Agenda item

This report provides Business Support Overview & Scrutiny Members with the opportunity to scrutinise the latest steps taken by the Council to assist Medway to begin recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

Discussion:

Members considered a report which provided the Committee with the opportunity to scrutinise the latest steps taken by the Council to assist Medway to begin recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.

The following issues were discussed:

·       Re-opening of High Streets and markets – the question of what the Council could do to enforce social distancing at boot fairs and protect sellers from thefts was raised. The Chief Finance Officer responded that this was more a matter for the police, but that he would refer this matter to Recovery Work Stream 1 to look at what could be done.

·       Education, Health and Care Plans (EHCPS) – reference was made to errors at the start of the pandemic where EHCPs had been posted to wrong addresses. The Chief Finance Officer advised that he could not comment on the detail of this issue. Backlogs had inevitably developed in several services and officers were doing their best to try and catch up.

·       Household Waste Recycling Centres (HWRCs) – it was clarified that it was no longer possible to book a slot at the Pepperhill HWRC via the Council’s website as Kent County Council had taken on responsibility for bookings at their sites.

Test and trace – noting the powers being given to local councils, the capacity to provide a test and trace service was queried. Members were advised that the Council had been given £1.5m to mitigate against and manage local outbreaks of Covid-19. In response to whether this funding was sufficient, the Chief Finance Officer commented that it was probably sufficient provided there was not a significant outbreak in Medway.

Whether the IT systems used by the Council could be used to securely transfer data to the Test and Trace team was queried. The Chief Finance Officer undertook to investigate this.

In response to queries about test and trace data collection in libraries, the Chief Finance Officer undertook to look into why a library card could not be used to provide the necessary personal details and also why residents could not use their own laptops in libraries.

·       Re-opening of leisure centres – whether the free-swimming scheme had been put on hold was queried, which the Chief Finance Officer agreed to clarify and report back. In terms of when the Strand Leisure Centre would re-open, Members were advised that a lack of certainty and the lead time required for emptying, cleaning and refilling, had led to Gold Command making the decision not to re-open it this summer.

·       Purchase of residents parking permits – the Chief Finance Officer agreed to establish when libraries and community hubs would re-commence issuing residents’ parking permits.

·       Government Covid funding – Members asked for more detail on lost income and government funding received for Covid, including what elements were ring fenced, the timescales for spending grants, expenditure to date and the remaining balance. The Chief Finance Officer stated further details would be provided in the Quarter 1 revenue monitoring report and gave an assurance that additional funding received had been used to help businesses and residents and any conditions attached to ring fenced grants had been met.

·       Economy Cell – a request was made for the Medway Trades Cell to be involved in this work. In terms of when the action plans relating to the Strategic Planning Workstream would be finalised, the Chief Finance Officer commented that usually this was the time to refresh the Council Plan but the view of the Corporate Management Team was to instead focus on a more short term plan which focused on the recovery from the pandemic before taking stock of what the longer term strategic plan should be.

·       Economic impact on individuals – given increased unemployment levels and the cumulative effect of reduced monthly incomes on people furloughed, the point was made that the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) would hopefully consider this wider context when agreeing debt recovery plans. The Chief Finance Officer assured Members that the Council was aware of this risk and continued to work closely with the DWP. The Council would be adopting a phased approach to recovering debts in line with the Government’s ‘Breathing Space’ guidance.

In the light of the reduction in the number of apprenticeship positions, it was asked whether the Council could prioritise apprenticeships and local labour in its large infrastructure projects. The Chief Finance Officer commented that the Procurement Strategy required businesses the Council contracted with on a large scale to include apprenticeships and  was also designed to give small and medium enterprises in Medway the same opportunity to win Council business as large suppliers.

·       Prospect of local lockdown - an assurance was sought that the Council was prepared for a local lockdown and had learned lessons from other areas. The Chief Finance Officer believed that measures were in place to hopefully prevent a local lockdown, but the Council was well prepared if there was an outbreak. As to whether the Council could do anything to encourage the enforcement of face coverings in supermarkets, the Chief Finance Officer commented that the Council had engaged well with local businesses. There was a limit to what local businesses could do if the rules were not being followed but he did not consider this was a significant problem in Medway.

·       Role of staff  - several Members commended staff for the agility and commitment demonstrated in responding to the pandemic, noting many employees had switched quickly to new roles.

·       Voluntary and Community Sector (VCS) – given many VCS organisations were now in greater financial difficulties, an assurance was sought that Council contracts which relied on the VCS took that into account and that the Council was realistic about what could be achieved. The Chief Finance Officer replied that the VCS were supported financially in the early stages of the pandemic. Longer term, the VCS Recovery Cell would be assessing the scale of the financial losses suffered by the sector.

·       Recovery plan – the danger of “silo” working was referred to in the light of the various workstreams and cells set up to work on recovering from the pandemic. The Chief Finance Officer assured Members that a joined-up approach had been adopted and was working well. Tactical Command comprised most of the service managers who took decisions jointly. The various cells looking at specific themes had their own action plans, but a mechanism was built in whereby cross cutting issues were considered.

·       Ending of ban on evictions – noting this ban was about to end and in response to a question about the preparedness of the Council, the Head of Housing advised that this had the potential to cause bottlenecks in the system. However, the team had been talking to registered providers and were engaging with them on cases to help prevent evictions. If necessary, staff would be redeployed to respond to any increase in evictions and homelessness.

Decision:

The Committee agreed to note the Council’s role in the recovery phase of the Covid-19 pandemic.

(In accordance with Council Rule 12.6, Councillors Khan, Maple and Murray asked that their votes in favour be recorded.)