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Latest news on funding available for businesses

Posted By: / July 8, 2020

Today's announcement by Chancellor Rishi Sunak has bought about some innovative solutions to help the UK economy to recover after the COVID19 crisis. This is a helpful roundup to show you the schemes available that might prove to be a lifeline for your business. 

Benefits if you're bringing employees back from Furlough

Whilst the first stage of the Government's recovery plan was the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (Furlough), Mr Sunak expressed a desire to close this scheme down in October as it wouldn't be in anyone's interests to keep it going indefinitely. For any business who successfully brings an employee back from Furlough in to a 'valid' job and if you employ them continually until January 31st, you will qualify for a £1,000 bonus. There are some conditions about the salary that the employee will need to earn in order to qualify, so look at official sources.

This equates to £9 billion if each of the 9 million people currently on Furlough are successfully bought back in to employment.

Support for young people

With over 700,000 people leaving education this summer, the government's kick start scheme will allow employers to be paid directly by the government if they are able to create a job for a young person. It must be a role of over 25 hours per week and must pay at least national minimum wage. If employers meet these conditions, the government will fund that young person's wages for 6 months, up to a total of £6,500.

The scheme will be open for applications next month, will be available for large and small businesses and there is no cap on the number of places available. This is a £2bn fund which will fund hundreds of thousands of jobs for a generation who may end up losing out on opportunities if there aren't jobs available for them as they leave education.

They also want to incentivise businesses to take on apprenticeships, with £2,000 available per apprentice under 25 and £1,500 available per apprentice over 25. 

Supporting people to find work

The government's plans will include an increase of career advisors, which will support a further 250,000 people and increase the funding for job centres, so that they can help more people back in to work and off universal credits.

A focus on creating green jobs

Central to the government's plan is investment in roads, schools, hospitals and high streets. Their focus is to create green jobs and they will set up a scheme to help make homes more energy efficient. The scheme will cover up to 2/3 of a £5,000 investment in green technology for your home and 100% of a £10,000 investment for any low income households. The view is that this scheme will create 140,000 green jobs. 

The strapline for this initiative is Save Money. Cut Carbon. Create Jobs.

Getting the property market moving

Property transactions fell in May, so the government has commited to helping people feel confident in buying, selling and renovating their houses. The stamp duty cut will be effective immediately and means houses sold for under £500,000 will qualify for 0% stamp duty, available until 31st March 2021. This will save the average householder £4,000.

Supporting the hospitality and tourism industry

Employing over 1.8 million people (with over 1.4 million on Furlough) the hospitality and tourism industry has been the worst hit of all. For the next 6 months, VAT on food, drinks and attractions will be 5% (not 20%) and will start from Wednesday 15 July until 12th January 2020.

The Chancellor has announced the innovative "Eat out to help out" scheme which will incentivise the public to go out for meals, drinks and days out as a way of committing to helping hospitality and tourism get up and running again. During August, everyone in the UK can receive 50% off a meal out every Monday - Wednesday. Venues can register by a website which will open next week and they will claim the money back from the government. The funds will be in your business bank account within 5 days.

This is a simple overview from the Chancellor's summer announcement today (Wednesday 8 July). Please speak to a professional if you require advice about the benefits of these schemes for your business and always apply for any schemes via an offical Government portal or website.

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