Hello I’m Cllr Toby Morris and as well as being the deputy leader of West Oxfordshire District Council I’m also the cabinet member covering business and the economy. With COVID-19 taking over our lives right now I’d like to reassure businesses that we’re hard at work getting the government grants out.
In this edition of the newsletter you will find some more information about how this is happening. I can’t emphasise enough that your council is here for you and will continue to support you during these unprecedented times which none of us has experienced before. We will make this through together.
Business grants are on their way
The Government funding schemes for the small businesses and the retail, hospitality and leisure grants are now live. The Government has committed to the automatic and immediate payment of these grants without businesses being required to apply.
However, we do still need some very basic information in order to make the payments and have created a simple form that businesses need to complete. We have written to all eligible businesses with this form but we have also made it available to download from our website for businesses unable to access their premises. If your business meets the eligibility criteria, please complete the form and return it to our dedicated email address local.taxation@westoxon.gov.uk.
We will process the grant as quickly as possible and expect payments to be dispatched by Friday 10 April. During this time our team will be exceptionally busy and it would be helpful if you could refer to our website for updates and, apart from submitting the form, only contact us by email if really urgent.
The council will not be collecting any business rates payments by direct debit during April 2020 to help ease business cashflow concerns. Instead, this payment will be deferred until all appropriate reliefs and grants have been applied. For those businesses that pay their business rates from April to January, this change will mean that payment instalments will move from May to February. The deferral will take place automatically - no action is required from businesses.
Guidance on the Job Retention Scheme
Detailed guidance about claiming reimbursement for workers' wages through the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme has been published. As a reminder, this is the scheme that will pay 80% of wages up to £2,500 per month. This applies to employees who have been asked to stop working, but who are being kept on the pay roll, otherwise described as ‘furloughed workers’.
The scheme will be administered by HMRC and it is expected to be available by the end of April 2020. Businesses with immediate cashflow issues should get support from the Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme.
The Arts Council has announced a £160 million emergency response package to support individuals and organisations across the cultural sector in response to the Covid-19 crisis. The package announced comprises:
£90 million for National Portfolio Organisations (NPOs)
£50 million for organisations outside of the National Portfolio
£20 million for creative practitioners and cultural workers
There is further detail of these emergency funds on the Arts Council's website.
Please forward this email to others to whom this might be useful and encourage them to sign up to further updates. Please note that you can access previous editions of this newsletter too.
The council Coronavirus web pages have updates about business support, communities and leisure, bins and recycling, elections and council meetings, planning, building and council news.
We hope you found this newsletter useful. We would like them to be as relevant as possible so please let us know what you think and don’t forget to send us your news to business@westoxon.gov.uk