By Al Tredinnick

Digicave

 

I know I’m late discussing the Budget, but I’ve been out.

As it happens, when we got the news about corporation tax coming down by a whole per cent and a massive £2,000 coming off the employers’ NI (next year) we just had to go out and celebrate. In fact the city has been awash with employers out having a good time relaxing safe in the knowledge that the coalition has got their backs.

All that remains is to employ an army of staff as now we can all afford it. I don’t think the fact that the Budget was coming out even registered here until a few days after it was announced.

This might be due to a certain amount of tired resignation when it comes to expecting anything like help coming from the Government.

In our more naive days, when we first started out, we kept hearing about these mythical beasts that roamed the business tundra dispensing grants for research, development, market testing and even one that would give your tax back if you have developed something really cool. We have in our time managed to track down a few of these so we do know they exist, although judging by response times there is a very real chance that they are based on a remote mountain somewhere that only has one arthritic yak to bring the post.

Systems and forms seem to have been designed by people with no experience of actually running a business and only a very loose grasp of anything digital offering support for something they obviously have no empathy for. How have these lengthy and involved applications gone?

Your guess is as good as ours. Or should I say theirs? I’ve called and I’ve written and on occasion I’ve even spoken to someone. Obviously I haven’t emailed anyone as that type of crazy futuristic tech would be a bit of a stretch for a division of HMRC that is evaluating how cutting edge our technology is. Alas, most of the people I have spoken to are not aware of the schemes I’m applying for, have no idea whether the forms have been received and have absolutely no idea if we will be successful.

“Hang on sir, I’ll just check our CRM system to see when you filled in your form online.”

What they are actually saying is that somewhere there is a pile and in that pile may or may not be my forms.

At some point someone might check that pile and who knows maybe we will get a letter. I’m not holding my breath.

So thanks Mr Osborne for trying something simple like a tiny concession that has the word ‘employers’ in the title.

But if you really want some help, how about something useful like a reduction in business rates? Let’s face it, you’ve cut back on the services they pay for so it’s only fair.