Decision details

In approving the £9.4m Regional Recovery Fund on 9 October 2020, the WECA Committee agreed officer delegations to ensure that decisions on business cases / detailed specific proposals for the agreed schemes can be progressed at pace.

One of the proposals was the Small Business Resilience Grant Programme.

A Full Business Case was prepared seeking £1m from the Investment Fund which will be match
funded by £180k by business. The funding will be provided from the £7.15m balance of the
Regional Recovery funding.

The project will deliver a small business grant fund to Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs)
across the region. This aims to support businesses that require funding to implement new
business practices as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, by purchasing new products, services or
equipment.

The project sits within the ‘Rebuilding Business’ pillar of the West of England Recovery Plan, which
seeks to ‘Further enhance our business support offer to help businesses adapt, survive and find
sustainable pathways to recovery and growth’.

The project aims to build upon national recovery funding, benefiting from the experience and
learning gained from the grant funding schemes that have been launched in the last 10 months, to
help to improve business resilience and survival rates.

It is planned to support 300 businesses and the business case assumes that 270 of these will still
be trading after 12 months. Based upon the experience of providing Universal Business Support,
it is forecast that 30% of the businesses will create one new employee, 81 new jobs overall.

The Chief Executives of the 4 West of England unitary authorities were consulted on this proposal and were in agreement with the decision.

Approval given to the Full Business Case for the Small Business Resilience Grant programme.

Not applicable in relation to this specific decision, i.e. this was the option considered.