Delays put Fife firms ‘at risk’

Fife Council has been accused of overseeing the potential collapse of local companies through its failure to process business grants swiftly enough.

Figures released by the Scottish Government revealed the region had processed just over half of emergency business grants for small firms struggling with the impact of Covid-19 as of April 28.

A total of 2,051 payments have been made out of 3,966 applications (52%) received from retailers, hospitality and leisure businesses.

That was lower than the Scottish average of around 60%, and has prompted a warning from Mid Scotland and Fife Conservative MSP Dean Lockhart that small organisations across the kingdom have been left fighting for survival as a result.

However, Fife Council’s SNP/ Labour joint administration has insisted initial teething problems have been overcome and confirmed around £25 million of support has already been handed out.

The rate of processing the claims has risen to 56%.

Mr Lockhart pointed to the example of other neighbouring local authorities in terms of turnaround time and suggested Fife was “well behind”.

“This is simply not good enough and runs the risk of small businesses across Fife simply folding over the next few weeks,” he said.

Neighbouring councils are performing better, with Dundee processing 1,426 grants out of 1,932 applications (74%), Angus processing 1,023 out of 1,423 applications (72%), and Perth and Kinross dealing with 2,095 grants out of 2,835 applications (74%) received.

In a joint statement, Fife Council co-leaders David Alexander and David Ross said: “There were some initial delays with the payments process but we moved to a different system last week making everything much quicker.”

Businesses can visit fife.gov.uk/ coronavirus for more information.

Mid Scotland and Fife Tory MSP Dean Lockhart.