SME Recovery Grants Available

SME Recovery Grants Available

Opens on Tuesday 15th September 2020

The Government has made £20m of funding available to boost small businesses recovery from the Coronavirus pandemic.

The Expression of Interest process opens at midday on Tuesday 15th September and is on a first come first serve basis, so don’t miss out.

How much is the Recovery Grant?

It’s funded by the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF). The eligible SMEs can access grants of between £1,000 – £3,000 (up to £5,000 in exceptional circumstances) for specialist advice.

There is no obligation for businesses to contribute financially as the grant is fully funded.

First come, first serve

Given the current state of the economy, the scheme is guaranteed to be very popular. Therefore, funding is extremely limited.

Expressions of interest (EoI) should be made as soon as possible after the scheme opens.

There is no waiting list so decisions will be made on a first come, first served basis.

The gateway diagnostic will close when the expression of interest (EoI) limit has been reached.

If successful, how long will the business have to wait to receive the grant?

Grant payments will not be made until up to 10 weeks after the purchase of the item or service the business has paid and claimed for.

The business will be paid upon production of an invoice for the service.

The details

Who is eligible for this grant?

To be eligible for this grant:

• Must be an SME (including third sector organisations, social enterprises and trading charities) based in Berkshire.
• Needs to have been negatively impacted by COVID-19.
• Must have the ability to survive following the impact of COVID-19.
• Staff headcount must be below 250 FTE. Businesses with more than 250 employees will not be eligible.
• Must have a balance sheet of below €43million.
• Must have a turnover of below €50million.
• If the business has received state aid in the last 3 years the total should not be in excess of €200,000. Businesses exceeding this level of state aid funding will not be eligible.

What expenditure is eligible?

The grant is available to help SMEs access one-to-one specialist advice to address their immediate needs. The grant must cover 100% of the cost of the service or product and cannot be used to part-fund expenditure.

Examples of eligible expenditure:

• Review of the business strategy, including strategic and business plans
• Coaching and mentoring in leadership and management development / Change management
• The introduction of new technology – apps to help with forecasting, cashflow and budgeting, for example
• Developing or revising marketing/digital strategies to reach new markets
• Rebuilding a viable business model
• Skills analysis and development plans
• Employee engagement, welfare and wellbeing

Please note these are examples only and not an exhaustive list.

What will they need for their expression of interest (EoI)?

Please see a link to a thorough summary written by the Berkshire Business Hub giving you all the detail you need. The scheme will work in an identical way for each LEP and local government.

How will businesses be assessed?

Key eligibility checks will also take the following into account:

• Their potential to respond/adapt/strengthen from the impact of COVID-19
• The ability to identify opportunities to rebuild following the impact of COVID-19
• The ability to deliver within the timescales available (one month)

Due to the high volume of EoIs expected, it may take up to 10 working days for full application forms to be sent. LEP or Growth Hub staff will not be able to provide an update on the status of your application.

For more detailed information and everything you need to know, this is the most comprehensive breakdown we’ve found. It’s written for Berkshire, but the grant is available for each local government and LEPs and will work in an almost identical way. https://www.berkshirebusinesshub.co.uk/kickstart-tourism-restart-recovery-sme-grants

This week saw the Chancellor announce some initiatives to get the economy moving again.

As usual the announcements are short on the exact details but we will bring you those when we hear more, but for now this is what we know….

Help for Jobs – what’s to know?

To spur the UK’s recovery from the coronavirus pandemic, the Chancellor presented his “Plan for Jobs”. What are the key employment points?

Job retention bonus. There will be a new one-off payment of £1,000 to UK employers for every furloughed employee who remains continuously employed until at least 31 January 2021. Employees must earn above £520 per month on average between the end of the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme and 31 January 2021. Payments will be made from February 2021 and further details about the bonus will be announced by the end of July 2020.

Kickstart. A new kickstart scheme in Great Britain will fund the direct creation of six-month work placements aimed at those aged 16-24 who are on Universal Credit and are deemed to be at risk of long-term unemployment. Funding available for each job will cover 100% of the relevant national minimum wage for 25 hours a week, plus the associated employers’ NI and the minimum auto-enrolment employer pension contribution.

Traineeships. Employers in England who provide work experience placements for those aged 16-24 on traineeships will receive a payment of £1,000 per trainee.

New apprenticeships. From 1 August 2020 to 31 January 2021, employers in England will receive a payment of £2,000 for each new apprentice they hire aged under 25, and £1,500 for each new apprentice they hire aged 25 and over. These payments will be in addition to the existing £1,000 payment that the government already provides for new 16-18-year-old apprentices.

Questions

This has already raised a couple of questions amongst our Facebook group.

Q. What is the difference between a traineeship and an apprenticeship?

A. The difference between a traineeship and an apprenticeship is that a traineeship can be either a full-time or part-time employment based training arrangement, usually for around 12 months (apprenticeships usually last for three to four years) and is generally in a non-trade related area.

Apprenticeships have a number of strict criteria that need to be met in order to qualify.
https://www.gov.uk/take-on-an-apprentice

Q. Will we qualify for the job retention bonus if we’ve already brought an employee back to work?

A. So far we understand that as long as an employee has been furloughed for the minimum 3 week period some time between March and end of June, then you will qualify,

Q. Will we qualify for the job retention bonus if a furloughed employee comes back to work from furlough and then goes off on maternity leave?

A. Again we have no definitive details on such a scenario but we cannot see why this employee shouldn’t qualify, as long as their Statutory Maternity Pay works out to be above the £520 per month threshold.
However, we will bring further details when we know them.

Q. Will the bonus apply to seasonal staff that are currently furloughed and will be kept on the books but won’t be earning in Jan as we close down for the winter?

A. This is a tricky question, as we were told that every employee that qualifies will need to earn above £520 per month between 1 November 2020 and 31 January 2021, so the answer would be no.
However, we now understand that they must have earned an average of £520 per month for that period. Now whether that means they will accept someone earning nothing in January but still having a 3 month average of £520 or above is currently unclear.

We have been promised detailed guidance by 31 July so will bring further details then.
Tax changes

While the Chancellor didn’t announce any changes to direct tax there was some welcome news of short-term measures to reduce indirect tax to stimulate business and house buying.
Here’s the story so far…

VAT and hospitality. Two of the main benefactors of the measures announced by the Chancellor were the hospitality and tourism sectors. Apart from the government picking up as much as half the tab if you eat out during August, restaurants, cafes, hotels and visitor attractions will also be able to charge a reduced rate of VAT, 5% instead of 20%.

The idea is to lower prices to encourage more customers. Of course, it will be up to businesses whether they pass on the VAT reduction to customers or keep their prices the same and so more directly benefit from the VAT cut.We’re waiting for HMRC to publish the details of the VAT rate change, e.g. exactly what types of goods and services it will apply to. In the meantime, if you’re in the sectors affected, we can tell you that the reduced rate will apply from Wednesday 15 July until 12 January 2021 inclusive.

We’ll bring you the full details as soon as they are available so that you can make the necessary changes to your tills and other billing processes ready in time for 15 July.

Stamp duty land tax. The Chancellor confirmed the recently announced temporary changes to stamp duty land tax (SDLT). The measure only applies to purchases of residential properties in England and Northern Ireland. So far, the Welsh and Scottish governments haven’t announced changes to their equivalent taxes.The standard nil rate threshold for SDLT on residential property transactions will be increased from £125,000 to £500,000. This took effect for sales completing on 8 July and will apply to sales completing on or before 31 March 2021.