Department for the Economy - Neighbourhood Retailer

Spend Local scheme should have excluded supermarkets, study says

Linda Stewart — Tue, 03 May 2022 11:03:42 +0000

Stormont’s Spend Local scheme should have been excluded supermarkets, economists from Queen’s University Belfast (QUB) have suggested.

The QUB study says the £136m High Street scheme, designed to boost businesses affected by coronavirus lockdowns, should have targeted businesses forced to close during the Covid-19 pandemic.

It allowed everyone over the age of 18 in Northern Ireland to apply for a £100 pre-paid card.

The QUB study also said the scheme should have been designed to help pensioners and those on income support as those measures “would have had a greater economic effect”.

Official figures by the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency (Nisra) found that one third of the high street vouchers were spent in businesses that did not have to close during the pandemic.

The Department for the Economy has not yet conducted its final analysis into the scheme.

In an article published in The Economics Observatory, Prof John Turner and Dr David Jordan said: “Given the high proportion spent in supermarkets, it is very likely that a substantial proportion of extra expenditure by consumers leaked out of the local economy.

They criticised the “poor timing” of the scheme, suggesting it should have operated from late August to October, months which have lower retail footfall.

It found the busiest month for transactions on the pre-paid cards was November, a month when retail spending is traditionally high before Christmas.

They suggested these factors meant an increase in spending in Northern Ireland was “much lower than was originally intended or would have been hoped for”.

“A post-scheme evaluation needs to happen to determine whether this policy experimentation was cost-effective and worth repeating,” the assessment concluded.

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Remedy measures for people who missed out on NI High Street Scheme move forward

Linda Stewart — Fri, 18 Mar 2022 12:25:01 +0000

The Department for the Economy has begun to issue emails to all those potentially eligible for a remedy payment under the High Street Scheme.

Economy Minister Gordon Lyons recently agreed to issue a remedy payment to the following individuals to verified applicants who did not receive their Spend Local card before the Scheme closed; and applicants who faced problems activating/using their card and as a result had a balance of £10 or more at Scheme closure. Applications must be made before 5pm on Thursday March 31.

The Department for the Economy recently emailed individuals to inform them that they, or a person they applied on behalf of, may be eligible for a remedy payment under the High Street Scheme.

A further email providing a link to the remedy payment application portal is now being issued – the bulk of emails will be sent on Friday 18 March with the remainder issuing within the next couple of weeks.

Those who wish to apply for a remedy payment (either for themselves or on someone’s behalf) should click on the link contained within the email where they will then be asked a security question in order to access the application form. Those who confirm they meet the eligibility criteria will then be asked to provide bank/building society details.

The remedy payment will be paid into the nominated account before the end of April 2022. The remedy payment made will be equal to the balance remaining on the Spend Local card at scheme closure.

E-mails will issue from noreply@spendlocalni.com and messages from this address should be treated as legitimate. Depending on the settings of a person’s email account, it is possible these emails may be filtered into a junk/spam folder, so people are asked to check these folders regularly.

Applications must be submitted before 5pm on Thursday 31 March 2022. It will not be possible to process applications beyond this date.

Those who applied via the telephone service and who have been identified as being potentially eligible for a remedy payment will receive a letter next week with details on how to apply.

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Department defends decision to award PFS High Street Scheme contract

Julie Nash — Mon, 02 Aug 2021 10:48:11 +0000

The Department for the Economy has defended hiring a firm for the High Street Scheme that was fined for its part in a ”prepaid card cartel’. Prepaid Financial Services has been given the contract to deliver the £145million scheme, but in recent months it is reported that the company has been involved in issues involving their handling of a prepaid card scheme for asylum seekers in the UK, an investigation by the Central Bank of Ireland and being one of five companies who provisionally agreed to pay fines in the UK for their involvement in an alleged ‘prepaid card cartel’.

PFS along with Allpay and Mastercard, agreed to pay fines of more that £32million in total for their alleged anti-competitive behaviour. PFS was fined £1 million for its part in the scheme.

Chris Hemsley, Managing Director of the Payment Systems Regulator, said “Pre-paid card services, like these, can provide significant benefits to local authorities as one way to make welfare payments to some of the most vulnerable people in society.

“By colluding in this way, we consider the parties were acting as a cartel. Because of the reduced competition local authorities may have been missing out on an alternative supplier or products that were either cheaper or better suited to both their needs and the needs of those using the pre-paid cards.

However the Department for the Economy has defended its decision to award the contract to PFS. The Department said that it was aware of these issues with PFS prior to the awarding of its contract for the High Street Voucher scheme, and does not believe it will affect the rollout.

A Department spokesperson said: “The Department for the Economy is aware of the issues and does not believe these will have any impact on the rollout of the High Street Scheme. The Department’s contract for the supply of a prepaid card is with PFS (UK) which has no involvement in the Central Bank of Ireland investigation. PFS(UK ) is regulated separately by the Financial Conduct Authority in the United Kingdom.

“The contract for the pre-paid cards was awarded after a secondary competition using a government wide contracting framework in which four pre-qualified companies on the framework were invited to submit bids. Two companies submitted completed tender documentation. This process was carried out in accordance with the relevant procurement procedures and best practice.”

*Full interview with Economy Minister Gordon Lyons on the High Street Scheme coming in next issue of NR*

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