Kickstart Growth & Employment Updates

We hope everyone is well.  As the summer is drawing to a close and the kids are going back to school, life is returning to a bit of normality- whatever normality is nowadays!

The new Smarter Teignmouth office is taking shape and starting to look good.  The move will be the 30th  September and we will be based there form the 1 October.  We will be posting some pictures of how things are progressing on Facebook, so have a look.  It is certainly colourful! If you haven’t already liked our Facebook page then like us for more regular updates.

On to some news and information snippets that we think will be useful for clients as follows:

• Self Employed Income Support Grant – The second grant is still open for applications. Remember that to make a claim, you must be adversely affected by Coronavirus on or after 14 July 2020. The link below will take you to the eligibility checker and the claim
  • Eligibility Checker >>
• Furlough Scheme – September sees the Government contribution drop from 80% to 70%. This means that employees will still receive a minimum of 80% of their average wages, the Government will refund 70%, but the employer will have to make up the other 10% (or more if topping up to 100%). October will see the Government’s contribution drop to 60%
• Kickstart Schemes – The Government has produced these schemes to aid recovery:
  • The Growth Support Kickstart Grant Scheme, as per our last blog, is administered by the Heart of the South West LEP. Grants of between £1,000 and £3,000 are available and further details can be found here >> applications are now open!
  • The Government has also launched the Kickstart Employment Scheme
    • The scheme is to create 6-month placements for young people who are currently on Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment
    • The Government will fund 100% of the relevant national minimum wage, for 25 hours per week (minimum hours) and there is potentially £1,500 per placement available for set up costs, support, and training
    • Applications must be for a minimum of 30 job placements. This looks extremely unattractive to most employers. However, it is anticipated that bodies such as Local Authorities will set up partner schemes to allow smaller employees to apply for less than 30 positions
    • Further details can be found here >>
• January Self Assessment Tax Returns Deadline – Now we are approaching the autumn we are entering the period where we start to chase in client records for tax returns. If you have not yet got your records into us then please get them to us and we’ll progress them for you.

If you have any questions on the above, please do not hesitate to contact us.

The Smarter Accounting Offices continue to be staffed, but not currently open for face to face meetings. We can always make other arrangements for video conferencing, telephone calls and at times garden meetings if required. If you are dropping off or collecting records via the office, please notify us in advance.  We are increasing our office coverage from next week.

We provide more regular updates via Facebook. Therefore, if you want the latest news then like our Facebook page here >>

Best wishes and stay safe!