Our new draft policy outlining the next Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG2) and the Local Restrictions Support Grant (Open) has been published ahead of being discussed at our Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny Committee on 18 February.

Supporting our local businesses through the pandemic, not only for those business owners but also for the local jobs they provide for our residents has been, and continues to be, a priority focus for us.

We have been working with local businesses and organisations that represent businesses to develop the options for the next round of the ARG in order to design a scheme that provides the most support.

The new ARG2 is aimed at supporting businesses which have been unable to access any other form of government COVID-19 related grant schemes.

The ARG is not designed to, as per Government guidelines, compensate for wages that can be covered by the Self Employment Income Support Scheme or by the furloughing of staff. However, we have designed the ARG to broaden it as much as possible to include businesses demonstrating a significant loss of income.

The ARG2 is not sector specific and can support any type of relatively small business, in any setting, from being in a rated premise to home based, provided the business has seen at least a 50% reduction of income.

Overview and Scrutiny Committee will discuss the proposed new policy and make recommendations to the extraordinary Executive Committee who will make the final decision on this new round of the grants. 

The final agreed scheme will launch on 24 February. Applications for both these grants will be open for four weeks.

The draft policy is available as part of the papers for Corporate Resources Overview and Scrutiny committee meeting and can be found here.