Fife Council has been accused of overseeing the potential collapse of a 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.
“All over Fife, people face losing their jobs because these payments just aren’t being processed quickly enough.
“That is a slap in the face to hardworking business owners who find themselves facing ruin through no fault of their own.
“Fife’s businesses deserve better and it is time this SNP/Labour council to look across the rest of Scotland and buck its ideas up fast.’’
Neighbouring councils are performining 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: “We’re following the process the Scottish Government put in place on April 1 and we’re working really hard to get through all the applications, including working with businesses to get more information where it is needed so they don’t have to reapply.
“There were some initial delays with the payments process but we moved to a different system last week making everything much quicker.
“As of April 30, we’ve received 4,100 applications and processed 2,280 of these. 2,150 have been awarded with 130 being rejected, totalling around £25 million.
“We fully understand the pressures businesses are under as a result of COVID-19 and have trained up more staff to deal with this work – we are getting payments turned around as quickly as possible.”
Businesses who have waited over 10 days for payment can contact the council on ec.dev@fife.gov.uk or check out www.fife.gov.uk/coronavirus.
