Covid 19 has had a significant impact on local businesses. The Covid 19 Recovery Plan identifies a range of measures the council will undertake in 2021/22 to support the soonest possible recovery. This includes a focus on encouraging people to buy locally, particularly in the run up to and over the Christmas period. This will support local businesses to recover, and safeguard local jobs.

The council is looking to incentivise residents to spend locally on a wide range of activities, such as visiting local attractions, spending in independent retailers, trying a new activity, fitness or craft/ creative course, or eating out at local food and drink venues. We want to do this by inviting households to apply for a payment card that is pre-loaded with an amount of money which they will be able to spend at participating businesses within Herefordshire.

The principle behind this approach is that it encourages people to spend in local businesses, catalysing recovery of the economy in some of the most impacted businesses, and it supports improved health and wellbeing.

The council is looking to engage with a service provider to provide a payment card system that can deliver the council’s set of requirements and ambitions for incentivising local spend.

The scheme will invite each household in the county to apply for a payment card that is preloaded with an amount of funds. This card will then be available for use at any participating business within Herefordshire.

The council has undertaken a procurement process to secure a specialised payment card provider (allpay ltd) to administer all payment card based elements of the scheme including:

1. Receipt of verified card applications from the council and issuing of payment cards to qualifying households.

2. Ensuring spend is restricted to within Herefordshire at participating businesses and excludes certain business categories such as betting shops, off-licences, lottery and casinos.

3. Management of all queries and interactions with businesses and card holders.

4. Overall management of spend within the project financial parameters including any top up of issued cards and retrieval of unspent funds.

5. Reporting to the council on scheme and spend progress.

The payment card provider (allpay ltd) will be paid a fee (£122,850) for the management of the scheme and tasks outlined above.