8. Overexpenditure by Claimants

Once a grant has been approved for a particular amount that amount may not be increased, neither can new categories of expenditure be introduced. Boards may, however, consider requests for reallocation of expenditure between approved items for BDIG and EGDS. In considering such requests, Boards must ensure that the overexpenditure has occurred because of unforeseen circumstances that are beyond the applicant’s control. In all such cases a report shall be prepared and a recommendation made. The procedure for making a decision on these requests is to be the same as that followed in the original approval process.

9. Time Extensions

Grants may only be approved for:

• BDIG, one year;
• EAGS, six months for all target areas except quality - quality approvals, 9 months;
• EGDS, no longer than the timeframe in which the activity is to be undertaken plus two months.

Requests for time extensions must be made in writing to the Board by the applicant. The maximum extension which can be approved is three months.

Boards cannot consider extension requests for grants that have lapsed.

The same approval procedure needs to be followed as for the original decision - a brief report shall be prepared for the Board’s consideration.

10. Register of Final Reports

Each Board is required to keep a register of final reports. Each time it receives a final report, which must be in the prescribed standard format, it should forward a copy of it to the Ministry. The Ministry will keep a master list of all such reports. The information in these will be used by the Ministry as a basis for reporting on the schemes to the Minister, to the Government, and to other Boards at not less than once per quarter.

11. Definition of Applicant for all Three Schemes

For the purposes of determining qualifying costs “applicant” does not only mean the person submitting the application but shall include:

• that person’s employees;
• employees of subsidiary/associate/parent companies;
• immediate family members.

12. Consideration of all Eligible Applications

All applications meeting the relevant scheme’s criteria must be considered by the Board.

13. Appeals

The Minister is the appeal authority. In considering appeals the Minister will instruct the Ministry to evaluate each appeal and make a recommendation to him or her.

The relevant Board must comply with all requests by the Ministry for information relating to the processing of the application to which the appeal relates.

Appeals will only be considered if they are received by the Minister within 2 months of the date of the relevant decline letter from the relevant Board notifying the applicant that the application has been declined.

14. Business Development Investigation Grant

Scheme Philosophy

The BDIG scheme provides assistance to investigate the feasibility and/or viability of new projects. It does not provide assistance to establish businesses.

The overall aim of the scheme is to ensure that business ideas/proposals are thoroughly researched - once an applicant has done this they should be better placed to obtain commercial funding to establish their business.

The scheme has been designed to stimulate innovative and economically viable businesses throughout New Zealand; businesses which will fully realise the potential of the resources and development opportunities of each region.

Assistance available

The scheme is available throughout New Zealand and offers 50 percent of approved investigation costs to a maximum grant of $20,000 per project.

Any individual, business or organisation including local authorities, Port companies and State Owned Enterprises, may apply. Government departments are not eligible for assistance.

Eligibility criteria

To be eligible for assistance, a project must meet two criteria:

• It must be a lawful activity; and
• The project must be new to the region in that its technical feasibility and/or commercial viability has yet to be established in the region.