Agenda item

Cabinet Portfolio: - Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance

Strategic Director: - Finance and Customer Services

Consideration was given to a report that was submitted for pre-decision scrutiny ahead of the Cabinet meeting scheduled for 21 June 2021 that provided an update on a number of financial matters, including those related to Covid-19. The report had been provided as an interim update following on from the approval of the Budget and Council Tax 2021/22 report to Council on 3 March 2021 and in advance of the Financial Outturn 2020/21 and Financial Monitoring 2021/22 reports that were scheduled to be considered by Cabinet in July 2021. The Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance, the Assistant Director - Financial Services and the Head of Corporate Finance attended the meeting to present the report.

The report provided a narrative surrounding the Council’s finances and how they had been impacted by the pandemic in areas including:

·       the revenue Budget Financial Outturn 2020/21

·       Business Support Grants

·       Self-Isolation Payments

·       Hardship Fund

·       Covid Grants for 2021/22

·       Adult Social Care Client Contributions

·       Payments to Suppliers.

Members asked with regard to the distribution of Business Support Grants whether any analysis had taken place to establish how useful the grants distributed had been to the businesses that had received them. The Cabinet Member advised that the Council had and would continue to engage with businesses to offer support. The Head of Corporate Finance advised that work had been carried out with local businesses throughout the period of the pandemic in order to ensure that the uptake of grants and rates relief had been maximised and that this work had been supplemented by the work of the Council’s Business Support Team. The Head of Corporate Finance noted that there had not yet been an analysis of the impact of grants and other business support activity but advised that this work was planned to be carried out.

Members asked for further specific information that had not been included in the report regarding the value of the funding received for Business Support Grants and the total value of the grants paid out to local businesses. The Head of Corporate Finance advised that this information was publicly available and had been included in previous reports to Cabinet and the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board.

The Head of Corporate Finance advised that the vast majority of financial support for businesses that had been made available to the Council to distribute had been accompanied by set eligibility criteria from the Government and that this had meant that while the Council may have returned some funding to the Government that this has been because insufficient eligible applications had been made due to the set criteria. The Head of Corporate Finance assured members that the funding that had been made available for discretionary support, with application criteria set by the Council locally had been fully utilised.

The Assistant Director - Financial Services noted that at the start of the pandemic due to the urgency to get financial support to businesses the calculations completed by the Government on how much funding to make available to each local authority to distribute in their area had been completed very quickly, and as such may have resulted in more funding being issued that could possibly be claimed by businesses in each area.

Members noted how the pandemic had brought them into contact with businesses of all sizes in their local areas and the work that they had carried out to support them to access the funding that they were entitled to. Members noted that their experiences had highlighted how bureaucratic the processes had been for claiming support despite the efforts of the Council to make the processes as straightforward as possible and noted with concern how difficult this had made it for very small businesses, such as childminders to claim support. Members agreed that processes in future for any grant funding should be made as accessible as possible for those without the resources and financial expertise of larger businesses. The Head of Corporate Finance assured members that the application processes for businesses had been made as simple as possible with a single application process that then enabled Council officers to assess which schemes of support each business was entitled to.

Members noted the often chaotic situation regarding business support that had been created by the tiered approach to restrictions in autumn 2020 and asked whether it would have been possible to issue support to all businesses registered to pay business rates, rather than businesses having to make a claim for support. The Head of Corporate Finance advised that the criteria of these schemes had required businesses to provide evidence that they were trading, as being registered for business rates alone would not have evidenced this requirement.

The Chair thanked the Cabinet Member for Corporate Services, Community Safety and Finance, the Assistant Director - Financial Services and the Head of Corporate Finance for attending the meeting and answering member questions.

Resolved: -

1)    That Cabinet be advised that the recommendations be supported.

2)    That a further report be brought to the October 2021 meeting of the Overview and Scrutiny Management Board regarding the allocation of Covid related business support grants.