Agenda item

To agree a policy whereby businesses can benefit from the remaining ARG funding and agree how the funding is to be distributed to businesses who qualify for support.

168/21       Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) Top Up

Approval was sought to accept the revised Additional Restrictions Grant Top-Up policy. The Additional Restrictions Grants policy was being changed because since the earlier part of 2021, businesses had now returned to trading as usual and the previous policy was focussed largely based on businesses which had been adversely affected by lockdown restrictions. In this instance, it was proposed to reward businesses who retained staff, particularly given that the Government’s furlough scheme had ended in September 2021.

On 3 March 2021, BEIS announced that a further £425 million would be made available for local authorities, through a conditional top-up to the ARG Grant, subject to local authorities having spent their previous ARG allocations for financial years 20/21 & 21/22 by the 30 July 2021.

Sandwell Council had reported to BEIS that all ARG funding had been spent, and the Council had received £1.66m of ARG top-up in late August 2021.

Sandwell Council’s Business Growth team had already administered over £9.6 million of ARG directly to businesses and sole traders. The ARG Top Up funding scheme aimed to support businesses severely impacted by the recent economic downturn created by the pandemic. Local authorities could use ARG funding for business support activities and for funding a form of discretionary grants.

All funding must be spent by the 31 March 2022 and as such, the way in which the council utilised this funding must be aligned to available resources; the council’s decision-making processes; and procurement regulations. Flexibility would also be required to enable the council to respond to any changing circumstances over the grant period.

Reasons for Decision

To agree a policy whereby businesses can benefit from the remaining ARG funding and agree how the funding was to be distributed to businesses who qualified for support in line with criteria set by the funder the Department of Business Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) and Sandwell Council. The Council was ensuring that ARG policy and process were in accordance with the guidance provided by BEIS.

Alternative Options Considered

An alternative option was to provide £1.66million (100%) in grants directly and not offer the £120,000 (7.2%) Business Support interventions. The downside of this is that it removed a level of extra support advice for up to 200 businesses, specialist guidance on trade and exporting goods for up to 20 Sandwell companies, and removed the opportunity for Sandwell Residents to participate in an ’Entrepreneurial Business School’.

It was clarified that the scheme would go live on Monday 4 October.

           Agreed:-

(1)          that approval be given to revise the Additional Restrictions Grant Top-up policy;

(2)          that the Director for Regeneration and Growth, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Growth and the Director of Finance, be authorised to allocate and administer £1.54m of Additional Restriction Grants;

(3)          that the Director for Regeneration and Growth, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Growth and the Director of Finance, be authorised to allocate and administer £120,000 in business support activities;

(4)          that the Director for Regeneration and Growth, in consultation with the Cabinet Member for Regeneration and Growth and the Director of Finance, be authorised to make any changes necessary to the Additional Restriction Grant Policy, including amounts allocated between Resolutions (2) and (3) above; in order to respond to any unforeseen circumstances which may arise between October 2021 and March 2022, in order to ensure all grant funding is expended within time frame.