Just when we thought Kickstart couldn’t get any worse, we have been told that we are not allowed to take part in Kickstart at all, 6 months after it was announced. This apparently is the case for most small businesses.

For those who haven’t been following the story Kickstart is an employment subsidy for under 24 year olds, to help reduce youth unemployment. It is essentially the same as a successful programme run by New Labour post Credit Crunch that was foolishly scrapped by George Osborne.

Kick Start | A kick in the teeth for young people

Kick Start | Shit Start P2.

Rather than do the obvious and simply re-instate the old programme under a new name Government Special Political Advisors decided to set up a completely new scheme with it’s own ridiculously complex rules.

As a consequence the whole programme is now way behind schedule, and most small businesses have been told they are banned from taking part. For those who can take part they are unliklely to be able to recruit until Spring next year.

This is a massive mess.

To make it worse it comes as news leaks out that the National Tutoring programme for young people is sinking rapidly. This was announced with great fanfare to provide 1 to 1 tutoring for pupils on free school meals, who are at risk of falling behind due to school closures. It now emerges that only 15% of eligible pupils will be able to access the scheme

These were 2 good ideas that have failed due to rubbish implementation.

To add to this list of failure the Government programme to provide affordable starter homes has collapsed as the Government failed to agree with mortgage lenders how to value the homes and finance their purchase. This is the same failure that made CBILS such a shambles

These are the same mistakes being made again and again., and they stem from 3 massive problems in Government:

1. A failure to think through policy beyond the initial headline
2. A failure to talk to businesses and lenders to make sure the schemes will work
3. Huge bureaucracy to oversee giving small sums of money to poor people and small business by no oversight over huge sums given to Ministers mates

This level of incompetence would be shocking in a new administration who had unexpectedly found themselves in Government. But we have had the same party in power now for 10 years. This level of incompetence is inexcusable.