Advisory tool Grippy

Municipality of Amsterdam

Advice tool Grippy: an application that helps staff in the Entrepreneur Support Department determine whether a business is viable.

Last change on 26th of November 2024, at 16:00 (CET) | Publication Standard 1.0

• Publication category: Other algorithms
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• Status: In use

General information

Theme

Social Security

Begin date

Field not filled in.

Contact information

[e-mail]

Responsible use

Goal and impact

The aim of the Gripvol advisory tool is to achieve faster decision-making, cost reduction and greater uniformity in assessing the viability of a company.

Considerations

In the case of an application for the Besluit bijstandverlening zelfstandigen (Bbz) (Decree on assistance for self-employed persons), a legality check is first carried out. After that, the viability of the business is assessed. A business is viable if there is sufficient income after the assistance (temporary benefit or working capital) to meet all business and private obligations. Assessing viability is labour-intensive and complex. The staff of the Entrepreneur Support Department can investigate viability themselves or outsource this investigation to external contract partners. It is relatively time-consuming to assess it yourself, but an assessment by external contractors is expensive. Therefore, we sought a tool that supports employees in assessing a company's viability. We chose the advice tool Gripvol, which helps structure and support the assessment with financial calculations and industry information. Staff discuss the tool's advice with the entrepreneur and weigh the advice in the overall assessment of the application Decree on assistance for self-employed persons (Bbz). It is not compulsory to use the tool. Employees can use it as one of the tools in their work.

Human intervention

Gripvol produces a report based on the input data provided by the client and the employee's assessment. The report is the outcome of this assessment and contains the rationale for whether or not the business is viable. The employee discusses the report with the entrepreneur. In addition, the 4-eye principle applies in the Entrepreneur Support Department. Applications are also assessed by a colleague.

Employees can use Gripvol, but it is not necessary. They can also handle applications without using Gripvol. The staff member makes the final judgement on the viability of a business. The judgement is then assessed by a colleague.

Risk management

Behind the advice tool Gripvol is a model (the decision tree) and it is rule-based. The boundary conditions are not dynamic. They are not adjusted (automatically) in response to entered data. The advice report shows the entered data and the corresponding advice. So it is completely transparent what happens and it can also be explained. Risks in using tool are assessed as low.

The advice tool Gripvol is provided by the company Gripvol, which supplies this advice tool to several municipalities. They regularly do so-called 'pen and hack tests', to check that the advice tool cannot be hacked by third parties. The company Gripvol is ISO certified. The municipality of Amsterdam, Entrepreneur Support Department is responsible for processing the data needed to go through the process.

Operations

Data

Architecture of the model

The advice tool Gripvol uses logic. That is, defined calculations to be performed are compared with the information entered by the employee. The calculations are done on the basis of a decision tree.

This comparison results in a signal to the employee whether or not there is compliance with the preconditions. Based on this signal, the employee can base his or her decision on the application Decree on assistance for self-employed persons (Bbz).