CITY of York Council leaders have reassured the city’s businesses that the council is delivering on its promise to accelerate payments of government grants.

Over £7m had been paid by close of play yesterday (Thursday 9 April), meaning payment rates have increased every day this week.

Staff are working through the bank holiday to make sure that this rate of acceleration continues.

Over £25 million (subject to some applications being held where there is concern about fraud) additional payments will be waiting for banks to process when they reopen on Tuesday.

The council has received nearly 3000 applications and has been working to speed up a process which includes government-defined requirements to:

  • collect company information including VAT registration details
  • clear every application through the government’s anti-fraud systems
  • verify bank details and company identity

The government has now issued new guidance and offered support with post-payment checks to help councils speed things up.

Councillor Keith Aspden, Leader of City of York Council, said: “Getting this money into accounts quickly - and securely - is a priority. Local authorities across the country are working to balance quick payments with checks to stop the fraudsters who are sickeningly trying to take advantage of these unprecedented circumstances.

“We continue to review our practice every day, share experience with other local authorities, redeploy staff and make daily improvements to accelerate payments.”

On wider support for business, Councillor Aspden added: “We have acted quickly to get support to our businesses. We applied £66m of business rates relief to 4000 accounts in a matter of days, and grant payment values have doubled every day this week.

“Like businesses up and down the country, we’ve had to do this while operating many of our secure systems and customer service operations from staff’s homes and with lower staff levels. 

“We’ve developed an emergency grants scheme for the many York businesses who miss out on government support and deferred rent for all our commercial tenants, and have spoken up for business at a national level since this crisis began.

“This helped to secure more support for our 12,000 self-employed people, as well as improvements to the business interruption loan scheme.”