Scottish Enterprise has welcomed Tuesday 21st April statement from Cabinet Secretary Fiona Hyslop that an extra £100m will be made available to the newly self-employed and firms suffering hardship.
the funding breakdown will be as follows;
• £34 million Newly Self-Employed Hardship Fund, managed by Local Authorities, to allocated to the newly self-employed facing hardship through £2,000 grants
• £20 million Creative, Tourism & Hospitality Enterprises Hardship Fund, managed by the Enterprise Agencies in partnership with Creative Scotland and VisitScotland for creative, tourism and hospitality companies not in receipt of business rates relief
• £45 million Pivotal Enterprise Resilience Fund, managed by the Enterprise Agencies for vulnerable SME firms who are vital to the local or national economic foundations of Scotland
Chief Executive of Scottish Enterprise, Steve Dunlop, said: “We are doing everything we possibly can to support Scotland’s businesses, both with information and advice, and by supporting the Scottish Government’s efforts to ensure businesses impacted by COVID-19 can access the financial assistance available.
“This additional package of support will provide much needed funding to protect self-employed people and SMEs in distress. Applications for the funding will be open by the end of the month and the FindBusinessSupport website will be updated with all the relevant information for those seeking to access the funds.
“Working with our partners across the public and private sectors, we’ve strived to ensure support is available for business, targeted our expertise and resources for the best possible effect, deployed our networks across the world to connect individuals and companies and provided insight to ensure Scottish businesses are at the heart of the right decisions for Scotland’s future economy.
“While our priority has been to provide immediate support to those who need it most, we also recognise that Scotland’s economic development environment is going to look very different than it did pre-COVID 19. Only a collaborative approach will allow us to reset, restart and recover the country’s economy and we stand ready to assist in that partnership effort over the coming days, weeks and months ahead.”