Grant Income
Grant receipts for the year are detailed in Note 20 to the Accounts. In 2020/21 the Authority received £13,148k of revenue grants. As in previous years these grants included funding for New Dimensions and New Threats related work £1,030k, Firelink £624k and its replacement Emergency Services Mobile Communications Programme (ESMCP) £69k, small business rate relief grant of £1,371k and a grant towards the additional cost due to increased employer pension contribution rates £3,536k. The Office of the Rail Regulator paid £57k towards the cost of work carried out by the Authority for the Channel Tunnel Safety Authority, £104k was drawn down from the apprenticeship levy and £8k was received for new burdens in relation to transparency reporting.
In addition, the Authority received new one-off grant funding in 2020/21 to cover costs incurred as a result of the introduction of the Fire Safety Bill (now The Fire Safety Act 2021) following the Grenfell incident. Grant funding, totalling £619k, has been provided to the Authority to support Fire and Rescue Services in making sustained progress in implementing the recommendations from the Grenfell Tower Inquiry Phase 1 report, improving resilience for major incidents (Grenfell Infrastructure Grant), to carry out a review of all high-rise residential buildings over 18m (Building Risk Review Grant), bolster fire protection activity (Protection Uplift Grant) and support the accreditation and recognised prior learning costs of fire protection officers and fire safety engineers (Protection Accreditation Grant). The Authority also received additional ESMCP infrastructure grant totalling £250k and a grant of £97k towards the administrative costs of implementing the remedy for the McCloud/Sargeant pension case. Additionally, a grant totalling £3,175k was confirmed to compensate the Authority for lost business rates income as a result of the additional retail and hospitality reliefs granted by the Government for 2020/21. This grant is offset by a large deficit on the business rates collection fund which will be recovered from the Authority, by District Council’s and Medway Council, in 2021/22.
The Authority also received additional grant funding, totalling £1,589k, to cover costs incurred as a result of Covid-19. This funding has been utilised in a variety of ways, for example covering additional staffing costs incurred by providing support to partner organisations, changes required to our estate in order to comply with Covid-19 guidelines, extra costs incurred purchasing IT hardware and software in order to facilitate better remote working. The Government also announced a support package to partly cover the irrecoverable council tax and business rate loss of income in 2020/21, whereby 75% of losses incurred (estimated at £619k) will be funded by Government Grant.