Kingston upon Thames COVID-19 Business Support Survey

THANK YOU

Following the onset of the COVID-19 lockdown, Kingston Council and its partners, Kingston First and Kingston Chamber of Commerce, shared a short business survey to understand the immediate impacts on and needs of its businesses. We received 120 responses, across a broadly representative sample of sectors and business sizes - thank you for taking the time to contribute. The insights gained from this are informing council and partners' responses to the crisis, and planning for next steps.

If you would like us to keep in touch about future surveys, consultations of information regard business in Kingston please fill out this form

If you have any further comments or questions on the survey findings, or need the results in a more accessible format, then please contact the Regeneration and Economy Team by emailing business@kingston.gov.uk

The full report can be found in the documents sections on this page.

HEADLINE RESULTS

• 40% of respondents indicated a temporary pause in trading
• 46.7% of respondents are unable to trade online
• 82% of respondents think their business will survive less than 6 months
• Many respondents feel their business is vulnerable after not receiving/ being ineligible for grants
• Those who are self-employed and operate from home are most vulnerable

FURTHER FINDINGS...

Of those who responded:

ABILITY TO WORK REMOTELY

• 51.3% said they and / or their staff are unable to work from home
• 26% are fully able to work from home
• 47% are unable to trade online.
• 43.7% are unable to deliver their products to customers’ homes.
• 43% indicated a temporary pause in trading

IMPACT ON BUSINESS OPERATIONS

• 82% think they will survive fewer than 6 months
• 78% said the biggest impact on their business is reduced footfall / no. customers
• 55% are having difficulties paying utilities and other costs while 52% are having difficulties paying rent
• 37.3% have no contingency funding
• Less than 2% have business insurers who will support them
• 16.8% said COVID-19 was having a positive impact on their business

IMPACT ON EMPLOYEES

• 27% do not think they will need to make redundancies or stop deploying people on zero hour or agency contracts. 22.7% said they would need to

RESPONSE TO GOVERNMENT SUPPORT

• Respondents expected to benefit most from the Job Retention Scheme (49%) and Small Business Grant Funding (48%)
• 12% said they were ineligible for Government support
• 76% said they had little to no confidence in Government measures

SUPPORT NEEDED

• Respondents said they would benefit from Financial advice (42%), Marketing and sales support (29%) and Business planning support (25%)
• 33% wanted no support
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WHAT WE ARE DOING WITH THESE FINDINGS?

• We immediately implemented a new 90-day business support programme, through commissioned partners, engaging 360 businesses through webinars, online training and one to one support. This complemented boosting the profile of government, GLA and other support programmes, to target local businesses.
• We tailored our regular communication, via a new database of 3500 businesses, around key information and support opportunities, requested through the survey.
• We are considering the benefits of launching a follow-up survey in six months time, in order to assess changes in businesses’ circumstances.
• We will continue to analyse and review the survey responses to inform communication needs and the implementation of potential future business support packages; the findings from this will be shared both internally and with our partners to inform our broader work.