To: You
Dear xxxxx
I am sorry to hear that you feel the commitment to pay 25% of the contracted price for services is unfair, a commitment that was made on the County Council’s part without prejudice and without obligation.
However, I and my colleagues have to consider the ongoing viability of the County Council.
As was made clear in the communication that was sent out to taxi operators, the County Council finds itself in a precarious position financially as a result of the pandemic . A report was considered at Cabinet last week which highlights that point. This is available to view on the link below.
http://politics.leics.gov.uk/documents/ ... 02.pdf?T=9 In particular it flagged up that the net financial impact in the current year was estimated at £50m, less any further Government support made available. A further allocation of £12.5m has since been confirmed but with a clear message that there is unlikely to be anything further available so we will still have a significant deficit.
And then ongoing, our key income streams, especially around council tax and business rates, will be reduced compared to what we have assumed in our Medium term Financial Strategy. As one of the lowest funded local authorities, we are already had a significant gap of around £40m that we were struggling to meet. This is going to increase significantly as a result of the pandemic.
As such it is simply unaffordable to commit to provide any further support
Many other authorities, who made rash promises to providers and suppliers, are now quickly having to reign back on these commitments as they realise that the impacts of COVID19 will not be fully funded from Central Government and instead need to be funded locally. We are determined to try and minimise the burden to our local taxpayer.
Again, as mentioned in the communication that was sent out, the raft of measures that the Government have put in place are wide ranging and very significant in magnitude. And this has to be the first port of call for suppliers to access support to help them manage the financial impact of the pandemic. It is inevitable that some businesses will not survive through the period and that is unfortunate. But the County Council can only do a very small part to help minimise the extent to which this happens.
The reason why we are taking a different approach with respect to bus operators is we were urged by the Government to pay bus and coach operators for tendered services, concessionary fares and home to school transport at the levels before any downturn in service provision or patronage, for at least the period of the outbreak. In turn the Government have allocated the County Council a Covid-19 Bus Services Support Grant and also permitted the use of the recently awarded Bus Services Support Fund to enable us to do this. No such guidance or funding regarding taxi contracts has been forthcoming from Government.
Whilst I appreciate that this response is not what you were hoping for, I hope you will see that at this stage the Council has little scope for further support.
Best regards