Doncaster tech firm presented with King's Award for Enterprise for work during pandemic

Since 2020, the firm has helped local authorities across the UK to distribute more than £1.8 billion to over 7 million recipients, allowing people to access grant payments including council tax energy rebates and welfare assistance. The firm is now hoping to use its skills and expertise to help some of Britain’s most vulnerable households access more than £19 billion of unclaimed benefits.

During a special presentation, managing director Darren Kelk outlined some of the company’s plans to embrace new forms of technology to help reduce the administrative burden faced by local authorities and businesses in processing applications for access to any local services or funding schemes.

He said: “Receiving the King’s Award for Enterprise is the proudest moment in my professional career to date. We knew that during the Covid-19 pandemic, local authorities were under extreme pressure to act swiftly when it came to administering the support grant schemes, but we also knew that without the necessary checks there was a genuine risk of the system being abused. Myself and Richard took it upon ourselves as a personal responsibility to the country, to use our expertise to help protect the public purse in any way we possibly could.

“We recognised that the system we had developed could be used to support the work of local authorities when it came to processing a range of different payments, and it has been adopted by more than 90 local authorities since that time.

"Since securing the King’s Award, we’ve remained committed to investing in new forms of technology, which we hope will result in the development of new solutions that will help to improve efficiency, reduce the administrative burden faced by many organisations and ultimately ensure many families are equipped with the vital support they need at the times when it is needed the most.”

Founded by Mr Kelk and Richard Hanby in 2016, Ascendant Solutions worked with four local authorities to distribute Covid-19 grant payments to small businesses during the pandemic. Following initial discussions with the authorities, the firm built a unique payment solution from scratch, with the aim of reducing the administrative burden faced by local authorities.

Following a 17-day marathon of programming, testing and refining, the company’s Apply4.Online system was ready to take its first orders. The system reduced the time taken to process application payments by 70 per cent, and has a fraud and error rate of just 0.8 per cent, 90 per cent lower than the national average.

The company claims that the system successfully prevented more than £400 million of ineligible applications from being processed within its first year of operation. Since that time, the business has successfully rolled out the innovative technology to help over 90 local authorities across the UK.

The Ascendant team has continued to invest in a range of new software solutions, embracing cutting edge technology including automation and AI.