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During the current national lockdown, you may only leave your home for work if you cannot reasonably work from home.
Where people cannot work from home they should continue to travel to their workplace. This includes, but is not limited to, people who work in:
- critical national infrastructure
- construction
- manufacturing
- childcare or education
- essential public services
This is essential to keeping the country operating and supporting sectors and employers.
Where it is necessary for you to work in other people’s homes - for example, for nannies, cleaners or tradespeople - you can do so. Otherwise, you should avoid meeting for work in a private home or garden, where COVID-19 Secure measures may not be in place.
Employers and employees should discuss their working arrangements, and employers should take every possible step to facilitate their employees working from home, including providing suitable IT and equipment to enable remote working. Where people cannot work from home, employers should take steps to help employees avoid busy times and routes on public transport.
The risk of transmission can be substantially reduced if COVID-19 secure guidelines are followed closely. Extra consideration should be given to those people at higher risk.
For more support in making your business COVID-19 Secure, visit: www.easthants.gov.uk/covid-secure
Businesses that are closed due to the current national lockdown can apply now for a local restrictions support grant to help cover their fixed costs.
In order to remove unnecessary bureaucracy at what is a very difficult time for local businesses, any businesses that received local restrictions support grants during the national lockdown in November 2020 are automatically being issued with grants for the current lockdown.
Businesses that don’t qualify for local restrictions support grants but have ongoing fixed property costs can apply for an additional restrictions grant.
For more information, please visit: www.easthants.gov.uk/business-support
If you have furloughed your staff? If so, could they be spending some time improving their skills?
The government has put together the skills toolkit with free courses to help people learn new skills or get a new job. Course providers include: The Open University, Google, Amazon and FutureLearn.
The National Careers Service has information on other free online courses.
For local support, HSDC provides free and paid-for online courses.
For other ideas of things to do to keep active and enjoy learning and leisure time, visit our ‘things to do in lockdown’ page: www.easthants.gov.uk/things-do-lockdown
If you’re still working through the different ways that Brexit could affect your business, the best place to get support and information on the new rules is at: GOV.UK/transition, which includes:
You can also look for information on the Enterprise M3 Local Enterprise Partnership website: enterprisem3growthhub.co.uk/uk-transition or on the EHDC website: www.easthants.gov.uk/brexit
The Kickstart scheme provides funding to create new job placements for 16 to 24-year olds on Universal Credit who are at risk of long-term unemployment. Employers of all sizes can apply for funding as part of the Kickstart scheme.
Guidance has been published for employers looking to create 30 or more job placements.
The Hampshire Chamber of Commerce is acting as a gateway for local businesses who cannot offer as many as 30 placements. You do not need to be a member to use this scheme. More information can be found on the Hampshire Chamber of Commerce website.
We hope that you find the information in these bulletins useful. If you do, please share them with any other business owners that you think might benefit from them.
To sign up, they just need to visit: www.easthants.gov.uk/bulletins and select the ‘business news and events’ topic.
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