The Isle of Wight Council says it has processed government grant payments totalling £29.9 million to 2,550 qualifying Island businesses as of today (Monday) – but it could be another few days until local businesses actually see the money.
Business Secretary Alok Sharma confirmed on 1st April that local authorities up and down the country had received the money to pay businesses. The Isle of Wight Council confirmed receipt of the funds – £62.8million – the following day but now, almost 4 weeks later, businesses are still waiting to be paid – even if they filled in the required form soon after it was made live.
It is estimated the council will complete direct payments to all those it has up to date bank details for over the next few days. These include those who the council already had up to date bank details for at 11th March, and those who have completed all the required information and submitted the online form.
Currently all payments are being made by BACs, which typically take 3 working days to show in an account.
The council has written to all other business ratepayers it believes may be eligible, and is also trying to contact them where it has email and phone details.
The council is urging any eligible businesses that haven’t yet provided their up to details for payment via a special online form to do so. The form can be found at www.iow.gov.uk/covid19_businessadvice.
Council leader, Councillor Dave Stewart, said:
“There has been a huge effort made by our staff to make these payments as swiftly as possible for all those we have direct payment details for, and to reply to those who have sent us questions about their eligibility or payments.
Article continues below this advertisement “However, there is still a significant number to process and we are doing our utmost to reach them to ensure that no business which qualifies for a grant misses out. The key to this is ensuring we have up to date and verifiable details so we can make direct payment.”
It is estimated there may be 5,081 businesses eligible for the grants on the Island. Additionally it is estimated there are 1,043 properties of holiday accommodation which may qualify, such as chalets, of which hundreds have not yet provided direct payment details. The council is trying to reach these.
Normally many of these details are verified at this time of year by the council when it issues annual rates bills in March, so it can bring its records fully up to date. While rates bills (for 2020/21) were issued as usual in March, the government scheme, which has also required confirmation of many of these details, has come almost at the same time.
Councillor Stewart said:
“As part of the payment process we are also obliged to ensure we minimise the risk of making payments to those who don’t qualify, or instances where there may be fraud. So as well as needing up to date payment and contact details, in many cases further verification may be needed.
“We have received more than 1,100 enquiries so far to the email address for those who have queries about their eligibility or payments, and have processed these as swiftly as we can. The email address for these queries is [email protected] .”
“We are also very aware there are some Island businesses which have fallen just outside the eligibility criteria for grants and in some cases where they don’t quite qualify for any of the main areas of government support.
“In relation to this we are still awaiting government direction on whether they will require the council to return any surplus of the overall £62.8 million received after we believe all payments have been made.
“We would very much like to utilise any surplus, if there is any, to consider discretionary payments to those businesses which may have just narrowly missed out, but we are entirely in the hands of what the government chooses to direct at this stage.
“It is probably the case that many other councils up and down the country will experience similar cases and would wish to do the same, so it may be that representations will be made to the government in relation to this issue.
“As the intention of these grants is to help small, rural, retail, leisure and hospitality businesses likely to be affected by Covid-19 and at an incredibly challenging time, we would very much hope that the government would be sympathetic to those cases who may just be on the wrong side of the qualifying criteria.”
Think of all that LOVELY interest the IoW Council have “unfortunately” made!
The Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy has provided guidance to Local Councils for the distribution of these grants
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/881040/business_support_grants-local_authorities_guidance.pdf
It is clear from this guidance that the Local Authority has absolute discretion regarding the distribution of the funds. In item 10 in the guidance notes “Local Authorities should make payments as quickly as possible to support struggling businesses”. Further, the Department of Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy have made it clear that for companies that are not on the rating list or the rating list is inaccurate and a company is technically ineligible, the Council still has the discretion to award the grant.
As stated in the guidance document, “the grant scheme is designed to offer a lifeline to businesses who are struggling to survive due to the corona virus shutdown”.
It is not clear why Councillor Stewart wishes to refer back to HM Government regarding this matter when the instructions are clear. Just get on and distribute the funds to the numerous island businesses that have applied for it, so that the local economy can be swiftly kickstarted once we are released from lockdown.
Csillor Stewart worried about fraud? Perhaps he could hire Jasmine Consultancy to advise? Should take a nice little bung for them.
As for ‘discretionary’ payments to all the firms that (ahem) “just narrowly missed out” – well the clear screaming issue there is that discretionary payments would rely on the ‘discretion’ of the person making the decision and with this council how open to abuse WOULD that be?????
Unbelievable! Just get the money dished out to those who:
A: Need it, and
B: you were directed to give it to.
This is not some old boys network Happy Club for just those in right club.