In hindsight: was the Eat Out to Help Out scheme (£849 million) a waste of taxpayer money?

[Lucidas]

AIBU to say that yes, it was?

Especially if you'd told those businesses again that they would soon be shutting once more in the winter. Not to mention its (potential) role in the rise of cases:

www.theguardian.com/business/2020/oct/30/treasury-rejects-theory-eat-out-to-help-out-caused-rise-in-covid

Yes it was.
We spent money on something which led to an increase in cases, which then led to tighter restrictions being needed!

Well it was less than a tenth of a DUP, so a drop in the ocean really.

Thank goodness we managed to avoid spending it on paying nurses and carers any more than we already do though. That would have been a waste. They'd only spend it on themselves.

The benefit of hindsight isn't really needed, anyone with a pair of eyes could see at the time that it was a terrible idea.

It was a bit of waste yes.

But I don't think completely. It probably did cause a rise in cases, but not as many as I think we'd like to attribute. There was a combination of factors not least the chance to go to the pub on a week day, or have a costa on your lunch break.

It would be interesting to hear from businesses whether the additional income generated over the period is more or less, and if has been able to somewhat tide them through our current higher restrictions and closures.
I don't think we can kid ourselves, that if we had not proceeded with the EOHO scheme we wouldn't be facing tier 4 and more now.

If anything, the question is was EOHO an effective scheme to prevent businesses from going under in the face of higher winter restrictions and closures. Whether this scheme enabled businesses to stock their coffers or ready themselves.

Of course the scheme was never sold that way, but saying in August 'yeah guys. Quick get out and spend spend spend cos winter is gonna be shit and we are gonna lockdown again' doesn't quite have the same ring to it.

I spoke to a fiend who's a regional manager for a chain of bars and restaurants about it. She said that, in her area at least, what happened was any remaining weekend trade they had shifted to Mon-Wed instead.

So in other words it didn't particularly increase trade, it just caused disruption (as they would normally staff for a weekend peak) and the takings to be 50% tax payer funded.

Marvellous.

Obviously we can't know how the trade would have been without the discount, but anecdotally many of her restaurants had the same faces they'd normally have seen but they just didn't have to pay as much,for their meals.

Agree with previous posters.
I was a waitress during eat out to help out and it just shifted the weekend trade to the early week. Unfortunately, businesses like pubs that sold alcohol actually lost out in the end as someone eating a meal on a friday/sat is more likely to drink more booze and stay later than someone out on a Tuesday for example.

Also, people that got discounted food were much ruder to wait staff, and did not tip at all. It was very demoralising to serve the people that came in, and we were booked solid on these days for the entire scheme which led to verbal abuse when we couldn't fit people in.

Yes. Thought so at the time

Rishi not looking so dishy now is he?

I have spoken to some business who said without the increase revenue november shutdown would of been hard
Im not sure pubs were actually large contributors to rise all the ones i went to felt safer than half the supermarkets

Also the eat out to help out wasn't compulsory it was a choice

Iliveoncoffee
There was a slight increase (but only slight), custom moved the days of the offer and became quieter on normal busy days.
This made rotas etc a bit of a pain in the arse, as we have staff employed and contracted as per business needs and this flipped the days and times on the head.
Additionally due to government restrictions and guideline and our own in-house, we were higher staffed than normal, so the increase probably off set that- but it’s actually too depressing to sit down and look at the figures in details at the moment

@donewithitalltodayandxmas

Also the eat out to help out wasn't compulsory it was a choice

Now, don't be silly. It wasn't much of a choice, was it?

Obviously any establishment that chose not to take part was going to lose out in a big way to others that did. Because half price holds an appeal that full price doesn't.

But OP, it was a strange and terrible idea. YANBU.

I went out about a dozen times with it, I wouldn't have bothered if it wasn't in place.