Coronavirus Covid-19 Business Support Fund Grant Statistics For Scotland- Fraud Recoveries are Ongoing

5th September 2024

Statistics on the coronavirus (COVID-19) business support fund grants including the number of awards granted and the value of these awards.

In March 2020, two grant funds were made available to businesses to provide financial support during the COVID-19 pandemic: the Small Business Grant Fund and the Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure Grant Business Grant Fund.

Eligibility for these grants was linked to the non-domestic rates system, so that funding could be distributed as quickly as possible. The funds closed to new applicants in July 2020, but councils continued to process applications and make awards, in some cases up until March 2022.

The majority of awards were made to the ratepayer for a property on the valuation roll, while a small number of awards were awarded to businesses using shared spaces, for example shared offices or business incubators, where multiple businesses use a single space with a single ratepayer, usually the landlord.

The statistics presented here, and in the associated workbook, represent the number of awards made by the end of March 2022, and reported to the Scottish Government by councils by January 2023.

Earlier published workbooks show the weekly numbers of applications received and grants awarded by council area, up until the closure of the fund to new applicants. After that, snapshots were published at regular intervals, as councils continued to process the backlog of applications.

These were the initial schemes; other funding support was provided to businesses throughout the pandemic. The Scottish Government has published a summary of COVID-19 business support funding.

Key Figures
Councils received 107,800 applications for the Small Business Grant Fund, and the Retail, Hospitality, and Leisure Grant Fund. A total of 91,500 awards were made totalling £1,022 million. The majority (95%) of awards were made by 14 July 2020, following the closure of the scheme to new applicants on 10 July 2020. Table 1 in the associated workbook shows the cumulative number of applications and number and value of awards on a weekly basis until 14 July 2020, and on an ad hoc basis afterwards.

The total number of grants awarded represented over a third of all properties that were on the valuation roll as at 1 April 2020, varying from just under a quarter in Aberdeen City and Renfrewshire to over 45% in East Renfrewshire and East Dunbartonshire. These figures are presented in Table 2 of the workbook.

Of all grants awarded, over a third were awarded to shops, and a further 21% to industrial subjects. Two-thirds of public houses and restaurants, and over half of all hotels on the valuation roll received grants. These figures are presented Table 3 of the workbook.

Table 4 in the workbook shows the number and value of awards in each property class within each council area.

Background
The Small Business Grant and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Funds were targeted at supporting small businesses, and those medium-sized businesses in the retail, hospitality, and leisure sector, which were liable for non-domestic rates in 2020-2021.

A £10,000 Phase 1 grant was available to non-domestic ratepayers with properties in receipt of:

Small Business Bonus Scheme Relief or Rural Relief; or
Nursery Relief, Disabled Relief, Business Growth Accelerator Relief, Sports Relief, Enterprise Areas Relief, Fresh Start Relief or Charitable Rate Relief but eligible for Small Business Bonus Scheme Relief
In addition, non-domestic ratepayers with retail, hospitality, or leisure properties with a rateable value up to £18,000 each, and where the combined rateable value of all properties was between £35,001 and £500,000, were also eligible to apply for the Small Business Grant Fund (note: the upper cumulative rateable value limit changed on 8 June 2020, previously this was set at £51,000).

A £25,000 Phase 1 grant was available to the ratepayers of properties in the retail, hospitality, and leisure sectors with property with a rateable value between £18,001 and £51,000.

Applications for Phase 2 grants for additional eligible properties opened from 5 May 2020. In addition to the 100% grant on the first property, ratepayers were also eligible for a 75% grant on each subsequent property that meets the criteria for each grant.

On 8 June 2020, applications to the Small Business Grant Fund opened to small businesses that occupied spaces such as shared offices, business incubators, and shared industrial units, and lease the space from the landlord who was the registered ratepayer of the property (Phase 3).

Further detailed information of the Funds can be found in Local Government Finance Circulars 8/2020, 9/2020, and 11/2020.

The Small Business Grant and Retail, Hospitality and Leisure Grant Funds closed to new applications on 10 July 2020.

Data Returns
Councils initially made weekly summary returns to the Scottish Government until 14 July 2020. After that date, returns were collected on or as at the following dates: 4 August 2020, 8 September 2020, 8 December 2020, 31 March 2021 and 31 March 2022.

In September 2020, councils were asked to provide complete lists of the properties for which ratepayers were awarded a grant with details of the type of grant awarded in each case. This information was matched to the valuation roll to obtain property details. The breakdowns of grant awarded by property type are derived from this information.

Data Issues
The processed snapshots do not include every single award made by the council for the reasons set out below. Grant awards for which we were unable to identify the property type are presented as "unknown class" in the tables.

the snapshot was taken before all councils had finalised processing all awards;

councils were unable to provide the valuation roll unique property reference associated for every property for which a grant was awarded. For example, this data may not have been collected for some of the earliest awards;

the unique reference provided by the council could not be found on the valuation roll;

some Phase 3 grants were awarded to small businesses that occupy shared spaces and were not the ratepayers for the property they occupied.

Some awards were later recovered. The statistics presented here are all awards made prior to any recoveries. By the end March 2022, some 147 grants worth just over £1.6m had been recovered following fraudulent claims, and a further 153, worth just under £1.7m, were in the process of being recovered.

Full statistics can be found at https://www.gov.scot/publications/coronavirus-covid-19-business-support-fund-grant-statistics/