BBC Children in Need and Youth Futures Foundation have partnered to deliver Inspiring Futures, a £6 million programme to fund activities which support children and young people to achieve their potential on their journey towards employment. Not-for profit organisations in the UK will be able to apply for between £10,000 and £80,000 for work commencing in October 2020. Funding will be for project and organizational costs and will support between 12 and 18 months of delivery. In England projects can work with children and young people aged 10 to 24 and in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland aged 10 to 18. Applications opened on Friday and close at 11.30am on Friday 31 July. Find out more here.
At the start of this week, The National Lottery Community Fund announced it is working alongside five expert partnerships to ensure almost £45 million of National Lottery funding reaches communities most vulnerable to the impact of COVID–19. The five funds are:
· COVID -19 Social Enterprise Support Fund Partnership – £19.7 million of funding to provide grants to social enterprise organisations that are best place to support local, vulnerable communities in response to the Covid–19 crisis. Find out more here.
· COVID–19 Community-Led Organisations Recovery Scheme – £10 million of funding to support community led organisations in England. Particularly interested in funding BAME-led or BAME-supporting organisations. Find out more here.
· Barrow Cadbury Trust COVID–19 Support Fund – £5.15 million of funding specifically targeting small and medium sized voluntary sector groups supporting migrants and refugees. Find out more here.
· Community Justice Fund – £5 million of funding to support specialist social welfare advice organisations who provide advice and support to people who are pushed into crisis. Find out more here.
· COVID–19 Homelessness Response Fund – £5 million of funding to provide funding for small and medium sized homelessness charities to adapt their service delivery to respond to the crisis. Find out more here.
The Charity Commission has issued guidance permitting charities to hold governance meetings on the phone or digitally and enabling voting to be postal or electronic when it would normally need to be done in person. Find out more.
New furlough rules give you the chance to claim free government bonuses…
The Chancellor Rishi Sunak has announced plans to give employers £1,000 for every furloughed employee that they bring back to work and keep until January 2021.
To be eligible, you must:
- Bring back previously furloughed employees from October and keep them on for three months.
- Pay employees at least £520 on average per month from November to January.
For further information, click here.
Key points to note:
- Job Retention Bonus:To help firms keep on furloughed workers, UK Employers will receive a one-off bonus of £1,000 for each furloughed employee who is still employed as of 31 January 2021.
- Kickstart Scheme: A new £2 billion scheme will also be launched to create hundreds of thousands of new, fully subsidised jobs for young people across the country. Those aged 16-24, claiming Universal Credit and at risk of long-term unemployment, will be eligible. Funding available for each six-month job placement will cover 100% of the National Minimum Wage for 25 hours a week – and employers will be able to top this wage up.
- Employment and support schemes:A total of £1.6 billion will be invested in scaling up employment support schemes, training and apprenticeships to help people looking for a job.
- Creating jobs: The plan will also create tens of thousands of jobs through bringing forward work on £8.8 billion of new infrastructure, decarbonisation and maintenance projects. In addition, £5.8 billion will be spent on shovel-ready construction projects to get Britain building.
- Eat Out to Help Out:To encourage people to safely return to eating out at restaurants the Government’s new discount scheme will provide a 50% reduction for sit-down meals in cafes, restaurants and pubs across the UK from Monday to Wednesday every week throughout August 2020.
- VAT: The rate of VAT applied on most tourism and hospitality-related activities will be cut from 20% to 5%.
- Stamp Duty: A temporary increase to the Nil Rate Band of Residential SDLT (Stamp Duty) from £125,000 to £500,000 has been introduced until 31 March 2021.
Full details of the announcement can be found here: https://bit.ly/CXPlanForJobs.
The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government has reopened its Domestic Abuse Safe Accommodation: Covid-19 Emergency Support Fund. Bids are open until 20 July. Find out more.
Britain’s arts, culture, and heritage sectors will receive a £1.57bn rescue package to help weather the impact of coronavirus, the government has announced. Find out more.
1) Travel exemptions
On Saturday 4th July the government’s travel advice changed, with exemptions for travelling to certain countries and territories that no longer pose a high risk for British travellers.
The government continues to advise against non-essential international travel, except to countries and territories listed.
You can view the full list of exempted travellers here – https://bit.ly/HOExemptions – and exempted destinations here – https://bit.ly/ExemptedDestinations.
Full guidance for British people travelling overseas during the coronavirus pandemic can be found here: https://bit.ly/CV19TravelGuidance.
2) Hairdressers reopening
Also from Saturday 4th July, Britain’s hairdressers and barber shops were back open for business. The Cabinet Office has shared the following tweet, which explains how hairdressers will keep customers and staff safe. We would appreciate you retweeting on your own channels where possible: https://bit.ly/SalonsTweet.
Guidance for people who provide close contact services (e.g. hairdressers and barbers) can be found here: https://bit.ly/CV19CloseContactGuidance.
3) £1.57 billion support package for cultural and heritage organisations
Britain’s globally renowned arts, culture and heritage industries will receive a world-leading £1.57 billion rescue package to help weather the impact of coronavirus, the government announced today.
The money, which represents the biggest ever one-off investment in UK culture, will provide a lifeline to vital cultural and heritage organisations across the country hit hard by the pandemic. It will help them stay afloat while their doors are closed. Funding to restart paused projects will also help support employment, including freelancers working in these sectors.
Further details of the announcement can be found here: https://bit.ly/CultureSupportPackage.
1) Test & Trace guidance: Maintaining records of staff, customers & visitors
The easing of social and economic lockdown measures following the COVID-19 outbreak is being supported by NHS Test and Trace. Organisations in certain sectors should assist this service by keeping a temporary record of customers and visitors for 21 days, in a way that is manageable for your organisation, and assists NHS Test and Trace with requests for that data if needed. This could help contain clusters or outbreaks.
Sectors that this guidance applies to:
- Hospitality, including pubs, bars, restaurants and cafés;
- Tourism and leisure, including hotels, museums, cinemas, zoos and theme parks;
- Close contact services, including hairdressers, barbershops and tailors;
- Facilities provided by local authorities, including town halls and civic centres for events, community centres, libraries and children’s centres; and
- Places of worship, including use for events and other community activities.
Full guidance can be found here: https://bit.ly/CV19BusinessTT.
2) Restaurants, pubs, bars and takeaway services reopening safely
From Saturday 4th July, most of the pubs and restaurants we love will be reopening. We have shared the following tweet, which explains how pubs and restaurants will keep customers and staff safe. We would appreciate you retweeting on your own channels where possible: https://twitter.com/HMGLondonSE/status/1278999977637879809
Hospitality safer working guidance can be found here: https://bit.ly/HospitalityGuidance.
3) Self-isolation lifted for lower risk countries
Passengers returning or visiting from certain destinations, which pose a reduced risk to the public health of UK citizens, including Spain and Italy, will no longer need to self-isolate when arriving in England, Transport Secretary Grant Shapps will set out today (3 July 2020).
Passengers returning to or visiting England from certain destinations including Germany, France, Spain and Italy, will no longer need to self-isolate on arrival from 10 July 2020. The FCO will set out exemptions for a number of destinations from its global advisory against ‘all but essential’ international travel, with changes coming into effect on 4 July 2020. In addition, all passengers, except those on a small list of exemptions, will still be required to provide contact information on arrival in the UK.
The full news story can be found here – https://bit.ly/SelfIsolationChanges – and further guidance will follow.
4) Employee return-to-work tool
The government has developed a tool to help employees in England easily assess if they can return to work. The tool guides employees through questions that may influence their ability to go back to work safely. Employers can share this tool with employees to aid discussion on how employees can return to work safely.
Please find out more here: https://bit.ly/EmployeeTool.
As ever, please do share these trackable links through your network and if you have any questions, please email our dedicated business enquiries mailbox (covid19-partnerships@cabinetoffice.gov.uk).
Non Frenguelli looks at DSC’s research into COVID-19 response funding, highlighting innovative and boundary-pushing BAME-funders, and organisations for groups and individuals in the BAME-community, that are challenging how the funding sector responds to crises. Find out more.
sobus
20 Dawes Road, London, SW6 7EN
Telephone 020 7952 1230
Email info@sobus.org.uk
Registered Charity No.1071089
and Company Limited by Guarantee. Registered in England No.03471416
Sobus is a new Community Development Agency for Hammersmith & Fulham. It has been created through the merger of the Community and Voluntary Sector Association Hammersmith & Fulham (CaVSA) and the Fulham Community Partnership Trust (FCPT). Building on the strengths of both organisations, sobus aims to provide a wider range of support services for local charities, community groups, social enterprises and start up businesses.