Issue - items at meetings - Covid-19 Recovery & Renewal Update

Report of the Executive Director Economy, Environment & Culture (copy attached)

Resolved - That the Sub-committee noted the progress update report.

33.1    The Committee considered the report of the Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture which provided an update on the progress of the Covid-19 Recovery & Renewal Programme.

33.2    The Committee were advised that since the report had been published there had been a number of updates. Under the Business Support Grants, there had now been over 3600 applications and £4.1m of grants paid to businesses. Under the ‘Local Restrictions Grant Closed’, from the 26 December this would now be the main on-going grant payment through national lockdown, for every four weeks we would be paying between £1,334 and £3,00 to eligible businesses. For the ‘Local Restrictions Grants Open’ this was now only applicable to the 24-day period between 2 December to 25 December and the Council were ensuring that those grants were awarded in the appropriate way. For the

          ‘Additional Restrictions Grant’, the Government announced yesterday that a further £594m nationally would be provided, and the Council were awaiting guidance on how we would receive. For the ‘Christmas Support Payments’, 185 applications had been received which were currently being processed. The Government had recently announced an further one-off grant scheme which would pay an additional amount of between £4k to £9k to businesses.

33.3    Councillor Yates asked how businesses could check on the progress of their application. The Head of Revenues & Benefits said that there weren’t the resources to provide a tracking system, but applicants would receive notification that their application had been received. Up to 19 December 2020 the applications were up to date, but there had been a high number of new applications over the Christmas period and they were being processed as quickly as possible. There was a generic email address economic.development@brighton-hove.gov.uk ,  which was on the application form and could be used. Officers were concentrating on processing the forms and getting the payments out, however if there were urgent issues Councillors could contact the Head of Revenues & Benefits directly.

33.4    Councillor Yates referred to post-Brexit recovery and asked whether there would be a replacement for the European Structural Fund as the Government had announced in November 2020 that there would be a UK Shared Prosperity Fund but that would not be rolled out until 2022. He asked if the LEP, or an alternative, would be able to bridge the gap. The Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture said that the Government hadn’t yet announced details as to when the Shared Prosperity Fund may become available, but the Council were working with the LEP about their recovery plans for both the local area and nationally.

33.5    Councillor Platts referred to BAME businesses and asked if officers had been able to assess whether they had been able to make claims and how many of those businesses the Council was supporting. The Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture said that during the first round of grants the Council had looked at the impact on BAME businesses and how many had applied for grants and it was found that there was a proportionately lower take up.  That data was then used for publishing the second round.

33.6    Councillor Platts noted that gyms had had to open and close a number of times and asked whether they were able to apply for any grants. The Head of Revenues & Benefits said that they should make an application for grants and officers would then assess what they may be entitled to.

33.7    Councillor Platts referred to the Tech Take Back scheme and how the refurbished laptops were being distributed. Councillor Clare said that since April 2700 laptops had been donated and the Council and schools were distributing them to children who were eligible for Free School Meals or had the support of a social worker, and it was expected that another 1000 laptops may become available. The Council had also spoken with schools to assess whether there was any difficulty with children having access to wifi at home and it was found that generally it wasn’t a problem.  Anyone who wanted to apply for a refurbished laptop should either contact Tech Take Back directly or contact the Families, Learning & Children directorate and officers would forward the request to the right place. The Chair noted that some telephone companies had spoken about looking at relaxing people’s contracts to allow them to access more data and suggested that if that didn’t happen that the Council should lobby them and would welcome cross party support to do that. Councillor Yates noted that there was provision for schools, local authorities and trusts to ask the providers to provide additional data access for those didn’t have wifi but did have access to other mobile devices, and there was an online form which could be completed and suggested that it would be useful to publicise that. Councillor Clare confirmed that that information had been passed to schools. Councillor Platts suggested that it would be useful to put the information on the Council’s website.

33.8    Councillor Platts noted that the report referred to the potential for a green recovery and asked how the community could be involved in that. The Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture said that officers had been working to make sure that all the strategic plans were aligned. They had worked to ensure that the LEP’s plan for recovery included ‘build back greener’ as well as ‘smarter and stronger’, and that the Greater Brighton plans reflected some of the opportunities around green recovery, so the plans for Coast to Capital level or Greater Brighton level or City level there would be a thread running through them on how we could ensure that we attracted investment to de-carbonise the economy and create jobs at the same time.

33.9    Councillor Platts asked how the Council could ensure community wealth building in the recovery. The Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture said that officers were looking at what specific aspects of our economy could improve social equality, and Brexit, Covid and the Climate Emergency had given an opportunity to look at new ways of doing things.

33.10  Councillor Miller asked if there was data on people who had moved from full-time to part-time work and were then having to claim universal credit. He referred to the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) and that £5.8m was awarded. He noted that first four weeks of the tier 2 period a further ARG had been allocated to provide a flat rate top up to the grant awards to each business for this period. This was an extra £2000 for businesses receiving LRSG (closed) or LRSG (sector) grant for this period and suggested that it was rather arbitrary to just top up some of the grant categories, and asked if was not possible to encourage more businesses who may be eligible to apply. He asked if unsuccessful applicants were advised that they hadn’t been successful. The Executive Director Economy Environment & Culture referred to the employment figures and said that it was likely that there had been a move to part time work, but due to furlough it was hard to assess the level but he would try and obtain the information for a future meeting. For the ARG, the approach was to maximise take-up and to maximise the number of businesses which could be helped and helped quickly. The amounts awarded were not huge and the extra amount was quite modest. Nationally there had been a lower take up of the ARG. With regard to unsuccessful claims, no one had yet been informed as the Council had so far only made provisional decisions to refuse and they would all be reviewed. New guidance was being issued by Central Government and some of the parameters for awarding grants were changing, so it was possible that on review some of those applications could be successful. The Council wanted to ensure as many businesses as possible were awarded grants.

33.11  Resolved - That the Sub-committee noted the progress update report.