You can apply for funding of up to £15,000 per new employee or apprentice to cover the associated costs of recruitment and gross direct salary costs, provided you can confirm this would not increase the total amount of any grants you have received above the de-minimis state aid received limit of €200,000 threshold in any three years. De-minimis aid is defined in the EU Commission’s Regulation No 1407/2013.

This £15,000 is made up of the administration costs associated with recruiting a new member of staff or apprentice and the gross direct salary costs. The following criteria apply to these costs:

Recruitment costs

For the recruitment of a new employee or apprentice, this grant will provide a fixed funding amount of £3,000 to be used for any administration costs incurred in relation to recruitment.

Salary costs

This grant will provide support for the new employee’s or apprentice’s gross direct salary costs up to a maximum of £12,000. If the annual salary is less than this, the maximum grant will be equal to the annual salary. If the annual salary is more than £12,000, the applicant organisation will pay the difference.

All expenditure must be reasonable, appropriate and at normal commercial rates.

New recruits with a job role not specific to completing customs processes, managing customs processes and using customs software and systems;

Additional indirect recruitment costs in excess of £3,000 for external hires. Also note redeployment/internal hire will not be supported by the fixed grant of £3,000 for indirect recruitment costs unless it can be shown that that internal hire resulted from an external recruitment campaign;

Salary costs in excess of £12,000. Where salary is greater than £12,000, the applicant organisation will pay the difference;

Contracts of employment between the new employee or apprentice and the applicant organisation for less than 12 months.

Please note, for expenditure associated with the recruitment grant to be qualifying expenditure, the new employee’s or apprentice’s start date must be on or after 12 June 2020. The claim for payment, including submission of acceptable evidence of employment of staff or apprentices, must be made on or before 31 August 2021.

You will receive payment for the recruitment grant in two separate payments:

First payment: This payment, per new employee/apprentice, will consist of the £3,000 associated with indirect recruitment costs for external hires, and 50% of the grant offer to support salaries. For example, the maximum first payment that can be received is £9,000 (£3,000 indirect costs and £6,000 direct/salary costs). The first payment will be released once the grant offer is issued to the applicant.

Second payment: This payment, per new employee/apprentice, will consist of the remaining direct salary costs. For example, if you received the maximum of £9,000 in your first payment, and no changes occurred from your initial application, you will receive a further £6,000 (remaining direct/salary costs only). Before payment will be released, the new employee/apprentice contract (signed and dated) and new employee/apprentice payslip must be provided.

Please note, if the organisation is unable to recruit the agreed number of employees or business plans change and salary support is no longer required, the unused monies will need to be returned to HMRC or will be taken into account in the second payment. The £3,000 fixed grant component will only be reclaimed where HMRC is not satisfied the organisation has used its best endeavors to recruit the required personnel externally.