Yesterday the Scottish and English governments announced national lockdowns with schools being closed. The net result being all of England and Scotland must stay at home except for a handful of permitted reasons.
We’re not going to go over the full announcement but more details about this can be found here if you wish to seek clarification.
Instead, we wish to focus on what we know thus far in terms of support and how we will be adapting to support you.
Help for businesses
No extra help, beyond what was announced before Christmas, has been announced for businesses who either cannot trade or have their trade severely disrupted. But this still means there are grants available from your local authority if you have been forced to close. And the furlough and self-employed grant schemes are still running across Jan to April 2021.
What does this mean for you and your business?
- Find out whether these lockdown announcements mean you can trade for the next 6-7 weeks though internally we recommend you look to the end of February given the time lags repeatedly being mentioned with respect to these measures and the vaccines.
- Review your resourcing requirements but also how many of your staff will now have childcare duties.
- Rethink your business plan, cash flow plan and also revisit your contingency plans
How we will be helping you through these times?
- All our team will be working tirelessly as they have already and there will be no break in support from our end so we will be here for you as we have from the start.
- We will continue to monitor updates and share these with you as soon as feasibly possible to assist you through these times.
- We will be running two drop-in sessions every week for the duration of this lockdown just for you to have a chat and we can run through anything you wish to alongside other business owners from:
Of course, if there is a growing need in any particular areas, we will address this as we did the first time round and look to assist where we can.
Also, please note that regardless of any extension with regards to the self-assessment filing deadline we will continue to work towards getting all tax returns submitted by 31 January 2021 for those that submitted their information on time to us as we see any delay as just being moving the problem.
Summary
We have been here before and stood alongside you and are still alongside you today in order to help you the best we can come out the other side.
Let us work together and stick together and never forget the mental health strain of this all so if you ever need to talk please reach out to us and we will be there for you and that includes calling the team or me on my mobile number if you need to.
