‘20% drop in government tenders since Brexit vote’ claim

A UK tech SME says official government figures show how “uncertainty around Brexit” has caused a slowdown in the number of government tenders to the technology sector.

The vendor in question is London-based cloud and telecoms technology solutions provider hSo, which says that its analysis (see image) shows that in the run up to the June 23rd Referendum “government tenders were steadily being issued” – but that since the vote, there has been a slowdown.

Thus in the nine months running up to the Brexit vote there were 815 tenders per month on average, but since that’s dropped to only 652 per month – a decline of 20%.

hSo says it’s Brexit uncertainty at the base of what’s happening, “stalling the good progress that had been made in the run up to the Referendum, when many more competitive tenders were being issued”.

“There is plenty of economic data and evidence suggesting that the UK economy has been resilient in the face of the Brexit vote [and] we were particularly encouraged by the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement with the focus on investment in infrastructure and improving productivity, which will give rise to many more opportunities for hSo in the private sector as companies find ways of becoming more efficient and keeping costs down,” said Chris Evans, the firm’s Managing Director.

“However, in respect to public sector government tenders issued, there has been a slowdown since the EU Referendum. It’s understandable, given we have recently had the appointment of a new Prime Minister that the new administration is accustoming itself and looking to make its mark – however, this shouldn’t prevent them from maintaining the momentum that was evident earlier in the year ahead of the Brexit vote.”

Evans says that the surprise victory in the US Presidential Election of Donald Trump may also add an element of uncertainty into the mix, which he fears may add “more reasons for inertia to set in” at a time when the UK economy “needs as much help and stimulus as possible”.

“Before the Brexit vote there was clearly a big push by private and public sector SMEs to reign in their IT and network infrastructure spend,” he concludes.

“But since then, as economic activity has slowed, there’s now even greater reason for businesses to look at more cost efficient network, telephony and hosting solutions,” he claims.

hSo used this official data as the basis of its claims.