Coronavirus: BCP Council prepares for crisis to worsen

A SERIES of measures are being worked on by BCP Council as it prepares for the expected worsening of the coronavirus pandemic.

Plans to co-ordinate local community groups offering support and redeploy its workforce are all among those being put together, writes Josh Wright of the Local Democracy Reporting Service.

The chief executive of BCP Council, Graham Farrant, described the outbreak as “by far the most serious emergency incident” facing local authorities in his working career.

His comment was made during an update to councillors at Monday’s meeting of its scrutiny board.

He was joined by the deputy director of Public Health Dorset, Rachel Partridge, council leader, Cllr Vikki Slade and the cabinet member for health and adult social care, Cllr Lesley Dedman.

Ms Partridge said that, as of Monday, all of the cases confirmed in the Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole area were related to overseas travel.

But she said it was expected that potentially 81% of the population could catch the virus with as much as 20% of the workforce off sick at any one time.

Mr Farrant said the council had extensively planned for such events but that the outbreak would have a significant impact.

“This is by far the most serious emergency incident that we have dealt with, certainly in the lifetimes of those of us practising, in terms of scale and in terms of breadth.

“We are looking at what services we need to maintain; which are critical services, which are services that we can rein back on and which ones we can move people from in order to continue to deliver critical services.”

He warned councillors that next year’s budget, which was only agreed last month, was “going to change significantly” and that an urgent item of business would go before the cabinet addressing short term financial needs.

Income from car parking, he said, had already fallen and it was expected the outbreak would also reduce its seasonal and events income.

Among the actions being taken by the council to try to limit the spread of the disease is the cancellation of all “non-essential” public meetings with Cllr Slade saying the remainder would be run remotely.

And she urged fellow councillors “not to make political hay” out of the “unprecedented” issues the council was likely to be facing in the coming months.

Among the measures she revealed the council was taking are:

• Analysing its employees’ skills to see who can be redeployed to “critical services” to ensure they continue running in the event of widespread absence
• Looking at the potential for providing financial support to council-funded arts venues, such as the Lighthouse in Poole, which have been forced to close

She said local authorities had also been asked by the government to “coordinate a hub” for community efforts to support people forced to stay at home by the pandemic.

“There are quite significant risks because people could be handing over money for shopping that doesn’t go anywhere or letting people into their homes,” she added.

Cllr Dedman said the council was also looking to stop social care visits except where they were absolutely necessary to reduce the risk of spreading the virus.

Concerns were raised that some care homes had stopped taking in new residents which had left the council with limited options for accommodation for people who have been discharged from hospital.

But Mr Farrant said the council had “strong partnerships” with other organisations and would be able to cope.

“We have been trained for emergency events for a long time,” he said. “We have good systems in place and provided we manage it calmly and with purpose then we will come through it in the best way we can.

“I’m sure it will be stressful, I’m sure it will cause major disruption but we now need to have confidence in our systems and in our processes.”