City puts the cost of Covid at £40m
REDUCTION IN PARKING INCOME, PLANNING FEES, WITH TOURISM ALSO BADLY HIT
THE fight to stop the spread of coronavirus and support services is set to cost Leicester City Council more than £40 million.
That is the finding of a report which members of the authority’s Overview Select Committee will discuss when it meets next week.
The report said the city council is expecting about £34 million in government funding towards the total.
However, its authors expressed concern about a further rise in costs if the number of cases continues to grow.
The report is the first review of the council’s total spending so far this year, which has been dominated by the effects of the pandemic and Leicester lockdown.
Mayor Sir Peter Soulsby said: “I am very pleased with the way our staff have responded to the pandemic and helped protect vulnerable people and businesses while keeping services running.
“At the same time, this has come at a cost and the government grant falls some way short of meeting our losses.”
Areas of extra spending highlighted in the report include:
■ £600,000 spent on IT to enable staff to work from home.
■ £11.6 million losses in planning, development and transport, chiefly through reductions in parking income and planning fees.
■ Losses of £4.3 million in tourism and culture, mainly due to the closure of De Montfort Hall and reductions in market rents.
■ £1.8 million additional spending in neighbourhood services.
■ Additional costs of about £4.7 million to help care providers in adult social care.
■ Sports services saw additional costs of £3.2 million due to the closure of council-run leisure centres.
■ £1.1 million extra spending on delivering food to vulnerable people across the city.
Alison Greenhill, the city council’s director of finance, said she believed the “full picture” would not be known for some time, but that she did not envisage any cuts having to be made to services in the short term.
“The pandemic is far from over and it will be some time before we get a final picture,” she said.
“Much depends on how quickly we emerge from lockdown, and the speed of economic recovery.
“We do keep reserves in case of the unexpected, so we are not considering immediate cuts to services to balance the books.”
The council has also received £79 million from the government to administer business support grants during the pandemic, and a further £48 million for additional rate reliefs for firms.