• scheme provides a safety net to further protect jobs where a business is required to close
• comes in addition to billions of pounds of existing loans, grants and tax breaks as well as the Chancellor’s Plan for Jobs

Ministers have today announced new funding to support businesses impacted by Covid 19.

Businesses in England required to close due to local lockdowns or targeted restrictions will now be able to receive grants worth up to £1,500 every three weeks, Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay told MPs today. To be eligible for the grant, a business must have been required to close due to local Covid 19 restrictions. The largest businesses will receive £1,500 every three weeks they are required to close. Smaller businesses will receive £1,000.

Payments are triggered by a national decision to close businesses in a high incidence area. Each payment will be made for a 3 week lockdown period. Each new 3 week lockdown period triggers an additional payment.

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Steve Barclay said:

These grants provide businesses with a safety net as they temporarily close their doors to help save lives in their local areas.

As local economies eventually and carefully re-open after local interventions, our Plan for Jobs is there waiting to help businesses get back on their feet, protect jobs and thrive in the future.

Business Secretary Alok Sharma said:

No business should be punished for doing the right thing, which is why today’s package will offer additional breathing space for businesses that have had to temporarily close to control the virus.

Through our wider Plan for Jobs, we will continue to back our innovators and job creators across the country who are playing a critical role as we build back better from the pandemic.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Barclay also reiterated the recent commitment to roll-out additional payments for people on low incomes who are required to self-isolate in areas with high levels of Covid-19.

Currently these payments are available in Blackburn with Darwen, Pendle, and Oldham as part of an ongoing trial scheme.

This targeted support is in addition to businesses eligibility for the Government’s existing schemes of support to businesses which remain available to impacted companies. This includes the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which has supported the wages of 9.6 million people so far, government backed loans and business grants worth up to £25,000 per property.

This help will also support local jobs dependent on impacted businesses, complementing the Chancellor’s Plan for Jobs.

Other measures announced to protect, support and create jobs include the Eat Out to Help Out scheme, cutting VAT for tourism and hospitality by 15%, a £2 billion Kickstart Scheme, which has opened for applications, and an £8.8 billion investment in new infrastructure, decarbonisation and maintenance projects.

Notes

• any businesses still closed at a national level (e.g. nightclubs), will not be eligible
• if a business occupies a premises with a rateable value less than £51,000 or occupy a property or part of a property subject to an annual rent or mortgage payment of less than £51,000, it will receive £1000
• if a business has a rateable value more than £51,000 or part of a property subject to an annual rent or mortgage payment of more than £51,000, it will receive £1500
• Local authorities will also receive an additional 5% top up amount of business support funding to enable them to help other businesses affected by closures which may not be on the business rates list. Payments made to businesses from this discretionary fund can be any amount up to £1500, and may be less than £1000 in some cases.
• Local authorities will be responsible for distributing the grants to businesses in circumstances where they are closed due to local interventions
• further eligibility criteria may be determined by Local authorities
• as with other Covid business grants, local grants to closed businesses will be treated as taxable income
• The UK Government has guaranteed that the devolved administrations will receive at least £12.7 billion on top of their March Budget settlements to help them with their response to Covid-19 this year, with £6.5 billion for the Scottish Government, £4.0 billion for the Welsh Government and £2.2 billion for the Northern Ireland Executive. The Barnett formula will apply in the usual way to any additional funding provided to departments in relation to this intervention.
• for further information on payments to individuals self-isolating please see here.

The first Discovery and Design phase of the contract is worth approximately £2-million. The contract if fully taken would have a duration of 9 years and an estimated maximum value of £20-million.

The successful supplier is international property and construction consultancy Gleeds.

This new solution will also provide better delivery of estimated costs and cost intelligence for new build, operation, maintenance and refurbishment work on the Defence estate.

At present DIO goes to the market for information on costs. The new contract will bring this expertise in house. This will be more cost-effective way of gathering this knowledge and will ultimately provide better value for money for the taxpayer.

This change to ways of working will help DIO to provide better forecasts of costs, obtain better performance data from DIO suppliers, improve existing cost estimating abilities and ensure that DIO makes better informed investment decisions.

Nick Wilkinson, DIO Commercial Director, said: “This contract demonstrates how DIO wants to innovate and do things differently.

“This new way of working will ensure that DIO has access to the most comprehensive information and data. This will allow us to be as efficient and effective as possible when procuring suppliers and planning bespoke projects for Defence.”

Ken Munro, Defence Director, Gleeds said, “We are very excited that Gleeds has secured the contract to deliver DIO’s CPAC service. This is exactly the sort of digital future that we and our key supplier PwC have embraced and my team is delighted at the prospect of combining our subject matter expertise with DIO’s deep knowledge of end user requirements to deliver this capability. This is a visionary step that has been taken by DIO and we are really looking forward to working with Nick and his team to realise the significant commercial and financial planning benefits that they have identified.”

Further information:

Press enquiries to Becky Robinson, Communications Officer 07989 303297 or email rebecca.robinson137@mod.gov.uk

• DIO website: www.gov.uk/dio
• Twitter: @mod_dio
• Read DIO’s blog.

About DIO

DIO is part of the Ministry of Defence and is responsible for enabling defence people to live, work, train and deploy at home and overseas. Our key responsibilities include: planning and delivering major capital projects and refurbishments; providing utilities services and facilities management; allocating Service Families Accommodation; providing a safe place to train; procuring and managing routine maintenance and reactive repairs; advising on infrastructure planning; acting as a steward of the Defence estate and providing an unarmed guarding service.

About Gleeds

Gleeds (www.gleeds.com) is an international property and construction consultancy with over 130 years’ experience in the property and construction industry. With 1900 dedicated staff across six continents and 71 offices, Gleeds prides itself on being a global business that is structured to act and think locally.

Working with clients in almost every sector, Gleeds services the entire project lifecycle and categorises its offering into the following core areas: programme and project management, commercial and contract management, property and asset management and advisory.