Approval for covid review

TWELVE recommendations to the council borne out of the coronavirus pandemic were approved by the executive.

They were voting on a report by the Overview and Scrutiny Committee based on the experiences of the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

The report was introduced by Cllr Pauline Helliar-Symons (Con, Wokingham Without): “I have great pleasure in introducing this report,” she told the executive, saying that “We felt the council has done a superb job in coping with this pandemic”.

Some of the 12 issues were already being addressed, such as council staff and councillors undergoing mental health first aid training.

Recommendations include a commendation to the efforts of staff, councillors, partners and community volunteers to ensure that key services remained operational.

On care homes, the executive want to ensure that staff do not work in more than one home and appropriate social distancing measures are applied.

The welfare of council staff during the next phases of the pandemic was highlighted, as was the ‘relative sparsity of data’ on domestic violence.

This led to a new support contract being approved at the January executive. A similar approach to poverty is being worked on.

A call to ensure that people aged 21-25 who have left care settings should be exempt from paying council tax has been met and comes into force from April.

Going forward, the council will tailor its covid response to specific community groups and ensure the messaging is appropriate for that setting, be it for a ward area or to targeted communities.

The report calls on the council to continue the partnerships with external organisations including the voluntary sector, health, police, schools and town and parish councils.

There is also scope for the council to learn from the operational issues learnt during the pandemic, which has seen staff redeployed to maintain essential services while others were shut due to government restrictions.

Cllr UllaKarin Clark asked for an amendment to be made to the report, saying she was not happy with the first sentence in the section about children’s services being amended to ensure staff and children were safe, as it “gives the impression that this was not the case before … that’s definitely not true”.

Cllr Gregor Murray noted “how pleased I am at the amount of focus the report has given to mental health across our community”, urging all councillors to undergo mental health first aid training “as soon as they can”.

Summing up, Cllr John Halsall said that the report was being considered almost a year to the day that the first case of covid was confirmed in the borough.

“I have been extremely proud to be leader in this period … the emergency planning regime kick in, we involved the voluntary sector, the health sector and, I must say that, by and large, we did a pretty good job.

“We have phenomenal officers who have stepped up to the plate.”

The report was approved unanimously.