This video provides an overview of the Swansea Business Innovation Grant which has launched as part of the UK Shared Prosperity Programme.
The new grant is in addition to the already established grants available including those for Carbon Reduction, Website Development and Business Growth.
The fund can offer up to £10,000 with a 50% match funding requirement. The video provides an overview of the scheme’s eligibility, items which are not eligible and the application process itself.
Those wishing to submit an application form for this scheme should first request an application form by contacting GrowthGrant@swansea.gov.uk
Hello and thank you for watching this video my name is Matt Kahan part of the economic development and business support team within swany Council purpose of this video is an introduction a very brief introduction to the Swansea business Innovation Grant which has which recently been launched and complements a range of other grants
Available under the council’s leveling up agenda so say this video is covering specifically and Only The Innovation Grant which has recently been launched uh in this video what we’ll be doing is a little bit of background uh covering the overall scope of the grant some brief details about the eligibility of
The grant scheme some details about what’s not eligible within the grant scheme and then finally covering some brief detail on the application process itself so it is designed to be as the title suggests very much an overview video we won’t be going into the very fine detail of specifically what is
Eligible um we’ll cover the brief detail and of course if you’ve got any queries we would invite you to contact us separately and and put those questions to us um but the purpose of this is to be a very brief introduction so say this is the Innovation Grant if you’ve been
Following our feeds and uh e newsletter over the past few weeks and months you’ll be aware that already up until this point we have launched a range of other grants already uh this specifically is the website Grant the carbon reduction Grant the growth Grant Supply development Grant and the
Business pre-start grant there’s a separate video covering each of these grants if you want to look at that via the main page of our YouTube channel um this one to say is covering specifically The Innovation Grant and the scope within that okay so a little bit of background
First of all before we get into detail of this Innovation Grant itself so as mentioned it’s part of the UK government’s shared Prosperity fund um which is part of the the leveling up agenda which I’m sure you’ll be aware of in terms of the details of that the
Grant pot of those six grants that was on the previous slide is approximately 2 million across all of those six Grant pots including this new innovation scheme so swans has done relatively well out of this um it is a fairly health healthy um budget allocated to each of these and at
The time of recording each of these six Grant pots does still have funding left in it this funding is designed specifically to distribute to local businesses within the Swansea area and improve productivity viability business growth across those individual areas so we’ll cover first of all some overarching eligibility before we get
Into the the fin detail of what’s specifically included as part of this Innovation Grant so this Innovation Grant is only available to existing businesses so businesses that have already been established and therefore is not eligible to pre-art businesses as part of this scheme and further to more to
That we do require that any businesses applying for this have got a minimum of six months history behind them uh this can be evidenced through your obviously your um bank accounts or through your record on company’s house um but we will provide we will require a sixth Monon history at the point of
Application it may sound obvious but it’s worth highlighting here that businesses applying to this must be located within the Swansea council local Authority area um our neighboring authorities do have similar grants available if you’re not within Swansea Council area so if you’re interested in this and you’re outside of Swansea I
Would recommend contacting your local Council to see what equivalent funds may be available to you what we mean by located within is that that business must have registered premises within the Swansea Council area in order to be eligible for this scheme so just a point worth highlighting there this scheme is targeted
Specifically and only atme businesses and therefore have a maximum headcount of 250 employees within the business and this one is a little bit technical um but businesses applying to this can have received no more than £315,000 worth of public money over the past 3 years now this is the
New guidance for basically state aid intervention and that does apply at a company group level so if your company group has received more than that £315,000 worth of public funds over the past three years that would rule you ineligible and that does include covid grants that you may have received during
That time frame as well so it won’t apply to the majority of businesses um but if you are at the the higher end of that business size you have received or your company group has received significant public funds over the past three years is just being aware of
Before you go into any wouldbe application for this scheme so the scope then um it sounds obvious but it’s businesses that are looking to take on Innovative practice or more specifically new Innovative practice within the business so just a couple of sentences um which I guess you
Would need to ask yourself before you apply for this and ask yourself does this apply to me and my businesses firstly it’s for businesses looking to develop new products Innovation or processes to support Innovation and growth within the business and secondly projects which will encourage a greater level of
Business Innovation support business to develop Innovative products and process solutions to enhance their growth and competitiveness so the rationale behind this is that each of those six grants which you saw at the beginning for every pound of funding or every grant that we award we have to report back to UK
Government basically what has been achieved through that funding being awarded so for example on the pre-art grant we have to evidence that for every pre-art Grant we have awarded a new business has been created in regard of the Innovation Grant we have to demonstrate that businesses applying to successfully
Applying to this grant pot are carrying out new Innovative practice within their business so it’s a fairly sort of broad overarching summary um but hopefully these two sentences will will drill down a little bit in terms of whether that description meets what you’re planning to do within the realm of innovation within your
Business in terms of some figures to apply for this then the maximum Grant available is £10,000 worth of grant funding and there is a flat um 50% match requirement from every applicant applying for this in other words words every pound of Grant award that you are
Given you will need to put one pound in yourself so if you’re applying for the maximum 10,000s worth of grant funding in theory that would be a 20,000 um project that you’d be looking to implement having said that there’s nothing stopping you from going to projects that are over £20,000 in total
But any Grant award that you receive would be kept at that maximum £10,000 worth of grant funding so again just something to bear in mind when you’re submitting your application we recognize that a good number of businesses applying for this may well be R registered if the business is R
Registered uh that will be an in ineligible cost um as part of your claim um but that will be an eligible cost if your business is nonat registered so again just something to bear in mind when you’re working out what sums you think you may be eligible for on what
You could potentially claim back depending on whether you are or whether you’re not vat registered okay so in terms of some of the great detail um what is eligible for this for this grant scheme so I’ve put this down into a few bullet points that just sort
Of covers some of the points that that you may want to think about so first one therefore is support for developing and testing new products or service including prototyping costs the second one is patent Drafting and patent filing costs recognize of course the time frames that may be
Involved with that um but in principle those patent Drafting and filing costs would be eligible as part of this research and development of a process product or service testing of your innovation ideas and basically proof of market so market research scoping project competitor analysis to test and identify
Gaps in the market so those sort of broad areas of what is eligible um you’re not limited to one of those five if you wanted to do two three or more of those as part of a combined application and you felt that it it ticked to say
More than one of those bullet points of course you’re more than welcome to put in an application that covers more than one of these points again if you feel it within the scope of the overall Grant and achieves that overall aim of driving Innovation within your particular
Business so your project must first of all be inovative um and I recognize that’s a a slightly broad broad focus in terms of it description focused on commercializing an idea or doing something different now that doing something different is a really important Point within this so it’s doing something above and beyond what
You were doing previously so it’s not just business is normal specifically look at this is driving Innovation something above Beyond something different something new within the business and importantly something that that is going to drive your business business forward in terms of its overall profit profitability and viability going
Forward projects must also aim to introduce new products or new enhanced processes within the business and finally projects must assess specialist expertise or technology that does not currently exist within the business so I think there’s two areas to this first of all it must be a new product or service
Within your business and secondly we’re looking for innovative ideas that are new within your sector or within your particular area um of of work in in in The Wider sense and not just your business above and beyond so something that is new or Innovative to The Wider sector that you are working
Within a little bit more on terms of what projects must deliver um projects must clearly demonstrate commercial justification which could include business growth including employees so if you believe that going forward this is going to improve the headcount of your business allowing it to drive forward um in terms of creating new
Product lines new areas of work deliver an increased market share or a new market to the business overall improve productivity in terms of driving up the profitability of your bottom line improved efficiency so is it going to reduce wastage is it going to improve the overall efficiency of your
Business and finally an overarching one which is increased turnover so again all of these may sound a little bit obvious but basically when we look for you to submit your application for this Innovation Grant we’re looking basically of what commercial Advantage is this going to deliver for your business how
Is it going to improve productivity if you can include further details about access to supply chains um driving forward the The Wider local economy Beyond just your business that would be really beneficial and really helpful to your application as well and then this is a point which
Which is worth considering as well uh it’s a requirement of our grant projects must demonstrate collaboration with one or more of the following UK based either an industry partner a university or a recognized research organization so in other words you cannot be doing this uh Innovation work or this Innovation
Project completely in isolation within your business you must be looking to partner with an external body that industry partner the University or the recognized research organization outside of your existing business identify what that relation leadership looks like and how it’s going to improve the overall delivery of your project in delivering
That um that wide Innovation within the business so what is ineligible um this is a a fairly lengthy list um and I can’t realistically include everything so I’ve just going through this in summary to include some of the things that that commonly come across to us in applications that are not eligible
Perhaps not so much of a focus for the Innovation Grant in terms of the scope of work that it could include but nonetheless I think worth highlighting here in terms of just allowing you to prepare your application and reduce the risk of you including any areas which
May be ineligible as part of an application so we cannot fund building or renovation costs for any premises that you may own we cannot fund staff Sal iies either your own or those of employees within the business we cannot fund backdated expenses for example the repayment of
Loans we cannot fund payment of existing subcontractors these must be costs solely within your business and to your business we cannot fund uh premises rental and that would include um business rates as well other General running costs such as purchasing materials or stock already mentioned this but we cannot fund paying of
Vat and any promotion or event that has already commenced or been completed before the application has been made and assistance awarded so I’ll come on to cover this in a moment but we basically can only cover costs or expenses that have not yet been incurred at the point
Of application I’ll come on to cover this as part of the application process and again I’ve mentioned this already but it’s worth highlighting uh in terms of ineligibility we cannot fund businesses with more than 250 employees within them and also worth highlighting grants will not be payable where an applicant
Business rates and or council tax are in areas um it does catch a few applicants out this one when you submit your application we will run checks on both your council tax and your business rates accounts and if there are any areas on that it would IM immediately um rule
Your application as ineligible until that balance has been cleared so um we will run a check on that so just please be aware of that um before you submit any application because it would prevent it from going forward so just some common elements um I say these are these are true of all
The grants um all of the six grants that we’re running but it does cover the The Innovation grants so if you’re new to our our grants process I’ll highlight them here I’ve covered this already but Swansea businesses uh Swansea businesses registered within the Swansea Council area only um when you provide your
Application you must provide a business plan or summary and a 12month cash flow forecast now if you haven’t got a business plan um it is required um but it’s worth highlighting that we do not require you to publish a business plan that is 100 pages long the purpose of
This is that we get overview of your company we understand where your growth Ambitions lie what the overall strategy for delivering company growth is going to be over the next 12 20 more 20 four months or so so it just allows it to see what your vision for the company is and
How that aligns with any application that you’re submitting as part of this and again the 12-month cash flow forecast just allows you to see going forward how you see the business growing in terms of the the bottom line um and and cash going to and from that business as
Well um any line of expenditure that you include within this application must be delivered through two evidenced quotes So what you mean by evidenced is um basically allows us to see where you found that price where the quotes are provided this could be a supply quote it
Could be a link to a website it could be a website screen grab as long as it’s a as long as we’re able to see um where that price has been found and only the lowest of those two prices can be paid in relation to the grant if any single
Item of expenditure is above £25,000 that two evidence quotes would go up to three now that wouldn’t apply in the majority of applications uh to this scheme but again worth bearing in mind um but in most cases two evidence quotes will be provided and we will need
To see where those quotes have come from with your application two forms of ID one of which must be photographic so usually a passport or a driving license and as part of the application process um and again this is true of all the grants you will need a safeguarding
Policy if working with children or vulnerable adults you will need an equalities policy if you’re employing staff and there’s three questions on the use of the worsh language within your um within your business now none of these three are things to worry about whilst on first glance they might sound a
Little bit daunting um there are templates available to support you with the safeguarding policy and the equalities policy if required to do that and with regard to the worsh language um if you’re not a worsh speaker we’re not asking you to enroll on a full course and become fluent it’s basically just
Taking reasonable steps that show what you’re going to do to accommodate the use of Welsh language where required within the businesses in most cases we recommend people um if they’ve got nothing at all for that area that they will um utilize the business whales hello blood service for any translations
Required within their business going forward so again nothing to worry about on those and templates and support is available to help you develop those areas of your application I mentioned this just a moment ago but it’s important expenditure not yet incurred only so um at the point of submitting your
Application you cannot have incurred any of this expenditure so the process would be that you would if successful claim back the purchases once you’ve made them and submitted your claim to us um and again I’ll come on to cover a little bit more in terms of the application
Process so at the start of the um presentation I showed you those six various grants bus this can apply up to to two of those SPF funds but not the same scheme twice and the combined maximum of those two applications can be only 50,000 so if you’ve applied for two of
Those six grants already you would not be able to apply for this Innovation Grant or similarly if you’ve applied for say the growth Grant and received the maximum £50,000 under that again you would not be eligible to apply for this Innovation Grant because you would have
Reached the cap in ter of what we’re able to award as SLE business as part of the scheme um as it stands applications for this and all of the other five Grant schemes will remain open until a on Autumn 2024 or when all of the funds have been allocated U against any
Respective budget again at time of recording um there is no issue with any of those funds running out um but it’s worth I think before applying particularly if you’re viewing this video later in the year just to check that funds are available before taking the time to submit the
Application U and ensure those funds are still available okay so the grant process um application forms are not available online so the process would be that you would request an application form from us I’ll show you the details on the final slide we would then send you the application process which includes the
Overarching guidance you’ll prepare the application form and send that to us so when we receive that we’ll do an initial assessment on that uh and then providing everything is as required we would then take the application to a grant panel for for full assessment so we normally
Say to you we would get a response to you on your application back within two to four weeks um there are some variables with that within that um our grant panel meets every two weeks it will depend where on that cycle your um application is received and it also is
Dependent upon um everything that you submit to us checking out and being present and correct obviously if we’ve got to go back to you with any queries or any details are missing it will lengthen that process of two to four weeks but all being well um if everything is present and correct we
Would get that application um decision back to you within two to four weeks if approved you would then have four weeks to complete your claim from the point of confirmation so you submit the application to us if you were approved that would basically give you the green
Light to go ahead incur that expenditure and then claim back the 50% proportionate element of Grant attached to that so when you apply for this it’s just important and and worth bearing in mind that you need that cash within your business to make the initial purchase so that you can claim back the
Proportionate 50% grant that you’re entitled to so you would need to have that cash in the business we cannot pay the grant upfront in any circumstances unfortunately under the SPF guidance so finally then just a two a few top tips in terms of preparing uh any wouldbe application please ensure that
Your business plan and your cash flow forecast are well constructed so there’s basically two or three elements to the application itself the application form will will ask you about what the scope of your project is while you’re doing it how it will enable business growth and the second third element are the
Business plan and the cash flow forecast the grant panel when it comes to the assessment all they will be presented with is your application form your business plan and your cash flow forecast so basically you need to assume that everything you want the grant panel to know is contained within those three
Documents so it’s really important that you articulate a detailed plan of how this is going to develop your business how it’s going to improve the viability and how um implementing this Innovation is going to allow your business to grow going forward and improve its overall viability and consequently improve the
Economy of Swansea within that so just make sure that they’re well constructed uh and anyone reading it cold will get a very clear idea of what it is that you’re looking to achieve through this application and within your business please be realistic and honest in your growth Ambitions uh we quite
Often see um applications that are are hugely ambitious in terms of what they are um projecting to to deliver within the growth um and where it’s overly optimistic um it can cause the grant panel to go back and ask people to revise or or provide evidence at least for why that growth is
So ambitious so don’t try and EG it in terms of what you believe your your growth is going to be please be honest in terms of what you believe this will allow you to achieve certainly get help if you need it during the application um if you get
If you get stuck with any part of it you’re not sure what’s eligible you’re not quite sure what a certain element of the guidance relates to please do contact us before you submit the application it’s a far quicker and easier process to address those um concerns or questions ahead of
Submission than it is once You’ submitted and the need to go back and then you change the application to to meet our needs so anything I’m not sure about at all in terms of the application form please do ask us uh as part of the grant team during that process and
Finally I sort of covered this in bullet point one already but just ensure that your expenditure is linked to your business plan and is Justified as part of the application so just sort of tying together what you’re asking for why it’s in there and how it’s going to allow your business to
Grow so I mentioned at the start uh in the last slide sorry that to the um application forms are not available on our website um to request an application form please email growth Grant swansea.ma Oh