Creative Scotland has launched three funding programmes designed to provide further support to sustain the country’s creative community during the COVID-19 outbreak:

• A Creative Scotland Bridging Bursary Fund will help sustain creative practice by freelance creative professionals who have lost earnings due to the cancellation of work as a result of COVID-19.
• A parallel Screen Scotland Bridging Bursary Fund will provide similar one-off bursary support to self-employed screen sector workers.
• The Open Fund: Sustaining Creative Development will provide support for individuals and organisations to sustain their creative development in the coming months.

Millions of self-employed individuals will receive direct cash grants though a ground-breaking UK-wide scheme to help them during the coronavirus outbreak, the Chancellor announced today.
In the latest step to protect individuals and businesses, Rishi Sunak has set out plans that will see the self-employed receive up to £2,500 per month in grants for at least 3 months. . . . . 

Read more here: https://www.gov.uk/government/news/chancellor-gives-support-to-millions-of-self-employed-individuals

The Third Sector Resilience Fund will support organisations across the third sector in Scotland who are at risk of closure due to a sharp decrease in income or that are unable to deliver their services directly as a result of the Coronavirus pandemic. The aim of the fund is to help these organisations to stabilise and manage cash-flows over this difficult period.
The Fund offers grants of £5,000-£100,000. In addition there are a further £5m available in fully flexible, 0% interest loans starting at £50,000. More information available on our Coronavirus Third Sector Information Hub https://scvo.org/…/for-organis…/third-sector-resilience-fund
 
Do you know a charity, voluntary organisation or social enterprise that may benefit from this fund? Please share this post! #COVID19 #TSRF #Coronavirus
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Over the last couple of days the help and support for business has become a little clearer, albeit we await a lot more information.

The application form for the Business Support Grant has now been published on the Dumfries and Galloway Council website;

https://www.dumgal.gov.uk/media/22803/coronavirus-fund-pdf/pdf/CORONAVIRUSFund.pdf?m=637206653164470000

Other matters;

I have had  lot of questions about the payroll support scheme announced on Friday.  Here is a few of the key points of the scheme;

Payroll 'Furloughing'

All UK employers can access the scheme (e.g. limited companies, sole traders, LLPs, charities etc).
• The scheme is designed to help employers retain those employees who would be otherwise “laid off”, by which we understand to mean made redundant or put on a period of “lay off” (an employment law term meaning a temporary period when employees are required to take unpaid leave because of a downturn in work).
• Employees will have to be designated by their employers as “furloughed” and notified of this designation.
• It would seem that the Furlough Leave has to be agreed between employer and employee. In other words, the employee cannot simply choose to be furloughed and the employer cannot furlough an employee without their agreement.
• However, if employers ask employees to agree to Furlough Leave, if faced with the choice of being furloughed (and receiving 80% of pay up to a specified cap) or being laid off without pay or made redundant, employees are likely to choose the furlough option.
• The vast majority of contracts of employment will not contain the right of employers to put employees on Furlough Leave. Therefore, employers wanting to make use of the scheme will have to obtain employee consent to vary their contracts of employment to allow the Furlough Leave.
• Whilst on Furlough Leave, employees can be paid 80% or 100% of salary. The Government will reimburse the employer 80% of salary up to £2,500 per month for each employee.
• The employer can choose to make up the remaining 20% of salary themselves. If they decide not to do this or are not in a position to do this, they should make it clear that the employee also consents to a deduction to their salary of 20%.
• In order to participate in the scheme, the employer should submit information to HMRC about the employees in question and details of their earnings via a new online Portal (still to be set up).
• HMRC will reimburse 80% of employment costs (thought to include employer pension contributions and employer national insurance contributions) up to £2,500 per employee per month.
• To qualify the employee must not carry out any work for the employer for the furlough period.
• This could cause some employee relations issues if some employees are not working and are receiving 80% of salary and others are having to work as normal. This will require careful and sensitive management by the employer.
• The scheme could also be open to abuse by unscrupulous employers claiming that staff are furloughed when they are, in fact, still working.
• The scheme will run for three months from 1 March 2020 but the Government has said it will be extended if necessary.

Business rate and water bills reliefs

https://www.mygov.scot/non-domestic-rates-coronavirus/?utm_campaign=532949_FindBusinessSupport%20-%20COVID-19%20Updates%204&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Scottish%20Enterprise&dm_i=4X7B,BF85,3L10GL,196GM,1

https://news.gov.scot/news/support-for-business-water-bills?utm_campaign=532949_FindBusinessSupport%20-%20COVID-19%20Updates%204&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Scottish%20Enterprise&dm_i=4X7B,BF85,3L10GL,199W3,1

Business Interruption Loan Scheme

We now have some more detail about this scheme, at;

https://www.british-business-bank.co.uk/ourpartners/coronavirus-business-int

The Spring Fling Open studios weekend is being postponed due to the Covid-19 epidemic.
The board and staff of Upland CIC, which organises the event, hope the event can be rescheduled for later in the year.
In light of government advice other Upland projects and exhibitions are also being put on hold.
Amy Marletta, Creative Director for Upland, said: “It is a difficult decision to have to make, but the health and wellbeing of our visitors, artists, craft makers, partners and staff has to be the absolute priority.
“Spring Fling is a fantastic event so we will be monitoring the situation closely and very much hope that it can be reorganised for later this year.”
A total of 87 artists and makers from all across Dumfries & Galloway had been selected to take part in this year’s Spring Fling, which was due to take place from 23-25 May.
Upland is currently looking at other ways to support and promote the work of artists and makers in the region.

• For further details on Spring Fling please visit www.spring-fling.co.uk.