Further written evidence from Advantage
West Midlands to Margot James MP, member of the BIS Committee
At the BIS Select Committee meeting on 7 September,
you asked me a question regarding the withdrawal of Agency funding
to a project designed to help local businesses improve their IT,
Having made inquiries, I believe that you were
probably referring to a region-wide pilot project called "The
IT Advisory Service" aimed at improving the take up and usage
of IT amongst SMEs. This was being run by Business Link who, of
course, are recipients of AWM funding, and was being delivered
through a number of consultants who are quite naturally concerned
about the effect of the termination of this activity on their
business.
This pilot was due to end on 31 March 2011 but
new applications for support will be closed from the end of November
2010. Whilst recent cuts to AWM's budget have contributed towards
this early closure, BIS's own review of the "Solutions for
Business" programme, as well as of the Business Link model
itself, have played a part.
You will no doubt be aware that BIS now favour
a business support model based to a greater extent on an on-line
service. Of course, the point of this project was to get SMEs
on-line in the first place so we do have some concerns as to how
West Midlands' businesses, who have a poor record of adopting
IT, will be able to fully access such a new on-line service.
That said, we accept that it is the prerogative
of BIS to close down projects such as the IT Advisory Service,
just as they are doing for other grant-funded programmes run by
Business Link, such as the Diversification programme, "Business
Transformation", the Environmental Advisory Service and the
Innovation Advisory Service which have also had to close applications
to new clients following instructions from BIS.
21 September 2010
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