SMALL businesses across Oxfordshire could have benefitted from hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of funding which local councils missed out on.

A £300million pot of funding from the government was given out to local councils across England to help local businesses between 2017 and 2021.

This could include making sure business rates for companies based in a council’s area did not increase.

But in the 2017-18 financial year, when the scheme was first launched, significant amounts of the money went unspent and were returned to the government.

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Oxfordshire’s four district councils and Oxford City Council were each allocated part of this £300m funding, but none of them managed to spend the full amount during the first year.

Research by chartered surveyor Bankier Sloan found that Oxford City Council gave back £109,185 to the government in the first year of the funding.

Ian Sloan, of Bankier Sloan, said: “It is a real shame that central government funding that was available for free was not used as intended by local authorities.

“They have lost it, it is gone, it was a one-off and they cannot recover it.”

Cherwell District Council was unique among Oxfordshire’s councils and heeded warnings by Bankier Sloan, going on to spend most of the £736,459 it was awarded in the 2017-18 year, with an underspend of only £38,866.

After missing out on the full extent of the money in the first year, all five of the Oxfordshire councils have made efforts to take advantage of the money and have used much more of it in 2018-19 and 2019-20 than in the first year it was launched.

Oxford City Council

Oxford City Council was allocated £480,708 in 2017-18 and managed to spend £371,523, giving back £109,185 to the government.

In 2018-19, the city council was allocated £233,486, and spent £230,774, showing an improved underspend of only £2,712.

In the 2019-20 financial year, the city council will be given £96,000 and in 2020-21 it will be given £14,000.

Nigel Kennedy, head of financial services at Oxford City Council said: “For 2019/20 we have spent £73,732.66 of our £96,000 pot. The council has yet to agree how to use the £14,000 for next year, which we will agree in the new year.”

He added: “One of the main reasons for the spend reducing is where businesses have been granted relief and then move out of the area, thus reducing the spend, as the relief is awarded up front for the year.

“We are also seeing a number that are having their rateable values reduced. There are also cases where we have given an award and state aid limits have been reached. After 30 September we cannot use any unspent funding from the previous year to top up any accounts.”

Cherwell

Cherwell spent £697,593 of the £736,459 allocated in 2017-18; and in 2018-19 spent £336,088 of a £357,708 pot of money.

This was an underspend of only £21,620.

The council has been allocated £147,000 for 2019-20 and £21,000 for 2020-21.

A spokesman for Cherwell District Council said: “In 2017-2018 Cherwell allocated 95 per cent of the total funding allocation and are on course to allocate a similar level in 2019-20.

“This allows for a small contingency for any future rateable value changes that may be made by the Valuation Office Agency which result in more relief being awarded. We designed the scheme to maximise, but not exceed, the grant from Central Government and as such this is the proportion we have been able to allocate.”

They added: “As usual, we always encourage businesses to contact and discuss with us any concerns or queries they may have about whether there are reliefs that they may be entitled to.”

Oxford Mail:

The funding comes from a £300m fund from the UK government. Picture: via Pixabay.

West Oxfordshire

West Oxfordshire District Council was allocated a total of £830,945 between 2017 and 2019 and was not able to spend £11,295 of that.

For 2019-20, WODC has been allocated £112,000, and for 2020-21 it has been allocated £16,000.

A West Oxfordshire District Council spokesman said: “When devising the scheme to spend the allocated amount each year, West Oxfordshire District Council decided to grant relief at a percentage of the increase since 2016. This meant that those businesses that saw bigger increases received more relief than those who faced increases that were not so large.”

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South and Vale

In the Vale of White Horse District, the council did not spend £15,736 of £498,164 between 2017 and 2019.

The council has been given £67,000 for 2019-20 and £10,000 for 2020-21.

In South Oxfordshire, the council did not spend £8,146 of a total £558,667 between 2017 and 2019.

SODC has been given £75,000 for 2019-20 and £11,000 for 2020-21.

A spokesman for both Vale and SODC said both councils had ‘flagged potentially eligible applicants for the money’ but said there had been ‘little guidance from government’ on how to spend the money.

They added applicants had now been awarded the money, but the process of getting it to them had been difficult.