The Technology Manifesto

Maija Palmer’s article in the FT today  – IT companies call for tax relief (in which I was quoted) – effectively launched The Technology Manifesto. I have had a significant role in the drafting of this alongside Adam Hale, Alistair Fulton, Tim Brill (MicroFocus), Steve Kelly and, of course, Intellect and E&Y. We have garnered a large group of 'endorsers' - CEOs from the industry.

The FT article starts as follows:

“The companies argue that the UK’s technology sector, which employs about 1.5m people, could take over from declining manufacturing and financial services as an engine of national economic growth.

 “It is now widely recognised that we need to rebalance the UK economy. Rightly, there’s a rush towards engineering and manufacturing. But software and technology are also going to be at the heart of growth in the 21st century,” said John Higgins, director general of Intellect, the trade body that represents more than 750 UK technology companies.

“We ask why, when the UK has world-class science, managers, software engineers and international tech companies working here, there are too few UK tech companies in the FTSE 250?” Mr Higgins said.”

Background
In the last week we have reported on two tech manifestos for the upcoming Election. The Conservative Technology Manifesto and the eskills Manifesto. Readers will also know of my involvement with the launch and subsequent development of The Technology Manifesto – See  Making BrITain Great Again. The project was initiated by MicroFocus, launched by a cross-party panel of peers at the House of Lords in July 09 and was subsequently taken over by the trade body Intellect. Ernst & Young have been responsible for the ‘economic impact assessment’. The CEOs of many of the leading players in the UK tech market, like Martin Leuw of Iris and Paul Nichols of Kewill,  have now endorsed the manifesto which will be launched this week.

The Technology Manifesto has the simple objective “Significantly to increase the contribution home-grown technology businesses make to UK GDP and create 250,000 new jobs within the sector over the next ten years”.

Proposals
The proposals are as follows:

Increase the availability of world-class technology talent in the UK

-       Increase the availability STEM-related courses to feed industry

-       Help STEM graduates with personal debt

-       Creation of new courses at Business Schools and Universities specifically designed to help graduates pursue careers with dynamic tech companies

-       Review of the immigration and visa regimes to recognise the importance of the home grown tech industry

-       Consider the policies of companies towards entry level jobs/graduate recruitment when awarding contracts (Government and private sector) as readers know this is a particular ‘hobby horse’ of mine!

Harness the expertise and goodwill of tech leaders around the world to coach leaders of UK-founded emerging tech businesses

-       Establish a tech entrepreneur advice hub based on web 2.0 technologies

-       Government sponsored programme to twin tech entrepreneurs/leaders with emerging businesses

-       Government sponsored study tours (eg the Silicon Valley tours) to enable UK leaders to learn how global tech leaders run their businesses.

Radically change the tax incentives on companies and individuals investing in growing tech businesses

-       Simplification of the EIS system to allow experienced serial entrepreneurs to take advantage of the EIS scheme where they actively participate in these investee companies

-       More generous Corporate Venturing relief to encourage corporations to make investments in the UK tech sector.

Implement specific fiscal incentives for UK-HQed tech companies to accelerate R&D

-       Simplify the administrative burden for SMEs in applying for R&D tax credits

-       Extend the SME R&D tax rate to all tech firms

Proactively encourage international tech companies to invest in a UK hub

-       Recognising the importance of tech hubs (like Silicon Valley and those established in specific locations in India, China and Israel – and Cambridge in the UK) by providing tax, planning and other incentives to encourage international tech companies to locate in designated areas.

Deliver the digital infrastructure

Eg:

-       Accelerating the roll out of high speed broadband

-       Establishing an ‘Intelligent Transport System’

-       Implementing ‘smart grids’

-       Implementing the three areas above could alone create 700,000 jobs (50% in the SME sector) In turn the infrastructure would lead to higher UK productivity and also have a ‘multiplier effect’ as the UK gains skills/IP which can be ‘exported’ to other countries.

I’m sure you will read more about the Technology Manifesto in the weeks ahead and I will provide you with a link to the detailed Manifesto as soon as this is available.

Feedback
I’d really appreciate your feedback – indeed even your endorsement – for the Manifesto. Please email me at rholway@techmarketview.com and I will pass your comments to the coordinators at Intellect.

Posted by Richard Holway at '07:00'