Chief Executive to report.
Minutes:
(Councillor Parsons attended remotely in accordance with Standing Order 25(1) and the Local Authorities and Police and Crime Panels (Coronavirus) (Flexibility of Local Authority and Police and Crime Panel Meetings) (England and Wales) Regulations 2020 and spoke to this item at the invitation of the Committee.)
The Council’s Chief Executive reported on the current position within the County of Devon relating to the COVID-19 pandemic. Key points included:
Overview
· Daily updates were available on the Council’s website giving latest figures for the last 7 days, currently 33 confirmed cases in Devon, as against 44 cases in Cornwall; 36 in Plymouth and only 1 in Torbay over the last 7 days;
· Impacting in the next few weeks would be the return to schools, colleges and universities and the need to watch carefully the impact of student behaviour outside of universities;
· Exeter University had been the first University to announce its own testing capacity – procured from the private sector;
· Increased incidents in the County had been from returning younger people from abroad, but more were now being seen from the working age population;
· The Council’s website gave access to a national map showing numbers of cases across the whole County and also individual areas of incidents;
· Rates of hospitalisation were very low and there had been very few deaths in the County since early summer;
Testing
· As the economy opened up and schools returned, the rapid demand for testing was outstripping supply, but the Government were hoping to get national testing up to ½ million a day by mid-November;
· There was a need to encourage only those exhibiting symptoms or advised to have a test to apply for one, and a communication would follow shortly to reinforce this message;
· A low rate of between 0.3% and 0.8% of those tested in Devon were actually positive – which was well below the national average;
· There were very few cases in care homes, where regular testing of care home staff was carried out;
Economy
· Up-to-date modelling would be shared with the Committee at a future meeting, but the June modelling predicted unemployment of between 9%-14% with a potential for significant impact later in the year at the end of the furlough scheme;
· There were increasing expectations on Local Authorities to support the national effort;
Organisation
· Business activity in the Council was high with diversion of some resources to look at e.g. safe working for staff, increased issues around cyber security, social care contact with vulnerable people;
· Staff surveys had been carried out which had been well responded to, identifying some areas to follow up on, and these surveys would continue to be done on a regular basis;
Budget
· The in-year budget position estimated an overspend of around £5 millions, which included the Covid-19 Government grant;
· The impact of Covid-19 would see continued pressures on budgets next year; and
· The Government was being lobbied hard for measures to ensure vital services could be delivered into next year.
Cllr Parsons and the Chair expressed their thanks to all staff for their continued hard work during this time.