Support for businesses affected by Omicron announced by the government

Piggy Bank Depicting Support For Businesses Affected By Omicron

Additional support for businesses affected by Omicron was announced by Rishi Sunak on 21st December.

Support for businesses affected by Omicron includes:

  • Businesses in the hospitality and leisure sectors in England will be eligible for one-off grants of up to £6,000 per premises, plus more than £100 million discretionary funding will be made available for local authorities to support other businesses
  • Government will also cover the cost of Statutory Sick Pay for Covid-related absences for small and medium-sized employers across the UK

Business Grants – eligibility 

Hospitality businesses ( accommodation, food & beverage services and leisure premises will receive targeted grants providing they are solvent and be business ratepayers.

The direct grants will be assessed depending on the rateable value (RV) of each eligible premises. We will publish more details when the application window is open.

Rateable Value

£0-15k

£15-51k

>£51k

Value of grant available

£2.7k

£4k

£6k

Additional Restrictions Grants

Extra funding is being made available to local authorities to further support stricken businesses and when we receive details from the local authorities as to who can claim and how we will update you.

READ MORE about the new grants

Statutory Sick Pay Rebate Scheme (SSPRS)

The scheme will be reintroduced so that employers can claim for COVID related sickness absences occurring from 21 December 2021 and claims can be made from HMRC from Mid January.

Employers will be eligible for the scheme if:

  1. They are UK-based.
  2. They employed fewer than 250 employees as of 30 November 2021
  3. They had a PAYE payroll system as of 30 November 2021

4.  They have already paid their employees’ COVID-related SSP

Employers will be able to claim the costs for up to two weeks of SSP per employee that has to take time off because of COVID-19.

This two-week limit will be reset so an employer will be able to claim up to two weeks per employee regardless of whether they have claimed under the previous scheme for that employee.

More guidance will be published shortly. READ MORE

if you need help with accessing these grants do contact us

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