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Talks with industry have seen Policy & Resources drop the requirement for businesses to potentially repay financial support they receive in January and February.
P&R has announced that the previously-mooted repayment clause to payroll co-funding applications will not come into effect until March at the earliest. Even then, if the island is still locked down, it may not be introduced, with the States saying that "further discussion and consultation will take place."
The original proposal, announced last week, was that businesses who went on to make a profit in 2021 would be required to repay financial assistance they received during lockdown.
That was then amended so that sole traders and self-employed workers would be able to ring-fence up to £50,000 of any profits as personal income. There is an ongoing debate about the potential publication of business who claim the support measures, which some business owners have compared to "being put in the stocks" by the States.
Deputy Mark Helyar, Treasury lead for the Policy & Resources Committee, reiterated that business support measures are not set in stone and remain under constant review in light of feedback and any new developments.
Pictured: The intention remains for this to be a shorter lockdown than the one in spring last year, according to Deputy Helyar.
"With the intention for this to be a shorter lockdown than last year, it is anticipated that businesses will be reliant on support for a shorter period than before," said Deputy Helyar.
"With this in mind, we have made a decision to indicate now that there will be no support recovery for legitimate claims within the first period of lockdown up to the end of February.
"The decision has been made urgently in order to avoid, in particular, large scale redundancies which could hamper the ability of some sectors to recommence trading quickly.
"This demonstrates that we are listening and communicating actively with industry across a broad range of sectors and have taken on board the urgent need for more clarity. We must continue to ensure that we balance carefully the protection of public funds against the needs of industry to bounce back out of lockdown as in 2020."
Many businesses and industry groups are understood to have lobbied the States on the business support measures. Among them were the Guernsey Building Trades Employers Association, who put together a team of representatives to negotiate with the States.
"The discussions with the States Business support team focussed mainly on the money recovery clause in the co-funding scheme," said GBTEA Vice-President Steve Roussel.
"We also agreed that getting the construction industry prepared for a return to work as soon as the CCA advise that it was safe to do so would minimise the adverse effects on the construction industry and the level of co-funding required.
Pictured: GBTEA Vice-President and Ronez Director Steve Roussel.
"To that end the construction industry will set up a team to propose best practice guidance on Covid controls on construction sites."
Business support applications can be submitted for the period running from 23 January, the first day of lockdown, to 31 January, by going to business-support.gov.gg.
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