Keep up to date with the latest public information and advice regarding the virus at the Gov.uk website.
Support for North Tyneside’s voluntary and community sector
While we have temporarily suspended face-to-face meetings, we can still offer advice and support to charities and voluntary and community sector organisations in North Tyneside. We have lots of valuable information on our website, so please explore this and see below for resources around COVID-19. If you need specific advice, please contact our Development Manager (but please be aware that this is an incredibly busy time for VODA and responses may take longer than usual).
Funding Advice
We have produced a COVID-19 Funding section of our website for general advice and the latest opportunities. Again, while face-to-face funding advice is currently suspended, we can still offer email and telephone support to North Tyneside voluntary and community groups and organisations. Please contact our Funding Adviser for more information (but please be aware that this is an incredibly busy time for VODA and responses may take longer than usual).
Training
VODA is working to support the North Tyneside VCS through its recovery from the pandemic. Part of this will involve online training such as PPE, Zoom Clinics, Risk Assessment and Making Your Community Building COVID Secure. Available videos and slides from past sessions will be shown below. Find out about our upcoming courses here.
‘Stay at home’ order for millions in UK 5 January 2021
The Prime Minister has announced a national lockdown from 5 January 2021 and instructed people to stay at home to control the virus, protect the NHS and save lives.
PM Boris Johnson warned the coming weeks will be the “hardest yet” as he announced another national lockdown for England.
The decision follows a rapid rise in infections, hospital admissions and case rates across the country, and our hospitals are now under more pressure than they have been at any other point throughout the pandemic.
Financial Support Available
The Government has announced a number of measures to support businesses and their employees during the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
To support businesses with paying employees’ wages, it had been announced that the Job Retention Scheme (furlough) will be extended from 5 November until Spring 2021. More information about this scheme can be found here
From 10 November, participating lenders in the Bounce Back Loan Scheme (BBLS) are able to offer smaller businesses across the UK a ‘top-up’ to their existing Bounce Back Loan if they originally borrowed less than the maximum amount available to them. Find out more here
Grant Support
North Tyneside Council are currently delivering 7 grant schemes on behalf of Government. These are for the periods:
- 18 Sept – 04 Nov 2020
- 05 Nov – 01 Dec 2020
- 02 Dec – 29 Dec 2020
- 30 Dec 2020 – 04 Jan 2021
- 5 Jan onwards
Businesses should, if they haven’t already done so refer to the eligibility document on the North Tyneside Council website here and if you haven’t already done so please apply using the application form (Tier 2 and National Lockdown #2). Businesses which have already received payments should not make an application for future payments, this will be automatically applied for eligible periods.
Please note the Additional Restrictions Support Grant is being used, in line with the 7 North East Councils, to support businesses which are not ratepayers and those in the supply chain to Hospitality, Leisure & Accommodation occupying commercial premises.
Businesses which are not forced to close under law, but have chosen to close are not eligible for the current grant scheme. Businesses without commercial premises are also not eligible.
National Lockdown Top Up Grants
- £4,000 for businesses with a rateable value of £15,000 or under
- £6,000 for businesses with a rateable value between £15,000 and £51,000
- £9,000 for businesses with a rateable value of over £51,000
Funding is also being made available for businesses which are not eligible for the above grants, and further guidance is being released by Government in the coming weeks.
Information about eligibility for this support can be found on the Government website here
VCS Eligibility
Charities which applied successfully for the National Lockdown#2 funding will automatically qualify for the eligible periods indicated in this round.
View all of the funding on the North Tyneside Council website.
Enquiries: business@northtyneside.gov.uk
Read more here and keep up to date with the latest information from the North Tyneside Business Forum.
Government Guidance
- New National Restrictions
- Guidance on shielding and protecting people who are clinically extremely vulnerable from COVID-19
- New package to support and enforce self-isolation
- Coronavirus (COVID-19): Meeting with others safely (social distancing)
- GOV.UK: COVID-19 guidance for voluntary, community and social enterprise organisations
- GOV.UK: Coronavirus (COVID-19) guidance for the charity sector
- COVID-19: Guidance for the safe use of multi-purpose community facilities
- Enabling safe and effective volunteering during coronavirus (COVID-19)
- COVID-19: cleaning of non-healthcare settings outside the home
- Collecting customer and visitor details for contact tracing
- Working safely during coronavirus
- Working safely during coronavirus (COVID-19) (Shops and Branches)
- Coronavirus travel corridors
- Protective measures for holiday and after-school clubs, and other out-of-school settings during the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak
Resources to support COVID-19 safe reopening and operation
- North Tyneside Faith Communities COVID-19 Briefing 27 August 2020: VODA and North Tyneside Council hosted a Zoom event aimed at local faith communities to make sure they have access to the latest COVID-19 information and guidance so that they can operate safely, protecting their staff, worshippers and community, and remain within the law. You can view a video of the event here. Please note, due to a small issue with the recording, the slides do not display correctly on the video. You can view the full presentation slides here. Also available is the Guidance for Faith Communities.
- Managing Staff As They Return To Work 12 August 2020: Peter Earley from Ethical Human Resources talked through some things to consider when managing staff as they return from furlough. You can download the slides here.
- Making Your Community Building ‘COVID Secure’ 9 July 2020: VODA and North Tyneside Council hosted an event on how to ensure you keep your community building COVID secure when reopening. You can download the slides for the presentation here and view the supporting guidance from North Tyneside Council Workplace and Public Buildings Recovery Standard.
- PPE and managing Covid risk 26 June 2020: VODA recently hosted an online workshop on PPE and managing Covid risk in the workplace with North Tyneside Council. Watch the video of the session below and download the slides here.
- Charity Shop reopening pack from the Charity Retail Association.
- COVID-19 Re-opening safely: A guide for charity trustees in England and Wales from the Chartered Governance Institute.
- Practical information to help village halls reopen and a new visual reference guide have been published by ACRE (Action with Communities in Rural England). This free information will help village and community halls reopen post lockdown. This has been designed for rural village halls but should translate into community centres/other community use buildings to a large extent as well. Includes updated guidance around the opening of performance and sport venues.
- A Guide for Community Buildings – Life After Lockdown. This guide from Durham Community Action looks at what trustees can do now towards recovery planning and start to consider what measures will need to be in place for a safe reopening when services can be delivered once again.
- A Practical Guide to Re-Opening after Covid Closedown from the Cranfield Trust.
- Risk Assessment planning information for opening a community building from Connected Voice (our equivalent covering Newcastle/Gateshead). (Please note, they won’t be able to provide advice to North Tyneside based charities but the information should still be useful).
- HSE: talking with your workers about preventing coronavirus. A guide aimed at all employers that explains how you can talk to your workers about preventing coronavirus (COVID-19) in your workplace. It gives guidance on reducing the risks from coronavirus, for example by putting in place social distancing measures, staggering shifts and providing additional handwashing facilities.
- Supporting your staff, volunteers and beneficiaries and keeping safe during coronavirus. This guide from NCVO provides information on protecting and supporting the people working in your charity or voluntary organisation, and those who use your services during the coronavirus outbreak.
- Coronavirus/COVID-19: Guidance for Community Transport. The Community Transport Association (CTA) has developed detailed guidance on how to restart and sustain your community transport services as lockdown measures ease.
- Coronavirus (COVID-19): Fundraising key principles guidance. The Fundraising Regulator, in collaboration with Public Health England and the Health and Safety Executive, has produced guidance to highlight the issues for consideration when adapting the way your organisation fundraises as lockdown measures are eased.
- Coronavirus recovery – six data protection steps for organisations. The ICO has set out the key steps organisations need to consider around the use of personal information.
- The Fundraising Regulator and Chartered Institute of Fundraising:
- The National Youth Agency (NYA) has developed sector specific advice and guidance for managing youth sector activities and spaces during COVID-19.
- Sport England: Guidance on sports clubs reopening.
- The NHS COVID-19 app will be available nationally across England & Wales on 24 September. Businesses can now download NHS Test and Trace QR codes at gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster and help stop the spread of the virus.
- The Health & Safety Executive is warning that if you run premises, you have a duty to protect people by identifying and controlling risks associated with legionella.
Useful COVID-19 Links and Resources
Charity specific advice and guidance:
- The Charity Commission:
- The Centre for Aging Better has launched a new guide to help community organisations future-proof their volunteer base in the wake of COVID-19.
- VONNE is collating all of the online training and events
- The Small Charities Coalition COVID advice page
- NCVO advice for your organisation
- The Institute of Fundraising COVID-19 advice and guidance
- The Cranfield Trust free, high level business support to charities in North East
- COVID 19 Charity Preparedness Group Facebook Group
- GLT Partners free webinars, support and advice
- European Structural and Investment Funds: Coronavirus (COVID-19) Response
- NAVCA VCSE Resource page
- Charity Digital free webinars
General advice and guidance:
- North Tyneside Council:
- Notify cases of COVID-19 that come to your attention via the Local Outbreak Action Card
- NHS Coronavirus Information
- Healthwatch North Tyneside Service information hub
- The Children’s Commissioner Coronavirus, children and you
- Live Transcribe lip reading app – works even with masks. View demo here.
- Public Health England face covering exemption toolkit
- Guidelines for re-opening of playground equipment
- Dealing with a positive COVID-19 case: Toolkit for Mosques, Madrasas and Community Centres
Advice and guidance for non English speakers
- Doctors of the World:
- West Yorkshire and Harrogate Health Care Partnership: Advice during pregnancy – knowing the risks and taking care of yourself – particularly for women from a black, Asian or minority ethnic background
- COVID-19 Infographics: infographics to help summarise key points about COVID-19 in a variety of languages to get the right information, in an easy to understand format, to these communities.
- Newcastle City Council has produced videos in different languages with a range of medical practitioners from Newcastle’s Hospitals to support Black Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) communities through COVID restrictions.
- Test and Trace – A guide to test and trace is available in multiple languages. Click on the language below to access the guides: Arabic / Bengali / Chinese / English
/ Farsi / French / Hindi / Italian / Korean / Kurdish / Pashto / Persian / Polish / Portuguese / Somali / Spanish / Tamil / Urdu
COVID-19 Latest News
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