As you will know if you have attempted to claim an Additional Restrictions Grant and been knocked back, many local councils are being as useless, and many would say as “tight fisted” as they have always been when it comes to dishing out cash to businesses that need financial assistance.
The Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy have been accused of being negligent in giving individual Local Councils the power to decide which business in their local areas they give those grants to, and the slow speed at which they have been doing so.
An update has been sneaked out onto the Government website regarding which businesses BEIS “expect” Local Councils to help with those grants, which hopefully will now stop them from taking the p*ss, and that information can be found below or on the Government website.
Make sure you claim if eligible, and do not let your Council beat you down with delays.
The Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) supports businesses that are not covered by other grant schemes or where additional funding is needed.
The Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) provides local councils with grant funding to support businesses that are severely impacted by restrictions, and that may or may not be in the business rates system.
Local councils can determine which businesses to support and determine the amount of funding provided from the ARG scheme.
Eligibility
Local councils have the freedom to determine the eligibility criteria for these grants. However, we expect the funding to help businesses that are severely impacted by the restrictions.
Local councils are encouraged to support:
Businesses from all sectors that may have been severely impacted by restrictions but are not eligible for the Restart Grant scheme, including those which do not pay business rates
Businesses from sectors that remain closed or severely impacted by the extended restrictions, even if those businesses have already been in receipt of Restart Grants. This may include the:
- travel and tourism sector
- wedding industries
- nightclubs
- theatres
- events industries
- wholesalers
- English language schools
- breweries
- Freelance and mobile businesses including
- caterers
- events
- hair, beauty and wedding related businesses
Businesses excluded from the fund
You cannot get funding if:
your business is in administration, insolvent or has been struck off the Companies House register
you have exceeded the permitted subsidy allowance
You must notify your local council if your situation changes and you no longer meet the eligibility criteria, for example, if you become insolvent.
Subsidy allowance
The new domestic subsidy allowance for the COVID-19 business support grants took effect on 4 March 2021. Applications made prior to that date are subject to the previous rules.
This scheme is covered by 3 subsidy allowances:
Small Amounts of Financial Assistance Allowance – you’re allowed up to £335,000 (subject to exchange rates) over any period of 3 years
COVID-19 Business Grant Allowance – you’re allowed up to £1,600,000
COVID-19 Business Grant Special Allowance – if you have reached your limits under the Small Amounts of Financial Assistance Allowance and COVID-19 Business Grant Allowance, you may be able to access a further allowance of funding under these scheme rules of up to £9,000,000, provided certain conditions are met
Grants under these 3 allowances can be combined for a potential total allowance of up to £10,935,000 (subject to exchange rates).
How to apply
Visit your local council’s website to find out how to apply.
They also sneaked this out on the 16th of June:
Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) (updated 16 June 2021)
As Step 4 of the roadmap out of restrictions has been delayed for up to 4 weeks we have updated the guidance to account for this and extended the spending allocation deadline to 30 July 2021.
The Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) provides additional funding for local authorities subject to national lockdown or Tier 3 restrictions, to support businesses that have had their trade affected by the restrictions. This includes:
closed businesses that don’t pay business rates
businesses that have not been required to close, but are still severely impacted
Each local authority has the discretion to establish business grant schemes or other business support as best fits their area.