Publication - Impact assessment

Coronavirus (COVID-19) business support: equality impact assessments

Published: 11 March 2022
From: Director-General Economy
Topic: Business, industry and innovation, Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland, Economy
ISBN: 9781804351864

Detailed equality impact assessments (EQIAs) for the COVID-19 business support funding issued between March 2020 and April 2021.

Supporting documents

Covid-19 Support Scheme for Self Catering Businesses

Name of Grant:

COVID-19 Support Scheme for Self-Catering Businesses

Policy Lead

Judith Young/Caroline Cantin

Legal power used:

Overarching legal powers to take emergency action due to COVID

Grant Overview:

The visitor accommodation sector is a key part of Scotland’s visitor economy, comprising 2,880 registered enterprises and accounting for 72,450 jobs^[409] broken down as follows:

1,690 Hotels in Scotland, supporting around 62,000 jobs – around a quarter of all jobs in Scottish tourism.
145 Holiday centres and villages, around 1,500 jobs
30 Youth hostels, supporting 450 jobs.
680 Other holiday and other short-stay accommodation (not including holiday centres and villages or youth hostels) supporting 4,000 jobs
250 Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parks supporting 3,500 jobs.
85 Other accommodation supporting 1,000 jobs. The accommodation sector was estimated to contribute to around £1.58 billion of GVA to Scotland’s economy in 2018^[410].

The sector comprises a wide range of accommodation types (hotels, B&Bs, self-catering, hostels caravan and campsites), and contributes to enhanced physical and mental wellbeing and reduced social isolation.

The accommodation sector has experienced substantial and continued reductions in trade in the period since March 2020, compared with previous years. Industry data from STR and VisitScotland indicate occupancy rates across Scotland in 2020 as being substantially below those seen in 2019; VisitScotland reports similar for B&Bs, Self-Catering and Hostels^[411]. In early 2021, the situation was still challenging for the accommodation sector in Scotland: January’s (2021) Monthly GDP statistics show output in Scotland’s Accommodation and Food sector remained 66% lower than pre-pandemic levels, compared with 8.4% lower for Scotland overall^[412].

The challenging situation in the accommodation sector was closely related to the considerable reduction of international visitors. For instance, ONS data for Scotland for Q1 2020 showed that there was a 17% decrease in overseas tourism visits to Scotland compared to Q1 2019^[413]; ONS data for Q2 2020 indicated that international visits to the UK were 96% lower than Q2 2019^[414]. Moreover, VisitBritain’s published forecasts suggest international inbound tourism to the UK in 2020 declined by 76% in terms of visits to 9.7 million and by 80% in terms of spending to £5.7 billion^[415].

In December 2020, the requirement to cease trading was based on the introduction of the stay at home requirements, including the requirement not to be away from your primary residence overnight, and to remain within a limited distance of that primary residence, other than for essential/exempted purposes. Visitor accommodation offers people the opportunity to move around the country, and creates opportunities for social interaction, which was wholly incompatible with the restrictions put in place to suppress the spread of the virus.

A small number of visitor accommodation providers continued to carry on their business in accordance with the exceptions in the relevant regulations, for example, providing accommodation to key workers, or to allow for essential travel – for instance for travellers attending funerals. In the case of key worker accommodation some providers offered this free or at low cost. Even where visitor accommodation was leased for these purposes (for example use of hotels to house oil workers in quarantine before they travel offshore, or as part of the ‘Everyone In’ campaign to ensure that the provision of accommodation for the homeless) the income generated and the operating costs meant that these arrangements did not make up for losses.

The gradual reopening of the tourism sector including visitor accommodation through summer 2020, starting with self-contained accommodation and then other types, did allow some economic activity within the broader sector. However the limits on household gathering that remained in force, throughout this period, meant that the self-catering’s business model, which relies on socialisation, was especially hard hit, as this was fundamentally incompatible with these socialising restrictions.

Following consultation with the tourism and hospitality stakeholders, SG decided to set up the COVID-19 Support Scheme for Self-Catering Businesses to mitigate the impact of Covid-19 on self-catering businesses, which were heavily impacted by the pandemic.

The £1.56 million fund was delivered by Visit Scotland, developed with input from the sector. It was established in August 2021 to provide financial support for the businesses who haven’t received any support via other funds as a result of the pandemic. Applicants were eligible to receive a one-off grant of £10,000.

As part of the National Performance Framework, this fund contributed to this national outcome: economy.

Executive Summary:

The Scottish Government understands the impact COVID-19 has had on businesses, which is why £4.3 billion has been committed to business support. This includes the support package of £129 million to support a range of tourism and hospitality businesses from January 2021. This emergency funding has supported otherwise strong and viable businesses as well as jobs.

In order to address the needs of the tourism and hospitality sector adversely impacted by the pandemic, a range of tourism business support funds were introduced from January 2021 to provide emergency funding to help secure jobs, safeguard businesses and to alleviate hardship.

Within this context of emergency, there was limited opportunity to gather evidence on the possible impacts of these measures before their implementation. Nevertheless, this fund was set up following extensive consultation with the relevant tourism and hospitality stakeholders. More specifically, it is important to stress that there was extensive proactive engagement with this sector throughout the pandemic (and this continues) to try and address their concerns and issues, via the Scottish Tourism Alliance, who have coordinated input on behalf of the accommodation provider sector and key stakeholders. This engagement has been in place since the start of the pandemic and gives the Scottish Government a close understanding of the issues facing the sector.

The tourism and hospitality stakeholders represent businesses who have a large proportion of employees with one or more of the protected characteristics. Indeed, evidence tells us that the workforce in the accommodation sector, and broader accommodation and food services sector is comprised of people who are predominately, but not exclusively, from of people who have one or more of the protected characteristics below: women^[416], young people (16-24 years old)^[417], non-UK nationals^[418] and people experiencing socio-economic disadvantage^[419].

Therefore in developing this EQIA the Scottish Government is mindful of the three needs of the Public Sector Equality Duty (PSED) - eliminate unlawful discrimination, harassment and victimisation, advance equality of opportunity between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not, and foster good relations between people who share a protected characteristic and those who do not. Where any negative impacts have been identified, we have sought to mitigate/eliminate these. We are also mindful that the equality duty is not just about negating or mitigating negative impacts, as we also have a positive duty to promote equality.

For this reason, the Scottish Government worked in collaboration with its delivery partner Visit Scotland to establish a rigorous assessment process that was overseen by a steering committee in order to assure the fairness of the process. More specifically:

All applications were assessed by the two same people and all assessments were reviewed by a third person.
If the application was not complete, Visit Scotland offered the possibility to candidates to submit additional information before taking a decision.
If the applicant was not satisfied with the decision, it was possible to appeal the decision. Non Visit Scotland representatives were part of the appeal panel.

Businesses were able to apply for more than one tourism funding schemes. However, it was only possible to be successful in one of the funds administered by Visit Scotland in 2021, in order to support the maximum number of businesses and, by extension, the maximum number of employees/owners with one or more of the protected characteristics.

Key Findings - impact assessment of benefits and/or disadvantages.

First, it is important to acknowledge the fact that the tourism and hospitality team does not possess any data about the socio-economic profiles of self-catering businesses’ owners.

Age: Older People and Children and Young People

We know that a large proportion of the workforce in the accommodation and food services sector are young people: 36.8% of the accommodation and food services sector workforce is aged 16-24 compared to 12.3% of the workforce as a whole^[420].

Consultation with tourism and hospitality stakeholders demonstrated the importance of bespoke support for the sector during the pandemic due to its unique characteristics in order to mitigate the economic impact of this unprecedented crisis. Our main concern was to design funding schemes that would be inclusive for every business as long as they meet the funding scheme’s eligibility criteria.

The COVID-19 Support Scheme for Self-Catering Businesses

contributed to advance equality of opportunity for young people. Indeed, this fund contributed to maintain self-catering businesses’ financial viability. Since a large proportion of the workforce in the visitor accommodation sector are young people, this fund preserved jobs and contributed to advance equality of opportunity for this group of people.

Closing the age gap will require a cross-government approach and we have made a commitment as such in response to the pandemic. We established a package of support to help young people, including £60 million for the Young Person's Guarantee and £15 million to establish the Apprenticeship Employer Grant. The Scottish Budget includes an initial additional investment of £125 million for the Young Person’s Guarantee, the National Transition Training Fund and broader skills and employability support. The ambition of the Young Person’s Guarantee is that, within two years, every person aged between 16 and 24 will have the opportunity to study; take up an apprenticeship, job or work experience; or participate in formal volunteering.

Sex: Men and Women

We know that women are more likely than men to work in the accommodation and food sector industry. Women constitute 54.8% of the workforce in Accommodation and Food Services^[421].

In addition, the minority ethnic employment gap is much higher for women (22.0 percentage points vs 9.5 for men, in 2019). The vast majority of part-time workers are women: in 2019, women aged 16+ accounted for three-quarters of part-time employment in Scotland^[422].

The COVID-19 Support Scheme for Self-Catering Businesses contributed to advance equality of opportunity for women. Indeed, this fund contributed to maintain self-catering businesses’ financial viability. Since a large proportion of the workforce in the visitor accommodation sector are women, this fund preserved jobs for this group of people.

Closing the gender gap will require a cross-government approach and we have made a commitment of £50m for the Women’s Business Centre over the course of this Parliament.

Race

The industry sector with the highest proportion of non-UK nationals in the workforce is distribution, hotels and restaurants – 12.5 per cent of its workforce are non-UK nationals^[423].

Moreover, previous economic recessions have disproportionately impacted minority ethnic employment, and this may be repeated, especially given that a higher share of the visible minority ethnic population in employment work in the hospitality industry (31.7% vs 18.6% of the white population)^[424].

Gypsy/Travellers were also most likely to be employed in hospitality at the time of the last Census in 2011 (31% of all those who were employed, compared to 21% for the employed population as a whole)^[425]. Asian men and women (20%) were particularly likely to be working in wholesale and retail and accommodation and food services in 2011 compared to 6% for the employed population as a whole^[426].

The COVID-19 Support Scheme for Self-Catering Businesses contributed to advance equality of opportunity for non-UK nationals, Asian people, Gypsy and Travellers as well as visible minority ethnic population at large. Indeed, this fund contributed to maintain self-catering businesses’ financial viability. Since a large proportion of the workforce in the visitor accommodation sector are non-UK nationals, Asian people, Gypsy and Travellers as well as visible minority ethnic population, this fund preserved jobs for these groups of people.

Closing the ethnicity gap will require a cross-government approach and we have made a commitment as such. Indeed, ethnicity pay gap reporting is an important step to identifying and addressing disparities faced by minority ethnic workers. That is why we are committed to publishing an ethnicity pay gap strategy to support our objective to improve labour market outcomes for minority ethnic people in Scotland. The strategy, due to be published in spring next year, will support employers to evidence how different minority ethnic groups are represented in an organisation, across different pay bands. This will also help employers to understand if there are unfair disparities and help drive strategies for the recruitment, retention and progression of minority ethnic groups.

Disability

The Scottish Government recognises that disabled people have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic and lockdown, and we are engaging extensively with Disabled People’s Organisations (DPOs) to understand and tackle the complex reasons for this.

We do not possess data on disabled people for the tourism and hospitality sector specifically. That said,

In 2019, the employment rate for those classed as disabled under the Equality Act 2010 was 49.0 per cent which was significantly lower than the employment rate for non-disabled people (81.6 per cent). In 2019, the disability employment gap was 32.6 percentage points.
The disability employment gap was lower for women (27.5 percentage points) than men (38.2 percentage points) for ages 16 to 64 and across all other age bands. The disability employment gap was lower for young people and increased with age, with the gap being highest for those aged 50 to 64 years, for both women and men^[427].

We can suppose that we find the same proportion in the visitor accommodation sector. The Scottish Government worked in collaboration with its delivery partner Visit Scotland to put in place accessibility measures to ease applications for disabled people. For instance:

There were multiple channels of communication and submission for the applicant if they had accessibility issues.
As the guidance was announced a week earlier than going live with the application form, this allowed any issues to be reported early.
Dedicated emails were set up and Visit Scotland reception redirected any calls as appropriate.
Visit Scotland provided documents in written format to try and ensure that it was accessible to an option of postal application was provided for applicants who may have had difficulty in using digital technology.

This contributed to eliminate discrimination, advance equality of opportunity for self-catering businesses’ owners/employees with a disability and foster good relations with this group of people.

Closing the disability gap will require a cross-government approach and the Scottish Ministers established the Social Renewal Advisory Board in June 2020 to focus on tackling poverty and advancing equality as we began to emerge from the pandemic. The Social Renewal Advisory Board considered issues experienced by disabled people over this period, taking views from a wide range of individuals, groups and organisations. The report “If not now, when?” was published in January 2021. The concluding section of the report identifies a final Call to Action on how the actions in this report can be taken forward.