4 minute read
COVID-19 UPDATE
NEWS SPECIAL
SCOTTISH BUSINESS GRANT WITHDRAWN
SCOTLAND’S FINANCE SECRETARY KATE FORBES ANNOUNCED YESTERDAY THAT THE SMALL BUSINESS GRANT AND RETAIL, HOSPITALITY AND LEISURE GRANT SCHEMES WILL CLOSE FOR NEW APPLICATIONS ON 10 JULY.
The Scottish Finance Secretary Kate Forbes MSP confirmed yesterday that the Small Business Grant and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant schemes will close for new applications on 10 July. Up to 2 June, £824.5m had been distributed to 72,622 businesses across Scotland through the schemes.
Forbes commented: “New applications have slowed in recent weeks as large numbers of businesses have already applied. We are committed to ensuring every penny we receive from the UK Government for business support - and more – will be passed to businesses. It is essential that we do not allow funds to sit for too long in schemes that are attracting few applications, so we have decided to bring these to a close next month. That will mean that any remaining money can be re-routed to help businesses in other ways, as we have already started to do for the Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund.”
FURLOUGH DEADLINE TODAY
TODAY IS THE LAST DAY THAT EMPLOYERS CAN PUT EMPLOYEES ON FURLOUGH TO ENSURE THAT THEY WILL BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE NEW FLEXIBLE FURLOUGH SCHEME FROM 30 JUNE.
The UK Government’s update of the furlough scheme at the end of last month means that the scheme closes to new entrants from 30 June and will close for good on 31 October. This also means today is the last day that employers can put employees on furlough in time to complete the necessary minimum three weeks on furlough by 1 July 2020 so that they can then go on to flexible furlough from 30 June.
Currently the furlough grant is 80% of salary up to maximum of £2,500 plus tax and national insurance contributions. From 1 August, the support begins to taper down with employers responsible for funding tax and NI contributions themselves.
From 1 September, the grant falls to 70% of wages up to a maximum of £2,187.50 a month and then for the last month, October, the grant is 60% of wages up to £1,875 per month.
CONVENIENCE ‘GROWS 42.5% IN MAY’
Consumer spending contracted 26.7% year-on-year in May, but spend in convenience stores continued to remain extremely buoyant, according to the latest Barclaycard report which combines hundreds of millions of customer transactions with consumer research.
Spending in specialist food and drink outlets such as independent convenience stores grew by 42.5% while supermarket spend grew by 24.5%.
Eating and drinking out of home saw an overall decline of 70.3% yearon-year, a slightly less dramatic fall than in April. This was thanks largely to more restaurants, pubs and cafés offering delivery and takeaway services.
Some 14% of Brits are now buying food and drinks from a pub, and 10% are purchasing takeaway coffee.
The figures sit in stark contrast to sales of fuel, however. These plummeted by 49.7%.
SUNDAY DEREGULATION A ‘SLAP IN THE FACE’ FOR KEYWORKERS
Paddy Lillis, General Secretary of shopworkers’ trade union Usdaw, has reacted angrily to reports that the Government is again considering suspension of Sunday trading laws. Lillis has written to Business Secretary Alok Sharma condemning the Government for not responding to the union’s concerns about Sunday trading deregulation and failing to provide a proper strategy to help the retail industry.
The open letter said “the longstanding compromise around Sunday trading has worked so well for decades” and stated that deregulation at this stage “would come across as an opportunistic use of the coronavirus crisis and a slap in the face for each and every worker in retail and the food supply chain.”
The letter went on to share the union’s view that “there is no credible economic case in favour of deregulating Sunday trading” and that “these current proposals would not provide any real help to the retail sector as it looks to how to recover from the crisis”.
TELEGRAPH REPAYS FURLOUGH CASH
Telegraph Media Group hasdecided to return all thefurlough money it receivedfrom the Government afterremaining profitable duringthe worst months of thecoronavirus crisis.
The publisher furloughed 90non-editorial workers and putall remaining non-editorial staffon four-day weeks from 1 Mayand cut salaries by 20%.
ALDI FACE MASKS
Aldi has been criticised forstarting to sell non-medicalgrade face masks in twopacks.The lines went on salelast week and were includedin the online ‘Specialbuy’ onSunday.
SGF LAUNCHES HARDSHIP FUND
The Scottish Grocers’Federation has establisheda Covid-19 Hardship Fundto offer assistance to thosesuffering financially due tothe crisis. The fund is beingorganised through the SGFBenevolent Fund and theorganisation is seekingdonations. For furtherinformation, email MarionSmith at marion@sgfscot.co.uk.
‘SAFE’ OR ‘NOT SAFE’ TO ENTER SOLUTION
A new live alerting solution capable of monitoring the number of people in a store and sending instant alerts to customers on whether it is safe to enter the store has been launched.
The solution, called countIT LIVE, uses real time data of how many people are in the building to deliver a simple alert to those outside: Safe or Not Safe.
It is a simple, self-install solution that is fully operational within 30 minutes and delivers straightforward, colourindicated entry alerts via any WiFi enabled device. To find out more, visit www.dtechinternational.com.
