Plans to publish a league table of how quickly councils are doling out grants to help businesses have been met with anger from local government.

The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) is planning to publish a list of the numbers of support grants paid to councils under the Government’s coronavirus support scheme and the total cash paid so far.

BEIS has claimed it is not a league table as the local authorities will be listed alphabetically - not by the proportion of businesses they have helped.

However, it is expected that the list, which is due to be published at 2.30pm on Monday, will be used to name and shame the authorities that have not yet processed many payments.

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