Highland Council to consider ending additional services provided in response to pandemic
Highland councillors will be asked to agree that all additional services it has provided in response to the coronavirus pandemic should stop at the end of July unless directly funded by government.
The move is among a range of measures to be discussed at a special full Highland Council meeting next Thursday.
Councillors are warned the impact of coronavirus could see its budget gap widen to up to £96.9 million.
Adding to the financial woes is an estimated £38,000 per week bill to provide childcare for key workers with at least £185,000 spent already.
If there is no government support to pay for the places that have already been commissioned until the end of the summer holidays, the total minimum cost is estimated at £799,000.
A report from council finance officials to councillors stated: "This is one of the areas of new provision that the council is asked to cease from the end of July, unless new funding is provided by the government for this purpose. From that date, parents requiring childcare over and above the council’s statutory provision, will need to make their own arrangements."
Other services that are set to stop would include the council's so-called humanitarian assistance centres and food provision for vulnerable people.
The report added: "Given the cost to the council of providing these additional services and the wider budget context, their long-term provision is not deemed affordable. To date the council has sought to minimise the budgetary impact of providing these services by resourcing them from the existing staffing compliment and using council facilities/premises wherever possible.
"This may prove increasingly challenging as staff are required to return to their substantive roles. As such the council is asked to cease provision of all additional Covid-19 response services, unless directly funded from specific additional government funding, from the end of July onwards."
Move to lobby the UK and Scottish governments for additional funding and flexibility in the use of funding to help address the budget gap will also be tabled.
Councillors will also be asked to agree to decisions that they took no part in after regular meetings were suspended in March – a move that many members, who have complained of a lack of scrutiny, are likely to question.
At the start of the outbreak unelected officials took control of the Covid-19 response for a month without official scrutiny – until mid-April when a special sub group was formed of high-ranking councillors.
That led to highly disputed move to allow those leading the two planning committees alongside officers to make the decisions outwith the public eye – a practice that has now ended.
Now the local authority is set to return to “near normal” operations with committees and boards to be restarted as much as possible.
But in what is a major shift in how the council will function, members will be asked to approve the role and remit of the newly formed recovery board, which was set up in a bid to lessen or undo the damage of the lockdown to the local authority’s services and finances.
If it is agreed the board will be granted sweeping new powers and will operate almost like a cabinet as it puts forward policies that will impact almost all the local authority’s work.
They include schools reopening, political governance, the recovery of the Highland economy, the environment, infrastructure including roads, community empowerment, staffing workforce planning and asset management.
