Probably, but perhaps not so suddenly.
The Home Computing Initiative (HCI), which is said to have made it much easier for people in employment to get hold of a PC, got scrapped without notice in last week's Budget. During its two years of operation around 0.5 million people from over 1000 individual employers - spread acorss the public and private sectors - had taken advantage of the scheme, with high levels of take up in organisations like the Post Office, and with HCI playing a role in some workplace e-learning strategies. The links below provide a round-up of reactions to the decision, which have caught the businesses that have been making money from the scheme on the hop. The underlying issues seems to have been that:
- HCI schemes could not be accessed by workers on the national minimum wage, because it is unlawful to operate a salary sacrifice scheme that takes an employee's hourly rate below the national minimum wage;
- the scheme is alleged to have been abused, with people using it to purchase games consoles or second PCs;
- vendors were able to operate with better margins on their sales than in the open market;
- larger organisations claimed to gain large business benefits from the improvements in ICT fluency which the scheme brought about, at the tax-payer's expense.
Links
- Confederation of British Industry press release;
- Save HCI campaign web site, run by a company whose business has been associated with the supply of HCI PCs;
- BBC coverage;
- HCI Alliance, comprising Intel, Microsoft, and BT;
- Articles in the Register, generally taking the line that business has taken advantage of the scheme. "Anyone can get a cheap PC made in China, marketed from Texas, on similar terms to the government scheme anyway, except that with interest free credit, it's theirs to own. How much of the benefit of this subsidy was going to the participating multinationals who don't need any help improving their grip on the British market?" MPs botch HCI rescue (28/3/2006). HCI admits failing poor (28/3/2006). HCI traders fight for the right to PC tax breaks (27/3/2006).
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