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 However, 74 (23.12%) of these which have been withdrawn - the main reason being given by SMEs was a lack of a suitable supplier on the framework to deliver the service they wanted.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.