Financial support for self-employed not meeting needs

As of Tuesday, over 700 businesses and traders had received some £2.2m of funds but Deputy Lyndon Trott, who is in charge of the States’ Covid-19 business response, acknowledged there was an unintended gap in provisions.

Measures will be updated by the end of the week

‘We knew that we wouldn’t get everything right first off and that adjustments would be needed,’ Deputy Trott said.

‘Not only are the support initiatives new, they are also unprecedented in both their cost and urgency.

‘But we are dealing with public funds and not confetti and we know that people want the support targeted as effectively as we can.

‘I have directed officers to resolve that so that we can update the measures accordingly before the end of this week.'

Deputy Trott also urged businesses to blow the whistle on landlords who had not passed on TRP deferral savings granted by the States.

‘Two weeks ago I spoke with the representatives of the Guernsey Private Residential Landlords Association, and with many of their members,’ he said.

‘I also wrote to them, making it clear that the States’ clear expectation was that the benefits of the commercial TRP deferral would be pass to business tenants – and if not, we would be prepared to legislate.

‘That position has not changed.

‘Any business that feels its landlord is not passing on the benefits of the commercial TRP deferral should contact me direct and blow the whistle.

‘If the reassurances I was given by the landlords is not borne out, I will act on that.’

A virtual call centre has been set up to deal with the high volume of business related calls and Deputy Trott encouraged those who were affected by the aforementioned issues to make use of it.

‘The feedback from the self-employed and sole traders is hugely important in enabling us to get this right,’ he said.

‘The measures will continue to be monitored and revised on an ongoing basis.’

The States has once more increased the resources used to process business claims, with teams working seven days a week to meet demand.

Paul Whitfield, chief executive , said he understood the need for person to person contact and said the call centre would speed up processing.

‘Although we have strived to ensure that the process is as simple as possible, many businesses also wish to speak to officers before submitting their applications via e-mail.

‘The call centre means we can do that, setting up as many lines as we need, and sticking to our objective of responding to the submission of every application or initial contact from businesses within 24 hours.

‘This call centre, combined with moving more people to the team, will mean we can continue to process applications while clearing the backlog as new applications come in.'

By the end of the week, the call centre team will be twenty strong and more could be added in future should call volumes demand it.

Businesses wanting to contact the States about the above issues should contact the call centre on 743803.