Council Leader: “We can’t expect the public to pay for COVID-19 with an increase in charges and council tax”

Wrexham Council has called on Welsh and UK Governments for prompt payment of funding and a longer term sympathetic view of local authorities finances.

Welsh Government and UK Government has announced several funding pots for local authorities, who are often the end organisations who have been delivering the local level pandemic responses, however it appears not all cash has turned up as of yet.

As well as being asked to do more to help respond to the pandemic, several revenue streams for councils have dried up such as revenue from leisure centres, car parks and fees such as reduced planning, with Wrexham Council saying that sum locally is around £1m a month.

Council Leader Mark Pritchard said “enough cash in the bank to deal with the pandemic” but longer term recovery depends on funding from UK and Welsh Government.

He said: “I think the recovery all depends on how quickly the money can filter from Westminster and Cardiff to local authorities’ bank accounts.

“It is £1 million a month income loss.

“We are losing £1m a month on income. Obviously the Welsh Government have announced that they’ve said they’re going to pay this money. Well, we need the money, we don’t need tomorrow. We don’t need it next week. We need it now. We can’t wait.

“What they’ve asked us to do is to send them finance sheets of what losses we have had, we’ve done that, as have all the other authorities across Wales done it, and now we wait for the money to come in.

“The recovery for me depends on the willingness and drive from both governments to allocate the funding so we can move on.”

We asked Wrexham Council what their cash situation is like right now with some authorities across the UK painting bleak pictures.

We bluntly asked if there was enough cash in the bank, and if any loans or credit facilities were being explored ‘just in case’.

Cllr Pritchard replied: “We have always got reserves for obvious reasons, we keep reserves and we’re very prudent.

“If, and if the money doesn’t come from the Welsh Government we will have to look at our financial balance and make some decisions.

“I can’t say any more than that. Because tomorrow, there might be a transaction of money from the Welsh Government into our accounts. Thats how we are working on a day to day basis.”

The Council Chief Executive Ian Bancroft said: “On a daily basis at a snap shot in time our cash flow is okay at the moment.

“Our real worry is as we come out of the emergency, that we’re going to have income loss, we’re going to have income that we haven’t collected.

“As well as actually losing income, they’ll be income that is delayed or haven’t collected and there’ll be additional costs associated, clearly at a national level around things like the delivery of emergency hospitals, the delivery of test track and trace.

“We need to make sure that that money isn’t taken away from public service budget, because we’re going to have additional pressures in relation to social care, the elderly, vulnerable.

“The real worry comes as we come out of this, that we have a deficit in terms of expenditure and income, and increased pressure, and also if we’re not careful reduction in funding, and that is the critical situation that we need to avoid and we all need to be articulating.”

We asked if there was any concerns that the council tax payers would be essentially called upon to plug pandemic budget gaps, or if it was a bigger financing issue to be solved in Cardiff and Westminster.

Cllr Pritchard said: “Funny enough we had this conversation yesterday and we discussed it at senior level. COVID-19 is a global issue, finance will have to come from Westminster, because we can’t expect the general public across this country to pay for COVID-19 with an increase in charges, costs and council tax.

“You can’t. It’s unsustainable.

“I’ll say this, and I said it yesterday and I raised a few eyebrows yesterday, but I keep on saying it.

“We need support from both governments for money to pump prime the economy in in North Wales and Wales and the United Kingdom. I think that financial crisis has just started.

Mr Bancroft: “Our line before COVID-19 coming into next year’s budget was that we want to be able to invest in services not cut in the future.

“So if this crisis results in changing that situation, to a position where we’re not able to invest, then we have to cut services further, then we have got severe issues in providing the basic services that are critical for our residents.

“That’s why it is a much bigger issue than an individual local authority issue. That will be consistent across local authorities throughout the UK.

Cllr Pritchard added a grim stat to wrap up the comment, saying: “Just to let you know we had a conversation at a meeting yesterday to discuss the finances and the Chief Finance Officer reminded us that the country is 2 trillion pounds in debt because of COVID-19. So that’s what we’re all facing.”