Issue - meetings
COVID19 - Update report and position statement
Meeting: 29/05/2020 - Cabinet (Item 11)
11 COVID19 - Update report and position statement PDF 91 KB
This report summaries the Council’s local response to the COVID-19 pandemic. It sets out the revised Governance Arrangements to ensure that the Council took quick and decisive action to effectively manage the impacts of the coronavirus as they arise.
As a result of the exceptional circumstances facing the country in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Council has streamlined its decision-making processes to respond quickly and effectively to situations as they arise in order to meet obligations to protect life, contain and mitigate the impact of the emergency, and to create the conditions needed for an eventual recovery to a new normality.
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The Chair introduced this item by saying that it was important to share publicly what the Council’s response has been to the COVID-19 pandemic. The Council has been busy making sure that there was a plan in place to address what was needed to be done by all Council services and our partners.
The Chair informed the meeting that the COVID-19 update report and position statements have been presented to the Corporate Policy Development and Scrutiny Panel, on Wednesday 27th May 2020.
The Chair read out the summary report of the comments and recommendations made by the Corporate PDS Panel.
(A summary of the Panel’s findings has been placed on the Minute book as Appendix 3 and are available on the Council's website).
The Chair thanked the Corporate PDS Panel for their comments and invited Will Godfrey (Chief Executive) to take the meeting through the report.
Will Godfrey said that it was important to recognise that the Council have been through some extraordinary set of circumstances which have required adoption of practices from middle of March, where everyone had to adapt and adopt to different ways of working.
The emergency was formally declared on 23rd March 2020 (by the Chief Executive). It was important to recognise that this Cabinet meeting would mark the end of that process in the sense of establishing all of the democratic processes and ensure full accountability for all of the decisions that have been taken during and since that time. Will Godfrey also said that the Council have been transparent about what has been happening during that period making sure that there were regular communications with every resident.
In the early parts of the Declaration of the Emergency, the Council was focused on issues around public health in particular (for instance, closing down the play areas to manage social distancing; temporary closure of the heritage sites and a number of other similar measures). The Compassionate Communities Hub was established to try to assist people who were shielding, and to provide a facility for those most vulnerable.
At the same time, from the Council’s organisational perspective, a lot has changed. The Council had around 1,500 people working from home with interactions on Skype, Zoom and similar.
Will Godfrey took the Cabinet through the rest of the report by highlighting help to businesses and that the Council was now in the middle of the COVID-19 situation. Due to this unprecedented crisis, the Council would face huge financial challenges this year, and in years to come. The officers would continue to bring update reports to Cabinet and other Council meetings to ensure that everybody was aware on their ongoing work.
Will Godfrey reminded the Cabinet that the full COVID-19 financial recovery report would be presented to the Cabinet on 2nd July 2020.
The Chair thanked Will Godfrey for this summary and invited each member of the Cabinet to comment on Council’s response to COVID-19.
Councillor Sarah Warren started her comments by expressing her sympathy for ... view the full minutes text for item 11
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