Latest round of Brexit grants for customs declarations released
5 August: HMRC is seeking applications for the latest phase of its customs grant scheme.
The move is part of the government’s £50m package of measures designed to accelerate the growth of the customs intermediary sector and help meet the increased demand it expects from traders when the transition period ends on 31 December 2020.
From that date, businesses will need to complete customs declarations for goods crossing the UK border (except goods moving between Northern Ireland and Ireland).
The grant will continue to offer financial support for training costs to upskill staff and for IT expenditure that improves efficiency. The grant for IT will cover all expenses for increasing capacity or productivity for customs declarations, customs software, set-up costs, and related hardware.
Staff redeployment and training
It can be used to cover salary costs for new or redeployed staff, up to a limit of £12,000 per person and £3,000 for recruitment costs for new employees. This will help businesses to not only recruit new staff but train them up ahead of July 2021, when all traders moving goods will have to make declarations.
HMRC has already allocated £34m to pay for 20,000 training courses, nearly 15,000 units of IT and the recruitment of almost 600 new customs agents.
Grants will be issued on a first-come, first-served basis.
Applications will close on 30 June 2021, or earlier if all the funding has been allocated.
The grant scheme is administered by PwC on behalf of HMRC.