Fund Management Services for the Digital Development Loan 2019 - 2022

Descriptions

The Fund will enable Scotland’s small to medium sized enterprises to invest in the digital skills and capabilities of their staff and businesses. Organisations who meet the criteria can apply for loans from 10,000 GBP up to 100,000 GBP per annum. Under this contract organisations will be able to apply for up to 3 years of funds dependent on size of loans, which will not exceed 100k GBP in total. The contract will be for a period of 31 months with the option to extend for an additional 6 months, if required. There will also be the opportunity to recapitalise the fund should the fund over perform in the first 18 months of operation, by up to 3m GBP, upon agreement of all parties. The successful organisation (hereinafter known as the Fund Manager) will draw down the required amount of funding for dissemination to applicants on a quarterly basis and make the necessary arrangements to ensure that payments are made to the funded organisations in a timely manner. The key aims and objectives to be delivered by the Fund Manager are to: 1.Establish a system for loan payments, ensuring all succesful loan applicants receive their funds in a timely manner and that the recipient bank details are recorded and and verified prior to release of any funds. 2.Establish a system for the repayment of these loans, setting up a separate bank account for the purpose and ensuring the loans are repaid within the timescales set withing the loan agreement - i.e on a monthly basis over 12,24,36,48 or 60 month period. A robust system should be in place for dealing with late repayments.. 3.Develop support for all funded organisations based on the Fund Manager’s assessment of each project’s need (including the level of and priority for support) to ensure that they can report effectively on their progress towards achieving their agreed outcomes and that they have the skills and knowledge to increase their sustainability. 4.Clear linkage with assesing skills needs and linkage to the Skills Development Scotland offer will be key as will the capability to act on advisory recommendations from Business Gateway, Scottish Enterprise and HIE. As such, demonstarting a relationship with some, if not all of these organisations will be essential. 5.Knowledge EU regulations, specifically State Aid ‘de minimis’ procedures must be included in assesment of all applications. 6.Monitor organisations’ performance against their outcomes using a monitoring and evaluation framework to be developed by the Fund Manager and implement a robust means of capturing this progress. 7.Provide a clear, concise and robust marketing plan for the loan service and assist Scottish Government with any promotion as well as undertake continuous promotion and marketing of the fund themselves throughout the term of the agreement. 8.Identify any significant governance or management issues that might impact on an organisations’ ability to effectively deliver its stated fund request as early as possible to the Scottish Government Contract Manager along with an assessment of risk and options for the action required by the Fund Manager or the Scottish Government. 9.If required, help modify the funding programme in place for future iterations in response to identified issues or suggested improvements. 10.Once launched, the Fund Manager will be the first point of contact for any queries about the new fund. The Fund Manager will assess all the applications to this new fund and provide feedback to unsuccessful organisations. The Fund Manager will also provide feedback to the Scottish Government Contract Manager on the successful organisations; and will issue the loan offer letters. 11.The Fund Manger must ensure all loans are only for the purposes specified in ‘The Use of Funds’ paragraphs above.