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Dear Colleague,
With just one full day remaining before the national restrictions come into force, I thought it would be helpful to share the very latest developments since yesterday’s LGA update.
I know that you are working at pace to adapt services and support residents and businesses through the next four weeks whilst also working to ensure that your local area’s infection levels and NHS demands are reduced to allow a de-escalation in regional and local restrictions come December.
Although your focus is rightly on the transition to the national restrictions, just a gentle reminder that Round 7 of the monthly finance returns to MHCLG closes at 11.00pm on Friday this week. It is important to ensure that all relevant costs and income losses are recorded including those funded by the Infection Control Grant, Test and Trace Support Grant, and the tier support funding referred to below. The information you provide in these returns will help us to make the case that the financial impact of the pandemic must be fully funded, including any new pressures arising from the new national restrictions.
If you have any issues you think we should be aware of please get in touch with your Principal Adviser.
National restrictions vs Tiers
Councils have raised questions about how the four-week period of national restrictions will interact with the tier system. The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) has confirmed that, until Thursday 5 November, the relevant Local COVID Alert Level measures will continue to apply. From Thursday, the national restrictions replace the local restrictions. No new areas will move into Tier 3 before Thursday. At the end of four weeks on Wednesday 2 December, Government will seek to ease restrictions by going back into the tiered system on a local and regional basis. The geographic basis by which restrictions are eased will be according to the latest data and trends. We are pressing the Government for a clear and transparent framework for de-escalation in December.
National restrictions
On MHCLG’s Ministerial webinar this afternoon there were a number of queries on the businesses and venues that can remain open from Thursday. Officials have clarified the following:
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Libraries: As of Thursday, libraries will be expected to close except for any click and collect type service.
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Household waste recycling centres: At this point they are not expecting waste and recycling services to be listed as one of the non-essential services that should close. These can therefore remain open. As always, the decision on whether to open a recycling centre rests with the individual local authority, taking into account the safety of staff and managing the risks on a site-by-site basis.
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Outside and farmers markets: MHCLG has clarified that traders selling essential items can continue to trade.
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Caravan parks: These can stay open if accommodating people as their primary residence.
In other points of clarification:
More information can be found from the Government’s new national restrictions guidance, looking at what the measures mean for working from home and business closures, and the financial support available. It makes clear what businesses are included in the list of non-essential closures, including clothing and electronics stores, vehicle showrooms, betting shops, car washes, and tobacco and vape shops. It also specifies what other venues are covered by the measures such as leisure centres and gyms, sports facilities, including swimming pools, entertainment venues and personal care businesses. Non-essential retail can remain open for delivery to customers and click-and-collect, and playgrounds are also exempt. The only retailers that can remain open during this time are food shops, supermarkets, garden centres and those providing essential goods and services.
The draft Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (England) (No. 4) Regulations 2020 , which will be laid before parliament tomorrow, are also now available.
Funding for councils
Last night, the Government announced that single tier and county councils will receive a one-off payment of £8 per head to support local test, trace and contain activities and wider measures to protect public health and local economies. Nationally, this Contain Outbreak Management Fund (COMF) amounts to £465 million and was announced as part of the 3-tier system introduced by the Government on 12 October. Where councils have already received funding from the COMF this will be increased to the maximum of £8 per head. Councils in ‘very high’ alert areas have already received this funding at £8 per head and, according to the Government, will not receive additional funding from the COMF. We are seeking clarity about the period this payment is intended to cover.
A further £32 million will be allocated to single tier and county councils to enable them to support clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) people allocated on the basis of £14.60 per CEV person. This funding relates to the 28-day period the national restrictions are in force.
In addition, the Government will provide one-off funding of £1.1 billion to billing authorities in England, distributed on the basis of £20 per head, to enable councils to support businesses over the coming months. Councils already in ‘very high’ alert areas will already have been notified of this payment. The support available to business is covered in more detail below. This resource can be used at councils’ discretion in the financial year 2020/21 (and in 2021/22 for programmes started in 2020/21).
Business support
The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS) has today written to billing authorities with details of the Local Restriction Support Grants announced yesterday. BEIS is expecting to publish guidance later today, with allocations to follow in the next few days. The Local Restrictions Support Grant will allow billing authorities to give grants of up to £3,000 (with the amounts per business linked to rateable value) per business that is required to close for the period from 5 November to 2 December.
As part of the previous support available to businesses in high and very level alert areas, billing authorities will receive a discretionary grant based on the number of businesses in hospitality, leisure and accommodation sectors that suffered from reduced demand from 1 August to 5 November.
As mentioned in the bulletin yesterday and above, the Government announced the £1.1 billion Additional Restrictions Grant, a one-off payment of £20 per head to all billing authorities to enable them to support businesses. This is a discretionary grant scheme for local authorities to decide how to use it to support business.
BEIS are planning to hold live sessions on the schemes tomorrow (Wednesday 4 November) and Monday 9 November. For more information or if you have any queries please contact businessgrantfunds@beis.gov.uk.
We will continue to discuss the schemes with Government officials. Please let us know if you have any comments: lgfinance@local.gov.uk.
The Government has also today announced that extra welfare support for the self-employed will be extended for a further six months until end of April 2021. Universal Credit will continue to be calculated based on current earnings by extending the Minimum Income Floor suspension. The existing regulations are due to expire on 12 November.
Enforcement
With the regulations setting out the new restrictions expected imminently, we have been involved in discussions with officials at MHCLG to raise your queries and feedback from earlier business closure regulations. We will keep you updated as soon as we have further information.
As before, the Office for Product Safety and Standards (OPSS) will be developing guidance for councils on enforcement of the new regulations, as well as template prohibition notices and fixed penalty notices. Please email OPSS.enquiries@beis.gov.uk if you have any queries about the regulations. They will liaise with relevant departments to provide clarity on issues that aren’t clear. We are working with OPSS and MHCLG to ensure that any information arising from these queries can be better shared consistently across all councils and are emphasising the importance of swift responses to support your work locally.
Test and trace
At the meeting of the Local Outbreak Plan Advisory Board tomorrow, we will get an update from Dr Carolyn Wilkins OBE, who is working at the centre of government, helping to shape and implement the Test and Trace arrangements. We will use this opportunity, and other discussions, to push the urgent need to build upon successful local efforts to address the current inadequacies of the national NHS Test and Trace scheme.
We continue to make the case for councils to have clearer, more precise information on who they should be trying to contact as soon as possible, alongside the right resources including funding and recruiting extra personnel to work on the ground and respond quickly to outbreaks.
I also want to give you advance notice of a Chief Executives webinar we are facilitating on behalf of Carolyn Wilkins this Friday 6 November at 3.00pm, lasting for one hour. Carolyn is keen to update us on her work on the ‘Contain’ part of the Government’s strategy, particularly following the Prime Minister’s announcement on Saturday. A more detailed invitation will be sent tomorrow, but for now please do hold the slot in your diary.
Support for people who are clinically extremely vulnerable
Further to the update in yesterday’s bulletin, the Government is providing more than £32 million un-ringfenced funding to unitary and county councils in England to support people who are clinically extremely vulnerable (CEV) during the planned month of restrictions, with funding expected to be passported to districts as appropriate. This funding is per person on the CEV list rather than based on the numbers expected to request support and is designed to fund access to food and meeting other support needs. The emphasis will be on CEV people accessing priority supermarket slots where they have no other means of support, rather than food deliveries, though these may be required for some very isolated individuals.
A meeting of the shielding stakeholder engagement forum this afternoon provided further information, ahead of guidance which is expected to be published later tonight or tomorrow morning.
The Government has advised that the letters to people on the CEV list will start to be sent out shortly. There will be two letters, one for adults and one for parents/guardians of CEV children. The Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) have advised that the letter to parents/guardians sets out the process for reviewing the status of all children, explaining that it is expected that the vast majority of children will be removed from the CEV list, and that they should contact their child’s clinicians if they have not heard from them already. The Government has written to NHS trusts asking them to expedite the reviews of individual children’s status and advising that they may hear from parents in response to the letter on this.
We are still awaiting clear advice on the implications for school age CEV children and young people in terms of attending school, but the Government has clarified that children of CEV adults should attend school, just as non-CEV adults in the same household as CEV adults should attend work.
For adults, the list of CEV individuals remains the same, with the addition of two new groups; adults with Downs Syndrome and with Stage 5 Chronic Kidney Disease, which is expected to add an additional 70,000-80,000 people to the list by the end of next week.
Councils should soon start receiving lists of people who have registered via the National Shielding Service System (NSSS) website, which goes live nationally today. Data from the NSSS will be shared with councils on a daily basis, starting from tomorrow; MHCLG are continuing to run sessions for council officers to provide an overview of the system and answer queries. Guidance will encourage all CEV people to register regardless of whether they want support, although it is expected that this will be a significantly lower number than during the first lockdown. Following calls to councils asking about when food parcels will restart since the announcement of the new measures, councils on the forum emphasised the need for clear national communications that the new scheme will not provide food parcels other than as a last resort.
MHCLG have also advised that they are working to develop a proportionate approach to information reporting and will share this as soon as possible. Again, the reporting framework outline in the October framework provides a guide to what is likely to be required.
If you wish to share any queries or issues, please do let your representative on the MHCLG chaired Stakeholder Engagement Forum know. Thank you to members of this group for commenting on proposals. You can also email shielding@communities.gov.uk.
We remain keen to share council practice so please do let your know Principal Adviser know of any good practice supporting vulnerable groups in your community during the forthcoming restrictions or the earlier tiers, particularly around communications, access to food and wellbeing support.
Rough sleeping and homelessness
Many of you have told us that you are working to understand the implications of new national restrictions for your work with people experiencing homelessness and rough sleeping. We are working with government to understand how expectations on councils will evolve and be funded.
Today, I attended a meeting of the Rough Sleeping Advisory panel, where I highlighted that councils need urgent clarity on new arrangements alongside an adequate funding settlement. We also called on Government to ensure that success can be maintained in the long term, by temporarily lifting the No Recourse to Public Funds condition, maintaining support through the welfare benefits system, committing to a cross-government focus on homelessness prevention, and ensuring that local government has stable funding for planning their services in the longer-term.
Children’s services
Ofsted has today announced that all focussed visits of children’s services will be paused. In addition, following evidence and feedback from the LGA and Association of Directors of Childrens Services (ADCS), when these are restarted they will be delivered in a way that is less of burden for councils with less information requested upfront and inspectors spending less time onsite. Ofsted will provide further information this week about its inspection programme when it has fully considered the implications of the new national restrictions.
Ofsted’s programme of autumn visits to schools and colleges will take place remotely from 5 November and local area SEND visits, assurance visits to children’s homes, residential special schools and residential family centres are paused. Monitoring visits to any children’s home, residential special school or residential family centre and assurance visits in independent fostering agencies will continue if supported by a risk assessment.
National Tutoring Programme
Thirty-two providers have been approved to deliver tutoring to disadvantaged pupils as part of the national tutoring programme ‘Tuition Partners’. Delivered through the Education Endowment Foundation, an independent charity, schools will be able to access tuition from an approved list of providers, subsidised by 75 per cent.
The approved providers cover all regions of England and include a mix of for-profits, charities, a local authority, a school partnership and a university. The providers will deliver a range of one-to-one and small group tuition both online and face-to-face.
Tuition Partners have initially been funded to provide subsidised tutoring for up to 250,000 pupils, from November 2020. This will increase the amount of tutoring available to disadvantaged children but is not enough to provide support to every disadvantaged pupil in England.
Help us, Help You
Today NHS England, NHS Improvement and Public Health England (PHE) have launched the next phase of their ‘Help us, Help You’ campaign to remind pregnant woman about the importance of attending check-ups, contacting their midwife or maternity team when something doesn’t feel right, and to reassure them the NHS is available to see them safely. So far, the campaign has focused on encouraging the public to contact their GP if they are worried about a symptom that could be cancer. To help you continue to share the messages across your own communication channels, NHS England have produced several resources available to download from PHEs Campaign Resource Centre.
#CouncilsCan Day – 10 November
There is now just one week left to go until #CouncilsCan Day. We are encouraging council staff and councillors to come together to share the amazing work you have been doing during the pandemic by using the hashtag #CouncilsCan across your social networks. This is a great opportunity for us all to come together to shine a spotlight on councils’ outstanding work and the urgent need for financial certainty for councils in the upcoming Spending Review. Resources to help councils promote #CouncilsCan Day, including social media materials, suggested messaging and a press release template are now available on our website. Separate packs for councillors and other stakeholders will be available shortly. If you have any questions or stories from your council you want to share on the day, please contact my colleague Amelia.Sutton@local.gov.uk.
Remembrance Sunday
MHCLG has confirmed that outdoor Remembrance Sunday services at war memorials and local cenotaphs can still take place, but they should be reduced in size and observe strict social distancing. Communal services of remembrance inside places of worship will not be possible due to the new national restrictions. The Government guidance on Remembrance Sunday has now been updated to reflect these changes.
I know councils have a number of queries about other upcoming events throughout November including, but not limited to, Thursday’s Bonfire Night and Diwali on Saturday 14 November. MHCLG has confirmed to councils that this guidance is specific to Remembrance Sunday events only and should not be used to apply to other events, ceremonies or festivals. We will update on further advice relating to other events as we get it.
Exit payment reforms
And finally, one non-COVID-19 issue. The £95,000 cap on exit payments comes into force tomorrow. We will be holding a webinar ‘Exit payment reforms’ for councils this Friday, 6 November, 1:30 to 2:30pm. More guidance is expected from MHCLG on the approach councils should take to exits between 4 November and whenever the Local Government Pension Scheme (LGPS) rules are amended, probably early in the new year, however, this has not yet been confirmed.
My next scheduled bulletin will be on Friday. I will of course send further updates if anything significant happens before then. In the meantime, I send best wishes from all of us within the LGA as you lead your council into the national restrictions.
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Best wishes,
Mark Lloyd
Chief Executive
Local Government Association
@MarkLloydLGA
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