The point is that whoever runs this or that scheme, the very first companies to be approved will be the quick fits with their carpeted waiting rooms and free customer coffee. And we all know that their staff turnover is massive and hardly of the highest calibre. So it will degrade into the usual farce, and usual 400 quid a year for nothing in particular.
Soft franchises are just another way of selling the companies in questions parts, the public arent going to come to you because you have a sign outside with Bosch or Unipart or whatever on it, they will come because either you have a reputation for high class work, or a reputation for been cheaper than anyone else in the area. Not because the public has been fooled into thinking you are a branch of Robert Bosch, who have now gone into the vehicle repair business.