The Government has still not confirmed whether it will give Leeds extra cash to cover the costs of Covid-19, despite claims from Leeds City Council that an ’emergency budget’ – along with hundreds of job losses – could be as little as three months away, writes Richard Beecham.

Top civil servants and decision-makers in the city warned this week that the council faced unprecedented financial trouble due to increased costs and loss of income resulting from the lockdown.

The authority has so far received £43.7m from the government to help cover extra Covid-19-related costs, but it claims this only partially fixes a predicted £200m shortfall, most of which resulted from lost income over the last few months.

Now the Local Government Association and local MPs have added their voice to calls for extra cash to be made available for councils, with Leeds Northwest MP Alex Sobel claiming he will pressure government on the issue in Parliament.

The Ministry for Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) stopped short of committing extra cash for local authorities, instead claiming that it was working on a plan to help local authorities with their “financial stability”.

An MHCLG spokesperson said: 

“We’re giving councils an unprecedented package of support, including £3.2bn emergency funding, to tackle the pressures they have told us they’re facing.

“Leeds City Council has received a total of over £43m of emergency funding to tackle the pressures they have told us they’re facing while their core spending power rose by more than £35m overall this financial year even before the additional funding was announced.

“We will continue to work closely with councils as they support their communities through this national emergency and we are working on a comprehensive plan to ensure councils’ financial sustainability over the coming year.”

During a press conference this week, the council’s chief executive, Tom Riordan, warned “draconian” cuts may have to take place in the Autumn if further financial aid from government was not made available soon.

While he stopped short of confirming which areas of its work would be affected, it was claimed this could mean a loss of more than 400 full-time equivalent jobs.

Leeds Northwest MP Alex Sobel said:

“The Government have given councils £3.2 billion to support councils. However, this translates as only £43.7 million for Leeds leaving our city with a black hole of £154.6 million.

“The Local Government Association (LGA) estimated that a further £6 billion was needed to support councils across the country in this year alone. Without this, the council will be forced again to find cuts to services—which after 10 years of austerity will hit hard everyone with a stake in our city.

“I will be doing what I can in Parliament to press the Government to make good on their commitment to tackle the harm caused by coronavirus.

“Our residents and businesses need a financially viable council to ensure our recovery and protect public health. Never has there been a time where local government matters more.”

Leeds East MP Richard Burgon said:

“The Conservative government took the political choice to make Leeds City Council – and therefore our communities here in Leeds – pay the price for the 2008 bankers’ crisis.

“The Tories’ decade of unnecessary austerity saw government funding to Leeds City Council cut by more than half. Hot on the heels of this comes the huge financial impact of the coronavirus crisis.

“The government has a moral obligation to provide the support the people of Leeds need and deserve by assisting our council through this incredibly challenging time. Anything less than this would be a further show of Conservative contempt for local government and for communities here in Leeds.”

Unlike other branches of the public sector, such as the NHS, councils are legally required to balance their budgets each year, meaning any unexpected costs faced by local authorities have to be resolved before the end of the tax year.

The LGA claimed it was standing by a statement it released last month, which stated:

“Without certainty of further funding and flexibility around budget setting, the LGA said many councils will have to take measures in anticipation of future funding shortfalls.

“This could mean in-year cuts to vital local services that are supporting communities through this crisis and the national effort to beat this deadly disease.

“The LGA wants to work with government to ensure a package of measures are put in place to address funding pressures and provide the certainty councils need to keep responding fully to the COVID-19 emergency and help prepare for the recovery. This is also vital as they look to meet their legal obligation to balance their budgets each year.”

Schools should use community halls and leisure centres to help teach more children during the remainder of the Covid-19 lockdown, according to a Conservative councillor in Leeds, writes Richard Beecham.

Leeds City Council’s shadow member for children and families, Coun Ryan Stephenson, has called on the the authority to make plans for schools to use community halls and leisure centres to increase socially distanced teaching spaces.

But the council’s executive member for schools claims the authority has no plans to use such measures, as the government had advised against it.

Only some schools in the city have reopened to at least one year group from the beginning of June, while new guidelines require schools to reduce class sizes to comply with tailored social distancing rules.

Headteachers across Leeds are now working out how many children they can accommodate in existing classrooms, but Coun Stephenson said he wanted schools to take a cue from the government’s recent Nightingale initiative, in which large indoor spaces were used as temporary hospitals. He said:

“Every week that a child spends outside of a school setting, particularly a disadvantaged child, is another week they risk falling behind their peers in educational attainment. We must prepare properly for a full school return as soon as possible.

“There is no certainty that social distancing guidelines will be sufficiently relaxed by September to allow schools to return to normal, indeed there is no certainty that teaching unions won’t boycott further attempts to get children back into education.

“It has now been over two weeks since I asked senior education officers in Leeds if they had begun an audit of available community facilities to help schools expand teaching space where there isn’t already sufficient capacity.”

Coun Jonathan Pryor (Lab), Leeds City Council’s executive member for employment, learning and skills responded:

“The vast majority of Leeds schools have been open throughout this crisis for vulnerable children and the children of key workers.

“In recent weeks, we have supported schools to open more widely to eligible year groups in a way that keeps pupils, staff and parents as safe as possible. 99 percent of our primary schools and all of our secondary schools are now taking additional pupils.

“Schools have undertaken detailed and thorough risk assessments, and these have indicated the numbers of pupils that each school can safely accommodate whilst taking into consideration social distancing and staff availability.

“We continue to follow government guidance, which has advised that community buildings, such as village halls, should not be used to expand capacity this term and that there is no expectation for primaries to welcome back more pupils outside of nursery, Reception, Year 1 and Year 6 if they do not have capacity.

“We await further guidance from the government about the start of the academic year to inform our plans for September and whether additional teaching space will be necessary.

“We would like to thank all school staff across the city for their amazing efforts and support for children and their families during this difficult time.”