Northumberland gets another £9million to help cope with crisis

Council leader Peter Jackson has welcomed the funding, but added that he ‘will continue to make the case for Northumberland’.

On March 19, the Government announced £1.6billion of additional funding for local authorities to help them respond to Covid-19 pressures across all the services they deliver.

A further £1.6billion in additional funding was announced on April 18 to help them deal with the immediate impacts of the outbreak, with the allocations for individual councils revealed this week.

Northumberland’s latest cash boost was £9,079,661, around £1million lower than the £10,025,450 it received in March, for a total of £19.1million so far.

The reduction – which is also the case in all of the other authorities in the North East – is due to a change in how the money was divided up; the first allocations were based on a mixture of adult social care formulas and settlement funding assessment, while the latest tranche has been split on the basis of ‘population and the latest assessment on the challenges they are facing’.

Coun Jackson said: “This is the second emergency funding package from central government, which is specifically to compensate for the extra costs to our council in the current crisis.

“The Government has been explicit that it will continue to review the situation regarding the loss of our many income streams on an ongoing basis while the impact of this current crisis is more exactly calculated.

“In the short term, this will help the council to continue its critical role in keeping front-line services running, protecting the most vulnerable in our communities and supporting businesses wherever possible. I will, however, continue to make the case for Northumberland.”

The Government has confirmed the funding will not be ring-fenced, recognising councils are best placed to decide how to meet pressures in their local area.

On Tuesday, Local Government Secretary Robert Jenrick said: “Councils are playing a central role in our national fight against coronavirus and the Government continues to stand shoulder to shoulder with them at this challenging time.

“That’s why I announced an extra £3.2billion of support for councils to help them to continue their extraordinary efforts.

“Today I’m setting out how the latest £1.6billion of this, including £75million for the North East, will be allocated to councils in the fairest way possible, recognising the latest and best assessment of the pressures they face.”

A message from the Editor:

Thank you for reading this story on our website. While I have your attention, I also have an important request to make of you.

In order for us to continue to provide high quality and trusted local news on this free-to-read site, I am asking you to also please purchase a copy of our newspaper.

Our journalists are highly trained and our content is independently regulated by IPSO to some of the most rigorous standards in the world. But being your eyes and ears comes at a price. So we need your support more than ever to buy our newspapers during this crisis.

With the coronavirus lockdown having a major impact on many of our local valued advertisers - and consequently the advertising that we receive - we are more reliant than ever on you helping us to provide you with news and information by buying a copy of our newspaper.

Thank you