Agenda item

Cabinet Agreed

To  review and approve the proposed policy for awarding Covid-19                     Additional Relief to businesses

Decision

That Cabinet reviews and approves the proposed policy for awarding Covid-19 Additional Relief to businesses.

Corporate Objectives:

Ensuring economic growth and prosperity

Statutory Officer Comments

Monitoring Officer

The proposed policy is consistent with Government guidance in respect of the funding provided and powers under the Local Government Finance Act 1988.

S151 Officer

The comments of the S151 officer are included in the body of this report.

Advice

Cllr Elliot introduced the report and explained that this was about 3.8 million pound that has been given by central government to be given to businesses that have not been given any rates relief since the pandemic started. It about business that have fallen through the cracks with previous rates relief. They felt it might be difficult for business to meet the criteria to qualify so it maybe that they have to hand the funding back to central government.

Cllr Barratt said that there were some 1500 businesses that could apply, were they going to be proactively promoting this directly to those businesses in order to not just have one or two.

NHowcutt said that they would use their usual mechanisms of direct email and social media which has worked exceedingly well with business grants and business rates relief. They were targeting a very small group of businesses with this and they would have to provide a lot more information than previously and information to show Covid has affected them and that they did not qualify for previous grants that have been awarded. They will do an advertising campaign. Other authorities who have had this a bit earlier than us have not seen a great return as they have seen with other schemes.

Cllr Barratt asked if they would have to hand the money back if they do not use it and presumably, there is a cap on the amount the business can have.

NHowcutt explained that this was classed as a discretionary scheme, there were a much smaller group of people that they can target for this and it’s very hard to allocate it. The Council had fully utilised all other schemes and not had to return any. Where there has been schemes where there has been no discretion they have returned fund, as have almost every local authority in the country as they had to do it in line with strict conditions and eligibility criteria.

Cllr Tindall said that they only group of businesses that had contacted him at the beginning of the pandemic were those that didn’t actually pay business rates direct, they were tenants or charities, where they paid rent and then the owner of the building paid the rates. They could not demonstrate that they paid rates so were ineligible for quite a lot of the support. He know that the finance team did try to help them, however he wondered if there were any discretion in being able to capture those micro business people.

NHowcutt said that they did target those subletting business at the earliest opportunity with their own discretionary grants, they were able to support a lot of those businesses, those that they could not support were given a lot of information and guidance on how they could approach their landlords for support. The eligibility for this grant is entirely for ratepayers. It’s could be that the government look at assessing this over the next few months if they are not able to allocate it however this one is solely for rate payer.

Cllr Williams asked if they were, ate payers in receipt of 100% discretionary small business rate relief, could they still apply for this.

NHowcutt said in theory they can but as they are in receipt of the 100% discretion it probably means that, they would not meet some of the other parts of the criteria. There may be some businesses out there that maybe able too.

Cllr Griffiths asked if there were people that had applied to us in the past and that although have paid their business rates and did not qualify for the grant; she asked if they were going through that list to see if they would qualify for this one.

NHowcutt said that people who have applied for grants in the past go onto different lists and when they start to advertise and publicise this list they will send the same information out to those on the various lists. The various business that applied and had not got a grant they managed to change the scope of various grants. The ARG is now in phase 3 and each time they enter a new phase they will try to target those businesses that were unable to achieve relief in previous phase. Effectively this phase 4 with more eligibility criteria restrictions is why local authorities are finding it difficult to find those niche amounts of businesses. Many of those 1500 businesses that they have outlined as potentially being able to get this are large organisations that for government subsidy reasons will not be able to accept these reliefs. He would like to be more optimistic on their ability to get this money out the door and they have been extremely good to date however this maybe a policy too far in terms of the eligibility criteria. They will put all of their energy’s to that once they start in April and will report to members what options and opportunities they have between now and September to make these payments.

Cllr Griffiths asked when the 6 weeks starts.

NHowcutt said they would update members with the specific dates, they are estimating to start mid-April, which is when the 6-week period would start. The reason for that is that it has to be administered after all of the other reliefs and grants have been awarded to businesses in 2021/2022, it has to be the final one. They are waiting until everything has been finalised and approved and then they will roll it out. Equally, there has been a resource issue at the moment at this time of year with billing, council tax and the new reliefs that have come in for next year and closing the old ones. It makes sense to put energy into this one when they can during April and May. At that point, they will report to members in terms of how they are being received by businesses and what kind of information they were feeding back, also, weather new opportunities or new criteria from the government mean they can change, they will be a flexible as they can.

Recommendation agreed