SC22223 - C-Care Technology Resilience Voucher Scheme

C-Care is cross-Channel Interreg project which aims to respond to some of the socio-economic challenges brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic. C-Care is led by Kent County Council and involves 3 other English and 3 French partner organisations who are jointly implementing the project. C-Care will provide support to businesses and individuals at risk of exclusion in the France-Channel England area to aid economic recovery.

As part of this project, the Growth & Communities Division within GET is leading on a technology resilience voucher pilot scheme to provide support to Kent businesses. The scheme was launched in November 2021 when Kent SMEs could start to apply for vouchers. A framework of suppliers was procured during the summer of 2021 which resulted in seven suppliers being selected and approved to provide services to Kent businesses under the voucher scheme. A total number of 385 applications were received between November 2021 and June 2022 and 320 were approved. However, 74 (23.12%) of these which have been withdrawn - the main reason being given by SMEs was a lack of a suitable supplier on the framework to deliver the service they wanted. Not every lot was filled by suppliers and only 4 of the 7 suppliers have actually been selected by beneficiary SMEs to complete a voucher project. Some current suppliers have also indicated that they are very near to reaching full capacity to deliver voucher projects.

As of July 2022, the scheme has committed around 50% of the available funding but KCC needs to procure the services of some additional suppliers (businesses offering a range of digital services to other companies) with whom, successful voucher applicants can carry out a technology resilience project which will be paid for by the C-Care project. A detailed analysis of the scheme to date has indicated that additional suppliers should be sourced to provide services against the following lots to respond to demand from Kent SMEs:

• Web-Based Activities • Digital Marketing and Promotional Activities • Equipment and Small Investments to Facilitate Digital Activity

The scheme supports Kent businesses in making changes to their business models or developing new digital processes to build in resilience to the company and finding new ways to connect to customers e.g. adopting a click and collect procedure, putting in place an online payment process, adapting a website to engage with new customers etc.

The voucher scheme is worth around £300,000 (depending on the Euro exchange rate) and aims to support 300 Kent-based SMEs (small & medium sizes enterprises). The scheme launched in November 2021 and will run until the end of 2022 (subject to the number of applications received and the voucher budget being allocated).