Highland Council ramps up team handling business grants
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Highland Council says it is ramping up the team responsible for processing small business grants to respond more quickly to applicants.
On Friday almost 4000 applications had been received by the local authority and 1000 of those have now been processed, to the value of over £12.8 million.
The team had previously been scaled up to more than 40 people, but since Friday officials have further increased capacity with another 15 members of staff being trained.
When the new staff are up to speed the council is hoping to process 350 applications a day with a total daily grant value of approximately £4m.
Allan Maguire, the head of development and regeneration, said: “An additional 15 team members have volunteered to help clear the backlog of applications we have received.
“Training is being provided and the staff involved have been granted essential worker status to work from council HQ so that stable network access is guaranteed.
“All necessary health and safety and social distancing guidelines will be in place. Given the number of applications, this will allow further significant progress to be made over the coming week.”
An appeals process is being put in place to address concerns from businesses that have had their applications turned down. The council says it appreciates these are distressing times for businesses but that it is important to undertake due diligence.
Mr Maguire added: “All these measures will lead to an acceleration and we are also continually reviewing the processes to ensure they are as lean as possible.”
Highland Council’s ICT team has been working to improve connectivity for as many members of staff as possible. After some initial issues with connectivity for staff working from home, the network was rapidly expanded to over eight times the previous capacity.
Mr Maguire added: “We cannot thank the dedicated team enough for the amount of work they have been doing in the background to ensure as many of the business grants are processed and paid as quickly as possible.”
Within days of the grant scheme being launched on March 24, thousands of applications had been received. This then increased again when the Scottish Government opened the scheme to self-catering businesses, creating a backlog of applications.
The applications are being processed in date order received and so it is inevitable that not all the applications will be processed within the target of 10 working days, the council says.
