Pandemic recovery strategy endorsed by councillors

The Borough Council’s Finance and Policy Committee welcomed the preparation of a COVID-19 Recovery and Renewal Plan to guide the work of the authority and partner organisations in coming years.

The plan has been drafted following extensive consultation with stakeholders, including councillors, council staff, partner agencies, schools and colleges, faith communities, the voluntary and community sector and the business community.

Councillor Shane Moore, Leader of the Council and Chair of the Committee, said: “The social and economic consequences of COVID-19 are going to be deep and far-reaching, so we need a plan that sets out a co-ordinated approach for bringing stakeholders together.”

Two immediate opportunities are identified in the plan to use existing Council funds to support businesses and invest in the local voluntary and community sector.

· Business Support Fund - the Council has earmarked £500,000 for a local business investment grant scheme to help businesses adapt to changing economic circumstances and re-animate key sectors, including culture, tourism and the visitor economy.

· Community Fund – Working with the voluntary, community and faith sectors, the Council is proposing to bring together a range of funding streams for tackling poverty and hardship into a single community fund of £200,000, along with an additional sum of £25,000 to provide new out-of-school opportunities for vulnerable children and young people.

A number of working groups are also to be established to develop and deliver action plans in a range of key areas.

Councillor Moore added: “The Borough’s recovery will require a significant fiscal stimulus beyond the resources currently available to the Council, so it is vital that we harness the resources of all agencies and influence regional and national Government.”

Whilst welcoming the almost £7 million of COVID-19 financial support received from the Government to date, he said it wasn’t enough to cover the additional costs incurred by the authority and loss of income due to the temporary suspension of services.

The Council has also distributed additional Government grant funding to businesses, paying £17.3 million to 1,540 businesses – 97% of the businesses assessed as being eligible. It is also on target to distribute a further £876,000 of discretionary grant funding to businesses that didn’t qualify for help under previous schemes. The Council is currently awaiting further details of a Government initiative to compensate it for lost income.

Councillor Moore said the pandemic has brought into sharp focus the inadequacies of the current local government funding system and the need for urgent reform.

He criticised the shifting of the burden of financing local services from government grant on to Council Tax in recent years and said: “A new system for funding local services needs to recognise that for many councils, including Hartlepool, that Government funding will continue to be critical as Council Tax income is not sufficient to fund local services without creating a post code lottery for service provision.”

As part of its written submission to the Government ahead of the national Spending Review, the Finance and Policy Committee agreed to call on the Government to fully fund a Council Tax freeze in 2021/22 amid concerns over the ability of many Hartlepool residents to pay increasing bills.