Minister for Business Tara Cheyne has announced the ACT Government will conduct a full independent audit and review of ChooseCBR following calls from the opposition to do so.
The evaluation will comprise an independent and comprehensive review of the program design and implementation, the findings of which will be made publicly available.
Through the audit ChooseCBR process, the Government will analyse the spread of activity across businesses and consumers.
“We have learned a lot through the ChooseCBR experience and how the Government can continue to use digital platforms in our service delivery,” Ms Cheyne said.
Over $1.6 million worth of vouchers were claimed in just one day when the scheme resumed on Friday 18 June; the full $2 million had been redeemed by 8am Saturday 19 June.
A total of 797 businesses redeemed vouchers from more than 30,000 registered customer accounts.
More than 77,000 customers registered for the scheme and just under 59,000 vouchers were redeemed in total.
178 of those businesses redeemed fewer than 10 vouchers, 530 redeemed fewer than 50.
19 businesses redeemed more than 500 vouchers, while the individual business that redeemed the most vouchers was in Gungahlin and received 3.3% of all vouchers.
Of the $2 million worth of discount vouchers made available, 37% went to supermarkets and other food retailing businesses.
Businesses in the food services industry received 26% of the vouchers, and despite reports of queues running out the door at chain chemist retailers while the scheme was still active, the pharmaceutical, cosmetic and toiletry goods retailing sector cashed only 6.2% of all vouchers.
Some criticism was levelled at the fact McDonalds and Chemist Warehouse outlets amongst other national franchises were allowed to register for this iteration of the scheme after the eligibility criteria was changed to remove the JobKeeper stipulation.
“Franchisees are small businesses; owned by locals who employ locals,” Ms Cheyne said, “it is not up to any person to make an assumption about whether a business was ‘genuinely struggling’.
“Importantly, what the data shows is that no one business was dominating the voucher redemptions … many businesses were busy.”
Overall, the scheme resulted in more than $5.1 million being spent in ACT businesses during the full roll-out.
Liberals questions ‘integrity’ of ChooseCBR
The ChooseCBR website temporarily went offline to fix technical issues that plagued the scheme after it was first launched on 9 June, with many businesses and consumers unable to redeem vouchers.
In calling for the independent ChooseCBR audit, Shadow Minister for Business Leanne Castley said there are “serious questions about the scheme’s integrity”.
“On June 3, the Business Minister said the government had made the revamped ChooseCBR ‘as simple as possible’ yet it was riddled with problems,” Ms Castley said.
“Just 24 hours after the scheme was resurrected last Friday, the funds dried up, with reports that vouchers were redeemed late into the night.
“How did the government monitor the scheme to ensure vouchers were not misused and people were doing the right thing? I raised this concern with the Minister’s office before the scheme kicked off.”
Ms Cheyne said some businesses were manually redeeming vouchers late into the night.
“While this is anecdotal evidence, it does point to some of the legitimate business practices that were occurring which did see vouchers claimed at what would otherwise seem to be unusual hours,” she said.
Ms Castley stressed the importance of auditing how much individuals and businesses profited, whether there was any misappropriation of funds, and how much was spent on admin and marketing, as well as web design and fixing the technical issues when the site was down.
“Concerns have been raised with me about the misuse of vouchers and the inequitable distribution of funds,” she said.
“It’s a real kick in the guts for small businesses who put in upwards of 15 hours’ work to be eligible for each of the iterations of ChooseCBR, only to receive $20 or $50 in total benefit.”
For more news:
