Decision details

THAT:

1)    A budget of £1,047,300 is established by virement to allow payment of the top-up Additional Restrictions Grant to be funded by Government Grant;

2)    the top-up Additional Restrictions Grant amounts be set by business type as detailed in paragraph 2.1 of this report as an addition to the original approved scheme amounts, for payment in accordance with the criteria approved in the Council’s approved Local Restrictions Business Support Scheme.

The Council is expected by Government to award discretionary grants in line withthe guidance it has published and to adopt readily available and easily understood guidance for the administration of those grants.

An alternative option is to set a different top-up grant amount for each business type to those proposed in paragraph 2.1, for example not to pay a higher amount to those businesses with property costs which are required to close but do not have a rateable value, however, this would not provide an equitable or proportionate allocation to those businesses which are severely impacted but cannot access the nationally set local restriction support grants which are only for businesses with a rateable value.