COVID Update 9

We have been asked by HBBC to send you the following:

"We understand the pressure that all businesses must be under at this time and are working as fast as we can to sort payments of grants to those businesses that are eligible.

Our teams are busy identifying businesses that meet the criteria for each scheme and whether we already hold bank details for these businesses – if we do hold up to date bank account details we will use those details to make the grant payments as soon as possible.

However if we do not hold bank account details for eligible businesses, we will be contacting them by telephone to provide details of how they can provide the details securely via a web link.

For general enquires about business rates in relation to government announcements for grants and reliefs please email: covid19businessrates@hinckley-bosworth.gov.uk.

Click here for Hinckley Council's general advice and support website.

If you are a business we strongly encourage you to register for e-billing to get this information to us."

HBBC and Hinckley BID work in partnership with the Leicestershire Business Gateway Growth Hub who offer free fully funded impartial advice and support for businesses. They have developed a range of resources and guidance to ensure businesses feel supported and are prepared to act quickly as the situation unfolds. They are reviewing the latest information daily and updating these pages as information changes.

We would strongly recommend that you contact them to see if any other support financially or otherwise is available. Using the link you can arrange one to one online support appointments or you can speak to an advisor Monday to Friday 9am to 5pm by calling 0116 3668487.

This is a central Government scheme. Please do not contact HBBC about this scheme.

Although not open for claims until the end of April, the Government has released eligibility details to confirm how businesses can claim for costs towards salaries of any staff who need to be furloughed due to the Coronavirus pandemic.

Key points from the scheme include:

• You can claim 80% of salary costs (maximum £2,500 per month) for each member of staff.
• Employer NI contributions and minimum automatic enrolment pension contributions will also be paid in addition to this amount.
• You can choose to further top up the salary but this is optional.
• Claims can be backdated to March 1st and payments will be available for a minimum of three months.
• Staff laid off due to the pandemic before the scheme was announced may be re-employed and a claim submitted under this scheme.
• You will be able to make a maximum of one claim every 3 weeks once the claim form is launched (expected to be late April).
• Furloughed staff must not be doing any paid work for either your company or any other job but are able to carry out voluntary work in the community.
• Don't forget to consult staff and consider legal advice as this will be a change to employee terms and conditions.

Full details of the scheme can be found at the Government website.