£115m to cover crisis but council hopes to get money back

SWANSEA Council is earmarking £115m to meet the cost of dealing with the coronavirus, but leaders expect to get most of the money they end up spending back.

Councillors were told at a meeting that £100m could be used from the revenue budget and £15m from the capital budget.

Referring to the revenue sum, council leader Rob Stewart said: “It does not mean we are £100m down. We have changed what we’ve spent our money on.”

Like all local authorities, Swansea has provided extra social care and free school meals, bolstered food banks, created child care hubs and is now operating coronavirus contact tracing teams, among other roles.

The council has an additional 140 social care workers to call on, and has created two new care settings in Sketty and Gorseinon. Support is also being offered to independent care homes.

Cllr Stewart outlined the authority’s Covid-19 response at a scrutiny committee meeting yesterday, and reiterated his thanks to everyone.

He said some non-emergency services “have hibernated”, but added that work was under way on what he described as a recovery plan for Swansea.

He hoped the Welsh Government’s lockdown review this week would offer some good news for businesses.

Since the lockdown the number of pupils eligible for free school meals has shot up from 4,000 to 7,500 in Swansea. The council is also receiving less money than normal from fees and charges, and has seen a drop in council tax income in April and May.

The Swansea leader said: “My view is that the majority of everything we have incurred is to be covered by UK and Welsh governments.”

But he warned new recruits would be needed for the contact tracing, whose role is to ensure that infected people and their recent contacts isolate.

The council’s chief finance officer, Ben Smith, said he was relaxed about the situation “given we are in very unusual times”.

Cllr Chris Holley said he was worried Swansea’s manufacturing and retail base “is slowly collapsing”, and felt it was imperative the city capitalised on home-grown tourism when travel restrictions eased.

“It is going to be an extremely important part of our economy in the future,” he said.