|
Applications for the Kickstart fund launched on Thursday 3 September. Interest in this grant has been extremely high since its announcement by central government, and it was therefore expected that demand would be significantly higher than the amount of grant available. Business Lincolnshire has provided an update on the closure of the funding
In order to provide a fair process for all businesses the window for expressions of interest was opened at 9am Thursday 3rd September 2020 precisely. Within 1hr of being open over 400 expressions of interest were received, which by themselves would significantly exceed the total value of grant available should only a proportion of them submit full application.
The decision has therefore been made to close the grant for applications. It is expected that with the volume of demand already received that once full applications have been processed from those businesses who submitted an interest that there will be no further funding available. However, if this is not the case an additional window for expressions of interest will be opened and businesses will be notified through our communications channels.
From 1 September, the government will pay 70% of wages up to a maximum cap of £2,187.50 for the hours the employee is on furlough. Employers will top up employees’ wages to ensure they receive 80% (up to £2,500). The caps are proportional to the hours not worked. You can read more information about the changes.
Unless you’re making a new claim for an employee who is a military reservist or is returning from statutory parental leave, you can only continue to claim through the scheme if:
- You have previously furloughed the employee for 3 consecutive weeks between March 1 and 30 June
- You submitted your claim before 31 July
Information about the Job Retention Bonus was published on 31 July.
The government has introduced a new Kickstart Scheme in Great Britain, a £2 billion fund to create hundreds of thousands of high quality 6-month work placements aimed at those aged 16 to 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 employer National Insurance contributions and employer minimum automatic enrolment contributions.
Find more guidance and promotional materials here.
Workers on low incomes who need to self-isolate and are unable to work from home in areas with high incidence of COVID-19 can benefit from a new payment scheme where individuals must meet the following criteria:-
- Have tested positive for Covid-19 or received a notification from NHS Test and Trace asking them to self-isolate
- Have agreed to comply with the notification from NHS Test and Trace and provided contact details to the local authority.
- Be employed or self-employed.
- Be unable to work from home (checks will be undertaken on all applicants) and will lose income a result
- Be currently receiving Universal Credit or Working Tax Credit.
More information is available here.
The latest weekly statistics show that the service has consistently reached the vast majority of those testing positive and their contacts in 3 months of operation.
Where contact details are shared, contact tracers have reached 88.3% of contacts since the service launched and the number of people coming forward for a test has increased by 57% since mid-June.
If so, join our Business NK group here. We will be sharing information, support and advice on there during Covid-19, and beyond.
If you are a business or organisation which has been advised to collect customer, staff and visitor details a customer logging toolkit is now available here.
|
