To print: Click here or Select File and then Print from your browser's menu

This story was printed from silicon.com, located at http://www.silicon.com/

Story URL: http://management.silicon.com/careers/0,39024671,39372008,00.htm

Dear Gordon, here's how to spend that £17bn
News analysis: Five tech investments to beat the downturn

By Natasha Lomas

Published: Tuesday 06 January 2009

...attach long term conditions to companies gaining cash - such as a commitment to staying in the UK, and establish programmes for start-ups to share their knowledge with the community by taking on interns and building relationships with universities and schools.

After all, the total amount of investment Silicon Valley attracted in 2007, for instance, was a mere $10bn - so £17bn could make a major difference to the fortunes of UK start-ups.

4 - Encourage smarter working

A change in the law is already looming in April that will enable more UK workers to request the right to work flexibly but for the majority, flexible working is still the exception not the rule.

Nevertheless, the long term benefits of more flexible working are clear: a happier and more productive workforce, as well as one that is larger and more geographically dispersed.

And in tough economic times flexible working makes more sense than ever - it could help businesses to cut costs by enabling them to decentralise operations and reduce office space and expenditure.

To encourage more flexible working the government could offer grants to companies - to ensure they have the necessary tech infrastructure in place and the resources to manage a more dispersed workforce - and to employees to set up home offices.

5 - Think of the webby kids

Last year the PM pledged £300m to pay for broadband connections, software and computers for children in around one million homes in low income and jobless families.

Statistics from the Office for National Statistics show internet access at home can mean the difference between a child getting a grade A and grade D GCSE. But a significant proportion of kids don't have the luxury of a home connection - figures released by Ofcom last year found 24 per cent of UK homes with children do not have web access.

According to 2001 Census data around a third of UK households contain dependent children - or around eight million homes. Even after the government hooks up the targeted one million homes via its existing programme there will still be around a million more that remain unconnected. Why not spend a little more to close this digital divide once and for all and pledge a home PC to every school-age child? Presumably the cost of such a tech investment would be along the lines of another £300m - leaving plenty of cash still to spend.

An alternative or complementary tech investment in this area would be to offer all schools grants to provide each child with a laptop - so kids can be guaranteed access to hardware in the classroom as well as at home.