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City of York Council |
Committee Minutes |
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Meeting |
Decision Session - Executive Member for Finance and Performance |
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Date |
5 November 2020 |
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Present |
Councillors Ayre (Executive Member) |
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32. Declarations of Interest
The Executive Member confirmed that he had no personal interests not included on the Register of Interests, nor any prejudicial or disclosable pecuniary interests, to declare in the business on the agenda.
33. Minutes
Resolved: That the minutes of the Decision Session held on 27 October 2020 be approved, to be signed by the Executive Member at a later date.
34. Public Participation
It was reported that there had been three registrations to speak on Agenda Item 4 - Tier 2 Local Restrictions Business Grant Scheme at the session under the Council’s Public Participation Scheme.
Martin Spencer spoke about Let’s Be York in supporting York enterprises to make sure that all businesses are supported - including freelancers, directors, and businesses who trade in York but whose owners do not live in York. He made a number of suggested solutions to assist in this process.
Kevin Tuohy spoke about support for traders at the Shambles market who had lost trade at a time of year when they would be making a surplus to last the rest of the year. He noted that the market could help the way forward in igniting footfall in York. He asked whether local traders on Shambles market could get financial assistance for such as rents from CYC through the equivalent of the local restrictions business grant.
David Carruthers, the owner of a retail travel agency in Haxby requested that travel businesses be considered for the grant. He explained that due to ever changing travel restrictions travel businesses had zero income since March and he felt that the industry has been ignored. He hoped that the council would look at how this has impacted sectors such as travel agencies and tour operators.
35. Tier 2 Local Restrictions Business Grant Scheme
The Executive Member considered a report that set out the principles of the Local Restriction Grants (LRG) for Tier 2, and Sector and Lockdown for approval to support York businesses. The report recommended that a further report be brought back as soon as possible to a future meeting, with recommendations on how the Additional Restrictions Grant (ARG) provided as part of the Government’s covid-19 support can be used.
The Head of Customer and Exchequer Services reported that the council had received income of £4million and the government had indicated that this would be one off funding to potentially last 15 months. He noted that the information on the grants would be included on the COVID-19 pages on the council website. In response to questions from the Executive Member he confirmed that the Tier 2 grants would be superseded by the new lockdown grants. He added that there were different types of businesses eligible for the grant and the simplest way to ensure that the grants were paid to the right people was through the application process.
The Executive Member welcomed the grant and noted the importance of communications as an important and challenging approach to allocating the grants. He then:
Resolved:
a) That approval be given to the distribution of the Tier 2 local restrictions grant in line with the Government principles set out at Annex A of the report.
b) That approval be given to the distribution of the Lockdown business grants in line with the Government principles set out in Annex A of the report.
c) That approval be given to the distribution of the Sector grants in line with the Government principles set out in Annex A of the report.
d) That a further report to be brought back to the next available decision session of the Executive Member for Finance & Performance, to approve a scheme for the discretionary funding provided as part of the Government Lockdown (in consultation with the Executive Member for Economy and Strategic Planning).
e) That delegation for any future changes resulting from Government guidance in relation to this scheme be given to the Chief Finance Officer (s151) in consultation with the Executive Member Finance and Performance/Executive Member Economy & Strategic Planning, and approval process outlined at paragraph 17 of the report.
Reason: To provide urgent financial support to the city’s Hospitality and Leisure businesses who are most effected by the Tier 2 restrictions.
Cllr Ayre, Executive Member
[The meeting started at 1.00 pm and finished at 1.29 pm].