Agenda item

The Committee received a presentation from Louise Livingston, Executive Head of Transformation, on the Council’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the local authority’s statutory duty to respond to the emergency. This was followed by presentations by James Robinson, Chairman of Surrey Heath Prepared, and Tracey Hiney, Charity Manager, Surrey Heath Age Concern; whose organisations worked in close collaboration with the Council during the Covid-19 response.

Surrey Heath Borough Council

The Council worked as part of the Local Resilience Forum, which included the other Surrey Boroughs and Districts and representatives from bodies such as the Police, Health, Surrey County Council and the military. The forum disseminated instructions from Central Government and coordinated implementation of these instructions accordingly.

Some key features of the Surrey Heath response included:

·         The redemployment of staff to allow the making of more than 20,000 welfare calls to Council identified ‘vulnerable’, and ‘centrally’ shielded residents. 

·         The payment of over £13.8 million in business grant support to over 1000 local businesses and a pledge of £57,000 in emergency grants for charities.

·         The successful management of increased demand for Council refuse collection services and meals at home services.

·         Only 16% of Council staff continued to solely carry out their day job; and 65% of staff split their time between their day job and the Council’s Covid-19 response. 17% of Council staff worked solely on Covid-19 response related activities.

The Council was now in the process of moving into the recovery plan and maintenance stage of its response. The Council’s Welfare Cell had been reconfigured to be led by the Contact Centre and Welfare Calls were being realigned so that the emphasis would be for the public to call in for help.

Surrey Heath Prepared 

Surrey Heath Prepared (SHP) was a voluntary organisation that was formed to provide Surrey Heath residents with emergency support through the Covid-19 pandemic.

It was emphasised that the structure of Surrey Heath Prepared took the form of a ‘coalition of the willing’, rather than a top down ‘off the shelf’ modelled organisation. SHP centred on a ‘good neighbours’ approach, where each electoral ward had individual coordinators and a group of street volunteers. The organisation had formed 8 days before formal ‘lockdown’, as a result managed to refine its governance structures and processes before its workload spiked.

SHP’s main outputs focussed on the coordination of food deliveries and the delivery of prescriptions. It was acknowledged that the delivery of food parcels, was a major logistical challenge on its own and took the forms of a click and collect service, a deposit service scheme for volunteers to buy food on a resident’s behalf and an emergency food parcel scheme.

Looking ahead SHP’s active services were to draw down to an end on 1 July 2020. However the framework, structures and utilities were well placed for reactivation in case of a further need. SHP’s website had been built in consultation with risk management consultants and would be a ready-tried solution for a second wave.

Surrey Heath Age Concern

Surrey Heath Age Concern (SHAC) was an independent, local charity which worked to provide services to enhance the lives of older people within Surrey Heath. The Charity befriended socially-isolated individuals within their homes and in social-settings, such as the Rainbow Café, where possible.

Before Lockdown, following an effort to work closer with local partners and organisations, SHAC successfully applied for a grant to employ a befriending coordinator. This in turn significantly reduced SHAC’s waiting list of those waiting for a befriender within Surrey Heath to 16 from previously double that number.

SHAC worked quickly in response to the news of the outbreak of Covid-19 in the UK; and rapidly moved to transfer all necessary paper work to home offices. In addition the charity, enhanced its befriending services to reassure isolated residents and to alleviate worries with a familiar voice. Befriending calls were increased from one to two or more calls a week and SHAC set up an out of hours phone number, in case of emergency help being required. SHAC also worked in partnership with the Council’s Welfare Cell and Surrey Heath prepared to provide practical help in respect of food and medication worries and arranging the topping up of energy top up cards.

The service and support, which SHAC provided, evolved post-lockdown with the sending of postcards and email befriending services; in addition to phone calls. SHAC also provided increased support to older residents in respect of accessing online services, which held greater prevalence during lockdown. Going forward SHAC was looking at provision to enable befriending in residents’ gardens with use of suitable PPE requirements.

Having to alter its services during the peak of the pandemic had caused challenges to SHAC, including a drain on staff resilience, and although many new befrienders were recruited, it was anticipated that many of these befrienders would be lost as people started to return to their jobs. 

Arising from Members’ questions and comments the following points were noted:

·         It would be useful to know the number of liable parties who took up the option of extending their Council Tax instalments from 10 instalments a year to 12 instalments. Whilst the Council had not experienced any recent reduction in the payment of Council Tax, this may alter as a result in the reigning back of the national Furlough Scheme.

·         Whilst the Council did a successful job in providing the homeless within Surrey Heath with emergency accommodation, there was an acknowledged need for a longer term plan for those individuals, whilst also striking the balance with the Council’s financial constraints.

·         Surrey Heath Prepared was ready to ‘reactivate’, in case of a second wave of Coronavirus cases and that a ‘Lockdown’ situation naturally freed up a group of people to become volunteers.

·         Closer collaboration between Surrey Heath Prepared, the Council and Surrey Heath Age Concern would be desirable, but not necessarily possible. The organisations successfully partnered in order streamline food parcel deliveries and frequently referred cases between themselves. However due to data sharing issues they were not able to work in partnership around nationally shielded individuals.

·         The Council needed to be ready to react to a large a number of residents facing financial hardship within Surrey Heath in light of the bleak economic situation. It was acknowledged that Surrey Heath had a duty of care to its disadvantaged and vulnerable residents; and as a result, whilst its welfare calls would be reconfigured, its Welfare Cell would continue to offer first-had support and also accept referrals from the formally-drawn down Surrey Heath Prepared Service.

·         A specific workstream of the Council’s Recovery and maintenance stage of the Council’s pandemic response was dedicated to bolstering and maintaining resilience in the local economy. In practise this meant the creation of grant schemes, giving advice to businesses on Covid-19 processes and joined up work and advice via the Council’s Economic Development and Business Rates teams. In addition the Council was working with bodies such as the Local Entreprise Partnership and Business South to work on providing new training and skills initiatives.

·         There was a significant volume of informal; underlying ground level support between neighbours, which may be naturally drawn-down as a result of normal life returning. Surrey Heath Prepared was in liaison with its local ward coordinators in respect of this and was in a position to identify levels of need on a local basis and feed this back to the Council’s Community Development Officer.

The Committee thanked the presenters for their presentations and their respective organisations’ work during the crisis.