyed a boom in UK government invoices in 2023
[9]UK finance minister promises NHS £3.4B IT investment to unlock £35B savings
[10]Bank's struggle to replace Atos threw system back to dark ages
[11]Legal campaigners challenge UK.gov decision to redact NHS-Palantir contract
[12]British businesses told: Compliance with EU AI law will satisfy UK guidance
At that time, [13]a government statement declared : "Despite a marketing campaign, expanded eligibility of the scheme, and positive feedback from users of the scheme, it did not have the takeup expected."
It admitted that fewer than 1,000 of the 100,000 available vouchers had been redeemed by SMEs.
Sunak has had a difficult history marrying technology vision with reality. Last year, he tried to rebrand the UK as the [14]Unicorn Kingdom in an effort to attract AI investment in the nation state. Also last year, he took on the role of interviewer in a sycophantic love-in with Tesla and Twitter/X CEO Elon Musk. The prime minister – who if opinion polls are anything to go by only has months left in office – has also launched [15]a plan make the UK a "science and technology superpower by 2030."
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According to a [17]review [PDF] of the Help to Grow scheme, inflexibility was one of the reasons behind its shortfall.
While vouchers were deemed very effective in getting SMEs to apply to the scheme and redeem their value, some found the range of software insufficient and the scheme itself inflexible in how the voucher could be used, according to a report from RSM UK Consulting, commissioned by Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy (BEIS), which was running the scheme. ®
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[1] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2ZfGHSSk7BS90zuXJZOKyYAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[2] https://www.theregister.com/2021/03/04/chancellor_launches_500m_business_software/
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfGHSSk7BS90zuXJZOKyYAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[4] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfGHSSk7BS90zuXJZOKyYAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44ZfGHSSk7BS90zuXJZOKyYAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/966869/Budget_2021_Print.pdf
[7] https://www.theregister.com/2022/03/25/uk_chancellor_offers_cloud_tax/
[8] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/13/infosys_uk_government_contracts/
[9] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/07/uk_finance_minister_promises_nhs/
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/03/07/nsandi_atos/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/20/legal_campaigners_challenge_government_decision/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/02/19/uk_ai_compliance_eu/
[13] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/final-opportunity-for-businesses-to-access-help-to-grow-digital-scheme#
[14] https://www.theregister.com/2023/04/25/uk_becomes_unicorn_kingdom/
[15] https://www.gov.uk/government/news/plan-to-forge-a-better-britain-through-science-and-technology-unveiled
[16] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_offprem/saas&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33ZfGHSSk7BS90zuXJZOKyYAAAAQE&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[17] https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/media/65a6a60864060200143cb791/help-to-grow-digital-final-report.pdf
[18] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Hot Air
On the plus side, they can just piss it away on the extension of the NHS app.
It was just accounting software, big deal?
From what I recall, the scheme was just about accounting software and similar generic business management stuff. It didn't include software and services that enabled anyone to actually do science and engineering.
If I were more cynical, if say it was a scheme by the government to help SMEs correctly pay their taxes to the treasury, not to actually conduct or grow their business.
Re: It was just accounting software, big deal?
Probably find that the voucher covered what would normally be the free initial period!
One for the how not to text books
It was a text book mess. The consultation was pretty much just a refusal to listen , often delegated to subcontractors with no interest in the main issues or overall design. ‘We’re doing the UI can we talk to some of your disabled people’. Literal quote. I suspect someone in HMT announced a voucher scheme and the Dept was happy as that meant they had control of the budget.
We had central government civil servants deciding what sort of software SMES should buy. The voucher was claimed by the vendor and just competed with vendor discounting and was not a level playing field and restricted SME choice. The combination of obfuscated, random and high eligibility that required pre application by the vendor and then a protracted process to claim the voucher just was not worth it to the vendor. Value added resellers who have the actual experience to help SMEs were excluded and if the vendor used VARs they could not claim either. It only supported online retail basically. No implementation help or support was covered.
Give the support directly to the SMEs preferably via a nudge supertax credit and include skills and training as well.
The only thing they got right was that it should included SaaS so was opex not capex.
Hot Air
I wonder if this was even consulted with struggling businesses.
As usual with Sunk, this seems to have been just another hot air tick the box feel good deliver nothing policy.
Someone who has designed it has no idea about what SMEs are struggling with.