Council estimates pandemic could cost it over £9m in three months
BRIDGEND County Borough Council has estimated that the cost of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic in additional spend and lost income during the first three months of the financial year will be more than £9m.
The local authority estimates it will spend more than £5m in the first quarter of the 2020/21 financial year in response to the crisis.
The additional costs include procuring Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) to support the ongoing delivery of council services as well as the wider care sector, providing emergency accommodation for homeless people and the provision of food to those entitled to free school meals.
It also includes areas such as the provision of support to domiciliary and residential care providers to reflect the additional costs of providing care during the pandemic, and to support their ongoing viability; the provision of supplier relief, paid in accordance with government guidelines, in order to ensure service continuity both during and after the current Covid-19 outbreak; IT infrastructure to enable home-working for large numbers of staff; and the costs incurred to deliver widespread operational changes necessary to ensure the safe delivery of services, for example, the disposal of waste and the delivery of bereavement services
The local authority is also experiencing a significant drop in both actual income in the short term, and forecast income for the medium term.
It estimates that it will lose more than £4m during the first quarter of 2020/21 as a direct result of Covid-19. Lost income during the lockdown period is the result of the closure of some council venues as well as a reduction in activity in areas such as planning, parking, traffic offences, trade waste, registration and school catering.
Council leader Huw David said: “Covid-19 and associated lockdown measures have had significant financial implications for the council in terms of additional costs.
“The £5m additional expenditure is an estimate that is being kept under constant review - and is additional to the cost of business grants which are administered by the local authority, but reimbursed by Welsh Government.
“It is being updated regularly as further pressures emerge - such as assessing the financial impact of a significant increase in the number of applications for council tax support, and efforts to establish effective local ‘test, trace and protect’ services as part of an all-Wales initiative.
“While the council maintains a number of reserves, only some of these are usable with most earmarked for specific schemes and projects.”
Deputy leader and cabinet member for resources Hywel Williams said: “While Welsh Government is providing funding to meet some of our additional costs, we do not know whether this will continue to be met in full or not.
“The council may need to draw on the reserves to support these additional pressures, but as the position is constantly evolving in response to Welsh and central Government announcements, it is not possible to put a figure on any potential call on reserves at this stage, nor to predict whether some or all of these will prove to be needed.”