£23m pot of gold for tech-bamboozled SMEs

£23m of government cash is to be devoted to getting SMEs to improve their business through IT.

The funding, announced in the government's Digital Britain report released yesterday, is aimed at encouraging the take-up of digital technology among the smallest companies.

The money, which will come from the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) along with regional development agencies, will be used for "piloting a range of business support interventions for SMEs to assist them to exploit advanced ICT to transform their business processes", according to the report.

Making SMEs more tech-savvy is apparently key to the UK economy's future, the report said.

"For the UK to leverage competitiveness and productivity benefits, it is essential for those strategically influential business people - including in SMEs and the UK's four million leaders and managers - to have a solid grasp of the strategic implications of technology and to be able to deploy the skills (themselves and within their workforce) to realise its potential."

The £23m funding follows an announcement in December by the predecessor to BIS, the Department for Business, Enterprise & Regulatory Reform, of a £30m investment fund destined for UK technology SMEs looking to expand.