Conservative Government Ministers made a clear promise to fund the additional Covid costs of vital public services, but so far they’ve broken that promise.
Councils across the country were struggling financially before Covid hit, due to a decade of Government funding cuts. When Government asked our key workers to step up when they were needed most, they did so.
Nottingham has so far received only £39.8million from government, but the cost of Covid-19 is closer to £80million, leaving a shortfall of nearly £40million. This is on top of 10 years of austerity which has seen over £100million taken away from Nottingham in government funding every year.
These Covid related costs are the result of essential services that the Council and the key workers who work for the Council have provided during the outbreak; delivering care services to older people, sourcing our own PPE supplies, contacting 18,000 vulnerable people, additional mortuary costs and getting people who were sleeping rough into safe accommodation.
This is a dreadful betrayal and leaves councils up and down the country having to take difficult decisions that despite all our best efforts will affect local services that we all value and rely upon. We have done what we can to protect universal free services for our residents and prioritise those services which our most vulnerable residents rely on the most. We continue to call on Government Ministers to honour the clear pledge they made. All we’ve ever asked is that the costs of Covid should be met by the government as was promised at the outset.
Tell the Government to pay up by signing our petition – https://www.change.org/p/government-fully-fund-nottingham-city-council-for-the-cost-of-covid-19?redirect=false
Cllr Sam Webster
Labour and Co-operative Party Councillor for Castle Ward and Portfolio Holder for Finance