Apply for Welsh Government business support
The Welsh Government has announced a support package for certain businesses listed on the business rates register.
The new package includes 100% business rates relief for 2020-21 for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses in Wales.
We will be looking to award the business rates relief to all eligible parties as soon as possible, and you will receive a new bill when the award has been made.
Grant 1: A grant of £25,000 is being made available for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses occupying properties with a rateable value of between £12,001 and £51,000.
This means businesses that occupy properties such as shops, restaurants, cafes, drinking establishments, cinemas, live music venues, hotels, guest and boarding premises and self-catering accommodation.
Grant 2: A £10,000 grant to all businesses eligible for small business rates relief (SBRR) in Wales with a rateable value of £12,000 or less.
And:
A £10,000 grant to all ratepayers eligible for charitable relief and Community Amateur Sports Clubs (CASC) relief. They must be operating in retail, leisure or hospitality and occupying properties with a rateable value of £12,000 or less. Local authorities may also provide grants to not-for-profit organisations who have discretionary rates relief and operate in retail, leisure or hospitality.
The multiple property restriction applied to the Small Business Rates Relief scheme applies to this grant. Therefore the same ratepayer may only receive the grant for a maximum of two properties in each local authority. This multiple property restriction also applies to charities and CASC.
To enable quick and efficient processing of grant applications, we would ask that you complete the online form to ensure we have all relevant information to make the award.
There will soon be a separate form for small charities in retail, leisure or hospitality in properties with a rateable value of £12,000 or below. These bodies should wait for that form to be created, as more information will be needed.
Deadline for applications for Welsh Government business support grants is 5pm on 30 June 2020. No applications will be processed if received after this date.
As soon as we have assessed your application, subject to eligibility criteria being met, we will be making an immediate award to you via the BACS payment process directly into your bank account.
Once you’ve made your application, we would appreciate your patience in not following up by phone. We very much appreciate the major challenges being faced by businesses, and our staff will make every effort to get your payments to you as soon as possible.
Business rates grant and state aid
This grant is being provided to you as de minimis aid under EC Regulation 1407/2013. You can find out more about what this is here: ‘de minimis aid summary’.
A grant provided to you under this scheme will be relevant if you have applied or are planning to apply for support in the future under de minimis.
The value of the support you are receiving under this scheme will be either £10,000 or £25,000 depending on which grant you qualify for.
You will need to declare this amount to any other support agencies that ask you how much de minimis aid you have had. For the purposes of the de minimis Regulation, you must keep a record of this grant for 3 years from the date you receive it.
Economic Resilience Fund
The Economic Resilience Fund is now paused pending a Welsh Government review of further support needed.
The Welsh Government’s new £500m Economic Resilience Fund provides additional financial support during the coronavirus pandemic. It helps organisations manage cash flow pressures. Also it helps address gaps not met by schemes already announced by the UK Government, Welsh Government and the Development Bank of Wales.
The fund is designed to help businesses, charities and social enterprises who are struggling with cash flow problems and who pass the eligibility criteria.
See further details of the Economic Resilience Fund.
Emergency third sector support
Small local groups and social enterprises can access a new emergency fund. Organisations are eligible if they are supporting a response to the pandemic, and grants of up to £1,000 are available. The deadline is 30 April 2020.
Information gathering
We are asking businesses to submit some basic information about their business, what support they require from Bridgend County Borough Council and the actual and predicted impact of about Covid-19 on their business.
By submitting a business impact form, you are agreeing to share information, some of which may be personal, with Bridgend County Borough Council. You can read about how we use and store the information that you provide us by taking a look at our data protection webpage.
You can request to see what data we hold or have this data erased or amended at any time.
Frequently asked questions (FAQs)
In general applications are processed in date order as they are submitted, based on them meeting the eligibility criteria and providing all required information including bank statement evidence.
However, to ensure that applications were processed as quickly as possible, some refunds have been processed automatically as a large group, as they are current rate payers, meet the eligibility criteria and the service already holds their current bank account details.
The service has received almost 2,500 applications to date, each of which has to be assessed, checked and processed through the business rates system.
We have received a number of applications that do not comply with the eligibility criteria or have not supplied the relevant requirements. Once the refund is input on the business rates system, for security reasons, the payment is processed through the BACS payment system.
Once the file is received for processing it is input into the payment system and the payment issued the following day, to arrive in the recipient’s bank account 2 working days later. The BACS payment process is the recommended approach by the Council’s bankers, to prevent fraud and error.
We have increased our BACS payment run to a daily run, instead of twice weekly under normal circumstances, to ensure that businesses are paid as quickly as possible.
If a file is processed on a Monday it will be in the bank account on the Thursday, those processed on a Tuesday will be in the bank account on a Friday etc.
Weekends and Bank Holidays are not included in the 3 day calculation.
There are around 20 members of staff involved in all the different aspects of the process, covering a number of teams within the finance section.
In addition, there are a number of legal staff calling businesses to explain when they will receive the payment or to request further details alongside our regeneration and business team answering any queries that businesses may have.
At present we have received around 2,500 applications but this is constantly increasing. A number of these claims are ineligible as they do not meet the criteria.
A number are missing vital information, particularly bank account details, so cannot be completed. Others are duplicates where businesses have submitted more than one application for the same premises.
These all need to be checked to ensure that we do not make any ineligible or duplicate payments, or pay the incorrect bank account.
Question - I have applied for the grant and need to know when the money will be paid into my bank account?
Answer - The Council is currently processing the payment of grant applications with payments being paid into eligible applicants bank accounts. Our staff are working hard to get these applications processed as quickly as possible.
All applications need to be checked and verified, especially if bank account details supplied by applicants differ from the ones we hold on record. We need to verify these details in order to prevent cases of fraud.
The ratepayer will receive a new business rates bill showing this amendment to their account along with a remittance advice confirming the payment has been paid into their bank account.
Question - I applied for the grant when it was first made available on the Council’s website and I wasn’t asked to provide a bank statement. I have heard that the form has changed and all retailers now have to provide a bank statement, do I need to apply again?
Answer - No. If you made your application using the original form, that is fine. However you will need to provide a bank statement which you can email in via taxation@bridgend.gov.uk quoting your business rates account number. Alternatively our Business Rates team will contact you to request that the statement is provided.
Schemes FAQ
The Welsh Government have a support package for eligible businesses listed on the business rates register.
- The new package includes a year-long business rates holiday for retail, leisure and hospitality businesses in Wales with a rateable value under £500,000. We will be looking to automatically award the business rates holiday to all eligible parties as soon as possible. You will receive a new bill when the award has been made. A grant of £25,000 will also be offered for businesses in these sectors with a rateable value of between £12,001 and £51,000.
- This package also provides a £10,000 grant to all businesses eligible for Small Business Rates Relief with a rateable value of £12,000 or less.
Complete the online form to apply for Welsh Government Business Support. Also, businesses can search the rateable value of their properties online.
Further advice can also be found on Welsh Government’s coronavirus advice page, and Welsh Government’s financial support page.
In order for us to consider your application, please provide a copy of your business bank statement showing your bank details. Please resubmit it with the application form quoting your Business Rates account number to taxation@bridgend.gov.uk.
You can find details of the Coronavirus Self Employment Income Support Scheme on the UK government website, or through Business Wales’s self employment advice pages.
The Welsh Government has announced a new Economic Resilience Fund. It will provide extra support to the Welsh economy, businesses and charities experiencing a sharp drop in trading due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
The Fund aims to plug the gaps in the support schemes already announced by the UK government. These include the Job Retention Scheme and the Self-Employed Income Support Scheme, which will guarantee 80% of people’s wages and income.
The new £500 million Welsh fund will support firms of all sizes including social enterprises. The focus will be on those which have not already benefited from the coronavirus grants already announced by Welsh Government.
Regarding different sizes of business, there:
- are grants of £10,000 for micro-businesses employing up to nine people, which includes sole traders employing staff
- are grants of up to £100,000 for small and medium sized firms with between 10 and 249 employees
- is support for larger Welsh companies, which are of critical social or economic importance to Wales
Find out now, if your business is eligible for support from the new Economic Resilience Fund.
The Welsh Government’s new £500m Economic Resilience Fund will provide additional financial support during the coronavirus pandemic and will help organisations to manage cash flow pressures. It will help to address gaps not met by schemes already announced by the UK Government, Welsh Government and Development Bank of Wales.
The fund is now live for applications via the Business Wales website and will be available to firms who pass the eligibility criteria and is designed to help those businesses, charities and social enterprises who are struggling with cash flow problems.
A new temporary Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme has been launched. It covers a variety of different products such as loans, overdraft, invoice finance and asset finance. Launched on 23 March, the British Business Bank delivers it. It is to support primarily small and medium sized businesses to access bank lending and overdrafts.
The government will provide lenders with a guarantee of 80% on each loan to give them further confidence in continuing to provide finance to SMEs. This is subject to a per-lender cap on claims. The government will not charge businesses or banks for this guarantee, and the Scheme will support loans of up to £5 million in value. Businesses can access the first 12 months of that finance interest free, as government will cover the first 12 months of interest payments.
Further details can be found on the British Business Bank’s Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme page.
The Coronavirus Bounce Back Loan Scheme is now open for applications.
Key details:
- Businesses can borrow between £2,000 and £50,000.
- The government will guarantee 100% of the loan and there won’t be any fees or interest to pay for the first 12 months.
- Loan terms will be up to 6 years.
- The government will work with lenders to agree a low rate of interest for the remaining period of the loan.
- The scheme will be delivered through a network of accredited lenders
Details on how to apply are here: https://bit.ly/BounceBackLoanApply
Yes. Yet due to the unprecedented volumes of applications, the Development Bank of Wales is now fully subscribed for the Covid-19 Wales Business Loan Scheme.
For information purposes, the following are details of the scheme. The Welsh Government and the Development Bank of Wales announced the £100m Covid-19 Wales Business Loan Scheme to support businesses affected by the outbreak. The Scheme was available from the Development Bank of Wales for a limited period. It is intended to provide support to businesses experiencing cashflow difficulties due to the pandemic.
The loan scheme will work alongside the UK-wide Coronavirus Business Interruption Loan Scheme, other Welsh Government and UK Government support offers. It provides more vital options for Welsh businesses. Loans of between £5,000 and £250,000 were available to businesses who:
- have been trading longer than two years
- could show they were able to service that level of debt before the outbreak
Fund details:
- £100m fund
- loans between £5,000 to £250,000, maximum loan levels apply
- 12 month capital and interest repayment holiday
- no arrangement or monitoring fees
- 2% interest fixed for six years (includes the 12 month holiday)
Details of the fund, eligibility and application process can be found on the Development Bank of Wales’s website.
Yes. Business Wales have launched a brand new series of webinars providing advice to SMEs across the country affected by the COVID-19 outbreak. Sign up to the webinars on the Business Wales website.
The Pop-up Business School have produced a survival guide for small businesses.
Question – the fishing industry has been hit especially hard as exports and domestic markets have shut due to the public health crisis, is there any funding available?
Answer – a new grant to support fishing businesses during the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has been announced by the Welsh Government, follow this link to find out more about the application process on the Gov website.
The Arts Council of Wales has announced an Arts Resilience Fund for artists and cultural organisations to support them through the Covid-19 crisis.
The council have an online Business Impact form located at the bottom of this page.
The Department for Work and Pensions have provided further information about the changes the Government has brought in to support people who are already claiming benefits, need to claim benefits, or are at risk of losing their job as a result of Coronavirus.
There is free access to online training on the Government's website. The Skills Toolkit is made up of free online courses, tools and resources to help improve digital and numeracy skills. Find out more here - Skills Toolkit
The Council are exploring the use of different measures which would help businesses develop start back packs safely, including the provision of online training around infection prevention and control.
Covid-19 support for businesses infographic