To ask the Minister for the Economy what steps were taken to ensure multiple grants, of the same or differing variety, were not awarded to businesses with the same (i) trading name; (ii) registered business address; and (iii) company directors.

The Member has clarified that this question relates to the £10,000 Small Business Support Grant Scheme, the £25,000 Business Support Grant Scheme for the Retail, Hospitality, Tourism and Leisure Sectors and the Micro-Business Hardship Fund. The processes for each of the schemes is set out below:

I. £10,000 Small Business Support Grant Scheme

Land and Property Services put in place database IT coded queries to cross match all applications and check for applications with any of the following;

the same ratepayer name (this would include trading name);

the same billing address (this would include a registered business address where it was used as the billing address);

the same bank account details;

the same email address; and

applicants not in receipt of Small Business Rates Relief because of more than 3 properties being recorded as occupied by the same person/business in the rating IT system.

This identified any multiple applications from the same business where separate rate accounts were set up for each property in the name of the business or sole trader.

Applications flagged by these checks had to be individually reviewed by a member of staff before they could be approved. Where necessary, applicants were requested to provide evidence that applications related to separate businesses with confirmation being required from a solicitor or accountant. For limited companies, these checks included confirming what information was held on Companies House for the business.

Every payment file on the £10,000 grant scheme was cross checked against payments on the £25,000 grant scheme to avoid two payments being made to the same business.

There were no routine checks in place to identify applications from businesses with the same company directors. Separate limited companies were each eligible for the grant if they met the other eligibility criteria.

II. £25,000 Business Support Grant Scheme

Applications with the same trading name would have been eligible for the £25k scheme if they were from separately registered companies. The Department only paid one grant per registered company. A company could receive a grant from the £10k Scheme and the £25k scheme if it operated from a different premise.

The Department also had in place cross-checking procedures with the Department of Finance regarding the receipt of grants under the £10k scheme and only paid a balance of £15k where a successful application to the £25k scheme was made, but the company had previously received a £10k grant for the same business.

The Department paid per eligible business. If two eligible businesses operated from the same registered business address and paid separate rates they may have been eligible.

Company Directors were not a consideration in scheme verification as it was the business that was eligible for the scheme, not Company Directors.

The Department had multiple checks in place to ensure the above rules were applied and to prevent duplicate payments. Verification of applications was made on the basis of the information that was available.

III. Micro-Business Hardship Fund

Applications to the Microbusiness Hardship Fund (MBHF) were subjected to a range of checks involving Invest NI, DfE and Land and Property Services. These included checks of trading name, registered address, bank account details, business ratepayer IDs and against companies house data.

These checks were designed to mitigate against the possibility that a business with multiple premises would receive multiple MBHF payments, or against the possibility that a business which had already received a £10k or £25k grant would also receive payment from the Microbusiness Hardship Fund.

Assuming they were separate entities, businesses with the same trading name were not excluded from the scheme.

Checks against companies house information was used to verify / corroborate other information received as part of the application process and not as a definitive test to approve applications – there were a number of reasons for this, including that the majority of applications were not from registered companies.

In terms of company directors, two separate companies with the same company directors would have been eligible for support under the terms of the fund, assuming they met all other eligibility criteria.