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By Nick Heath, 12 March 2008 17:09

NEWS

The technology industry has pledged to fight for a share of a public sector contract windfall the Chancellor of the Exchequer promised to SMEs in his 2008 Budget.

Alastair Darling's Budget speech promised a variety of opportunities for the technology sector including:

• Thirty per cent of public contracts would be awarded to SMEs within the next five years.
• A £10m boost to the science and innovation teaching budget over the next five years.
• A fund to develop road-charging technology, with plans to invite tenders to test the technology next year.
• Heathrow to invest in more iris scanning machines as it rolls out its Project Iris trusted-traveller pilot project to speed passengers' journeys through immigration control.
• Plans to provide smart electricity meters for large and medium-sized businesses over the next five years.
• An £800m environment fund to work with Japan, the US and other countries, as well as the World Bank, to fund clean technologies in developing countries.
• An extra £60m over the next three years to provide new opportunities for people to gain the skills needed to enter the labour market.

Intellect, the trade association for the UK technology industry, said it would lobby for strong technology representation on an advisory committee for SME access to public sector contracts but questioned why technology was omitted from the science and innovation education investment and urged the government to consult on its road pricing plans.

A spokesman for Intellect said: "In the technology sector SME access to public contracts has been a real issue, particularly in the National Programme for IT [in the NHS], and Intellect has been working to improve the situation for smaller companies."

Darling said that the UK was second only to the US for the strength of its knowledge-based industries and that high tech manufacturing had grown by 30 per cent in the last decade.

But the spokesman for Intellect said Darling's omission of new money for technology education is disappointing and "showed a lack of appreciation for the real role of technology in the UK economy".

Tomorrow the Department of Innovation, Universities and Skills will publish its science and innovation strategy for development of the industry and Darling said that by 2010 the country will be spending more than £6bn per year supporting science and innovation.